Part 150: A Firestorm in Los Angeles - Humanity and Environmental Disaster

By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

I knew. The fires have now consumed numerous homes and businesses in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre as part of the Eaton Fire, and in Pacific Palisades as part of the Sunset Fire were predictable. There had been clear warnings that the weather was going to be adverse and that the underlying environmental conditions were dangerous. I had even written as much, and I wasn’t alone in warning that such a thing could happen. So why did it? And where do we go from here? The powerful winds that awoke me at about 4:30 am on Tuesday, January 7, were just a prelude. The windows rattled, and trees came down in the neighborhood. Sleeping was hard, and it became a surety that the power would go out, and soon it was gone.

Still, I went to downtown Los Angeles for another turbulent hearing on the LA Alliance for Human Rights lawsuit, driving past a downed tree. The hearing held by Judge David O. Carter ran for nearly four hours. A brief hearing on the Montrose Chemical Corporation Settlement was scheduled preceding the main event on homelessness, matters that have dragged out for decades and years. At one point during the Montrose hearing, which relates to barrels of toxic insecticide, DDT, dumped off the coast of Palos Verdes and drained into San Pedro, the City Administrative Officer for Los Angeles, Matt Szabo, attempted to walk out of the courtroom only for the 80-year-old judge to order him to the front along with an attorney for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. They were put on notice that the potential for future contamination of seafood remains extremely high. Szabo apparently didn’t even know of its potential danger.

Link: https://zacharyellison.substack.com/p/part-150-a-firestorm-in-los-angeles