Aids in Karen Bass received weather warnings before flying to Ghana

The day before the departure of the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass for Ghana, his assistants received an email from the city’s emergency management service warning “great confidence in the damage and high fire conditions occurring next week”.

The mayor nevertheless made the trip, assistant to the inauguration of the Ghanaian president, as well as an American cocktail of the United States Embassy, ​​on January 7, the day when the fire of Palisades broke out.

The Bass team did not inform him of Friday, January 3, which informed a meeting of the following Monday to coordinate the preparations for the violent winds planned. In the days preceding the flight of Bass, the National Weather Service had also started to alert the public on social networks on the growing risk of forest fires.

Bass, in recent weeks, accused the former firefighters Kristin Crowley not to warn him of the potential of a cataclysmic wind event. She told Fox 11 that she would not even have traveled to San Diego if she had been informed of the danger of fires.

“It did not reach me this level, that something terrible could happen, and perhaps you should not have made the trip,” she said.

Bass licensed Crowley on February 21, criticizing the treatment with the head of the fire of Palisades, who destroyed thousands of houses and killed 12 people. Crowley called on his dismissal, with a vote of the municipal council on the appeal scheduled for Tuesday.

The correspondence obtained by the Times through a request for public files has shown that the emergency management service advised the mayor employees of meteorological prospects, in email and messages of January 3 during the following days, because the forecasts are increasingly disastrous.

More than a dozen bass aids received the email of January 3, which included several attachments from the National Weather Service. An EMD official also wrote that a “provisional calendar invitation” at the Monday meeting followed.

Deputy Mayor Zach Seidl, who received the email and oversees communications for the bass, minimized its importance, claiming that it did not suggest an imminent disaster. At this point, he said, the email referred to a meeting that was provisional.

“It’s not a disaster warning,” he said. “This sends the opposite message.”

EMD spokesperson Joseph Riser told Times that “provisional” referred to the exact date and time of the Monday meeting, not to know if it would take place.

The email of January 3 was sent at 2:30 pm by Jillian de Vela, service officer of the EMD, to an internal group called “Disposable weather EMD”, which includes more than 100 officials, including firefighters, police and the Ministry of Water and Energy and employees of the Unified School District, according to a list of EMD officials.

Christopher Anyakwo, who is the executive director of BAS for emergency operations, and more than a dozen other bass aids appear on the list of unfavorable weather emails EMD. The mayor and his chief of staff are not on the list, which was provided by EMD.

The email of January 3 included a 10-page attachment with a forecast of the national weather service, which presented a graph showing a large icon of red flame and the header “Critical fire conditions”. The graph said that gusts of wind could reach 80 MPH from January 7, which, combined with low humidity and very dry vegetation, created a major risk of fire for the counties of Et Ventura.

On January 3, De Vela also sent an email directly by e -mail two bass aid – Anyakwo and Jacquelyne Sandoval, the director of mayor’s policies for emergency management – sending them zoom links to the meeting on Monday, which was officially known as an unfavorable meteorological coordination call.

SEIDL, in an email in Times, said that nobody of the Bass staff had told him about the information of the email of January 3. He refused to say if aid advised bass of the worsening of weather conditions while she was in Ghana.

Seidl also did not answer the question of whether the information of the email of January 3 raised concerns in the mayor’s office or if they were serious enough to justify the cancellation of the trip to Ghana. Instead, he repeated the mayor’s assertion that Crowley had to contact her about the weather.

“Before other important weather emergencies, the mayor – or at least, the chief of staff of the mayor – received a direct call from the head of the firefighters, signaling the seriousness of the situation. This time, this call never came, “he said.

Crowley has repeatedly refused to weigh on the mayor’s allegations in recent days, saying that she was “extremely proud of the work” carried out by the city firefighters. Los Angeles fire officials said they were following the protocol before and during the fire.

The member of the municipal council Monica Rodriguez, a head of Crowley, said that the emails of January 3 – the email of the group and those of the two bass aids – show that EMD officials advised the team of low dangerous fire potential before leaving the country.

“She keeps saying:” I would not have left if I knew. But his staff knew it, “said Rodriguez. “This verifies that its staff have been informed of the potential threat of EMD, the responsibility of which is to inform us of these potential meteorological events.”

EMD, one of the smallest departments in the city, monitors and distributes weather warnings to a range of agencies and elected officials. In 2024, the EMD organized 20 unfavorable meteorological coordination calls, according to the agency.

The mayor is responsible for the supervision of the EMD, according to the 2024 edition of the official manual of elected emergency interventions in the city. The department’s service officer, a position that runs among staff members, is accused of notifying “stakeholders concerned” – including the mayor’s team – preparations that were made before threatening the weather conditions, according to the unfavorable weather guide of the 123 -page agency.

The service officer collects information on weather forecasts, such as heat waves, atmospheric rivers and violent winds, and may recommend launching an unfavorable meteorological coordination conference, according to EMD directives.

In the last days of December, the National Weather Service began to carry out information sessions on the risk of fire, inviting fire services and emergency preparation agencies of Et Ventura.

The first “call for fire” took place on December 30, followed by another on January 2, said Susan Buchanan, spokesperson for the National Weather Service. After that, the afternoon telephone conferences occurred daily, followed by a daily webinar for the media and others, she said.

On January 2, two days before the flight from Bass to Ghana, the meteorological service warned during its fire of the potential of an “offshore wind damage damage” in the counties of Los Angeles and Ventura and the “long duration of the conditions of the red flag”, according to a chronology provided by the meteorological agency.

The forecasts included 50% of a strong wind event from January 7, with advanced gusts up to 80 mph.

On January 3, the chance of a strong wind event and supported from January 7 had increased to 60%, the gusts potentially exceeding 80 MPH.

On Sunday, January 5, the day after the departure of Bass for Ghana, the forecasters replaced the red flame icon with a purple icon, increasing the risk of fire at the highest level, “extreme”.

On that day, De Vela sent an email to the opposing weather group EMD, advising the forecasts of extreme fire conditions.

On January 6 at 11 a.m., the National Weather Service again accelerated its warning, saying on X: “Heads up !!! A storm of wind putting life in danger, destructive and widespread is expected from the afternoon morning in a large part of Ventura / CO. ”

Three hours later, Vela’s meeting referred to its emails on January 3.

According to SEIDL, two people from the mayor’s office participated in the zoom: Sandoval and the press secretary Gabby Maarers.

In a summary of seven pages of the January 6 meeting, the emergency management officials compared the upcoming winds to the fierce wind storm which beat the region in December 2011.

“This wind storm event has the potential to produce deadly and destructive gusts of 80 to 100 MPH,” said the summary, which was obtained by the request for public Times.

This document has listed the storm preparations provided for by various municipal agencies, including the Ministry of Water and Energy and the Ministry of Recreations and Parks. The fire service was to “predetermine resources on the ground” before the extreme winds of Santa Ana.

Bass came back from Ghana shortly before noon on January 8, more than 24 hours after the fire of palisades broke out. She told journalists that she had taken the “fastest path”, remaining in contact with public security officials while she was traveling.