Glenn Beck talks about the devastating fires that have ravaged California and calls for a Marshall Plan to rebuild Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom announces a plan to rebuild the entire state of California, including the devastated areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose.
00:02:47.140Over the course of the next several years, Los Angeles will be host to the World Cup and then the Super Bowl and then the Olympics.
00:02:52.680With this rebuilding effort needing to take place, is L.A. going to be ready for all of those global events?
00:02:58.580All that opportunity and that pride and spirit that comes from not just hosting those three iconic games and venues, but also the opportunity, I think, to rebuild at the same time.
00:03:08.280And that's why we're already organizing a Marshall Plan.
00:03:11.320We already have a team of looking and reimagining L.A. 2.0.
00:03:15.000And we're making sure everyone's included, not just the folks on the coast, people here that were ravaged by this disaster.
00:03:21.080You just said you're organizing a Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of California.
00:03:38.460We're starting to organize how we can put together a collection of individuals on philanthropy for recovery, how we can organize the region, how we can make sure that we are seeking federal assistance for the Olympics more broadly, but also federal assistance for the recovery efforts.
00:03:53.940And how we can galvanize the community.
00:04:46.320But you have an alcoholic in California.
00:04:51.240California is the political system is an alcoholic.
00:04:56.740And it is destroying the entire state.
00:05:03.220And you don't say when an alcoholic is suddenly, you know, in the hospital or, you know, really, really down and, you know, out on the streets.
00:05:31.940Any kind of aid that goes to California, I think it is only responsible to aid the people as quickly as possible.
00:05:41.800Aid the homeowners as quickly as possible.
00:05:46.260Help them make sure that they have a place to go.
00:05:50.520Make sure that they, you know, like the government wasn't doing in North Carolina, making sure that they have hotel rooms for as long as they need them within reason.
00:06:02.120Now, within reason, many of these people are wildly wealthy.
00:06:24.280But when it comes to the state, if they cannot admit that this is not climate change, that this happened because of their policies, if they cannot admit that, they shouldn't get a dime.
00:06:44.340I want to help California, just like I want to help all the other states when they have a problem that they cannot handle, that is too big for their state.
00:08:34.840And if you don't have regular maintenance on your forests and on your property, you are going to have a brush fire.
00:08:46.860And a brush fire turns into a forest fire.
00:08:49.800And if you add 75 to 100 mile an hour winds, you could burn down the entire state.
00:08:57.660Except it seems for the sequoias and the redwoods.
00:09:00.320What this government of California has done has stopped people in the name of the good of the forest and the good of the land is to deny science.
00:09:15.680They have been denying science for decades.
00:09:20.840They have been playing God for over a century.
00:09:25.460They want to tell you that a woman can be a man and a man can be a woman and a man can have a baby.
00:18:07.080And, you know, we have a program called pre-positioning that about six years ago, the fire chiefs in the state got the state of California to fund to put money behind this pre-positioning, meaning that if we go through a matrix, you know, county by county, and we meet certain criteria, I mean, there's a number of things.
00:18:26.180We are approved for pre-positioning, which means I can bring on additional aircraft, additional bulldozers, engines, and the state will pay for them so that not only are all of my stations filled and ready to go, but I might have two or three more strike teams, strike teams, five engines.
00:18:45.800I might have additional helicopters, dispatch staff.
00:18:48.700So all of the Southern California counties were approved for pre-positioning.
00:18:53.520And so we had, you know, definitely extra resources available should they be needed.
00:18:59.660And certainly they were deployed very, very quickly.
00:20:01.920You expect the Santa Ana winds every year.
00:20:04.840You expect forest fires and brush fires in California every year.
00:20:09.640So this was just one of the really bad ones.
00:20:12.940Then it seems like incompetence of cutting the funding for the fire agencies, not really truly being prepared.
00:20:20.080And then on top of it, it seems incompetence to a level that is almost criminal.
00:20:27.720And then the third part of this, as we see it, as I see it, is there might be some actors after the main fire started that are also setting fires.
00:20:40.360What their motives are are yet unknown, but there are also some arsonists involved in that.
00:20:55.120But I will tell you this, that, you know, I've lived in – I grew up in Altadena, and that's one of the towns that's pretty well wiped out.
00:21:01.740And so, you know, when you live that close to the foothills, you're used to Santa Ana winds.
00:21:06.140You know they're common, and they can be brutal right there in the foothills.
00:21:10.000And it's not uncommon for a strong – we'd consider a strong Santa Ana.
00:21:13.760It'd be 40, 50-mile-an-hour winds, steady, with gusts maybe to 60, 70.
00:21:18.780The event that was experienced last week, and you know this, was, you know, 60, 70, steady, with gusts to 90, 100, something like that.
00:21:28.140I mean, we have a hard time dealing with the former.
00:21:31.180Something like that, you know, we're trying to manage expectations is we can't stop that fire.
00:21:38.480And I think, you know, many times, you know, the public – well, let me put it this way.
00:21:43.260If this were a hurricane or tornado, firefighters aren't stopping those either.
00:22:37.680And so, you know, once the wind diminished to a point where, you know, firefighters could get in there and start working on the structures, there were just so many.
00:22:47.500I mean, I drove those fires, and it was – and I've been doing this since 1978.
00:22:52.140I couldn't believe the structures, the businesses that were burning so far from the mountain that it came off of.
00:23:01.640I mean, it was even incredible for me.
00:23:05.000In terms of the water, you know, I think that's being sorted out.
00:23:08.220I'm probably hearing the same things that you are, that reservoirs, you know, may not have been as filled as they needed to be.
00:23:15.040Obviously, yes, a draw on the system can cause, you know, some decrease in pressure, but I've never heard of anything where there actually wasn't pressure.
00:23:25.040I do know, and I've shared this with people, that in 2003 in San Diego, we had the – at the time, the largest fire in California history.
00:23:33.520We lost pressure, but that was because pump houses, pump stations had been burnt, and we didn't know they existed.
00:23:39.940Had we known, we would have protected those pump houses as much as we would protect a house to, you know, to ensure that we had pressure.
00:23:48.800So I'm confident the city of L.A., and I'm hearing that the governor has, you know, ordered an investigation.
00:23:56.360That's going to get public, and yes, it could be quite embarrassing and life-changing for a few people involved in whatever decision-making took place.
00:24:07.040Good. We have to learn from our lessons.
00:24:09.340You know, learn lessons from our mistakes.
00:26:52.940I mean, here in California, I'm told that they're, we're only able to staff their stations at 60%.
00:26:59.120In my own county, I have three Forest Service stations, and they could only staff one of those stations, two on occasion, eight to ten hours a day all summer.
00:27:12.020We had a fire, the airport fire, earlier this summer that burned over 100 homes.
00:27:16.960And the station closest to that fire was not staffed.
00:27:20.120And so, you know, I made Congress aware and others aware.
00:27:25.120And right now, I don't think the Forest Service is happy with me because I'm being very public about things that they should be very public about.
00:27:32.880So would it be the Forest Service or the Department of Interior that would be responsible for getting underbrush cleared?
00:27:45.180You know, I've worked for both the USDA and the USDI, and let's face it, or, you know, at least out here in the West, you know, firefighters for decades have done such a great job at suppressing fires quickly that it's caused this growth, and we've got an unhealthy landscape out there.
00:28:02.760And, you know, we need to start putting beneficial fire back on the landscape.
00:28:47.300It's been decades of not treating, you know, the fuels and the landscape.
00:28:52.780And it's going to be decades to fix it.
00:28:55.160But we've got to do something, and we've got to have a workforce to be able to do it.
00:29:00.660And like I say, if asked, and I haven't been asked by anybody officially, but just informal people have suggested and asked, is that something I would consider?
00:29:31.540Quickly, can I ask you, I'm up against a network break.
00:29:34.680Can I just ask you about the safety inspections of the Oregon fire trucks and everything?
00:29:38.400That was not to make sure of emissions.
00:29:40.520That was to make sure that they could function, correct?
00:29:43.880Which seems insane, too, but go ahead.
00:29:46.600I'm unaware of that, of what you're talking about.
00:29:51.320But I know that we do inspect, not we, but the state or the feds will inspect, you know, engines and whatnot when they arrive and then before they leave to make sure they're safe.
00:30:02.100So I'm not familiar at all with the situation you're talking about.
00:30:08.400I hope you're I hope you're called up because we need to take all of our agencies and especially all of our services that are protecting us.
00:30:18.880Seriously, again, we haven't for quite a long time.
00:36:05.280She gets gray hair and you think that she's –
00:36:09.240Well, I will say the real thing that happened there is after I made jokes about it, I figured, oh, God, she probably has some terrible disease.
00:36:18.420And now everyone's going to yell at me because I made fun of her appearance.
00:36:22.000You think she looks so bad with gray hair that you think she has some horrible disease.