Over 200 cars were abandoned in the Pacific Palisades fire as people fled for their lives, many taking their keys with them. A bulldozer had to clear the vehicles so that fire trucks could get to where they needed to go.
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People don’t realize that palm trees can go up like matches. Years ago an entire street in Anaheim burned to the ground because the palm trees that lined the street burned. If they’re not trined regularly they’re like matches.
Just like the fools in my state setting off fireworks when there are high winds ..
Apparently people lack common sense so this type of event happens🤦♀️
Whoa. I lived in the north side of Santa Monica for 15 years. That’s the closest a wildfire has ever gotten to my old neighborhood. Hope the winds die down sooner than expected. Doesn’t seem like anything the firefighters can do will matter much at this point.
My 🩵 goes out to them, and not to be rude, but at this point, shouldn't Californians be masters at wildfire preparedness and safety? JS This is the equivalent of people from Vermont failing to know what to do in a snowstorm or ppl from Florida not knowing how to deal w/a hurricane.
Always out of the way! Like a civilized member of society. In the blizzard of '96 there was like 3-4 ft of snow and no visibility. I was a scared teenager and still pulled my car over and put on the emergency brake and hazards before leaving it, so the snow plows and ambulances could get through.
Yo, anyone got keys to that Range Rover sitting there? 👀
Jk.
That's why I ride a motorcycle and drive a 25k pound work truck... either way, when the world's ending, I'm getting between, around, or through whatever is on the road when I need to.
Why a plan is needed for reverse call public warnings, assuring public knows whom to contact or where to check for open emergency routes, coordination of the plans with all applicable agencies, cities, counties, fire departments, sheriffs, police departments, EMCs, and an fire emergency director.
Social media to the rescue
There are evac routes which blue bus lines are evacuating to which rec centers and there is triage at Duke’s Malibu by First Responders
If you must leave car leave keys in it etc
I don't know if an organization would put out short videos guiding people of best practices in that type of emergency if that would change anything. When it comes to fight & flight responses, & general human selfishness as seen with COVID, I doubt enough people would remember their fellow man's need
Even when they’re not driving them, idiot drivers are not getting out of the way of the fire department. A lot of good those keys are gonna do those people when they come back to a crumpled piece of ʇıɥs.
I hope. Every time I’m in traffic, I prepare myself psychologically for the repeated waves of stupid ƃuıʞɔnɟ idiots trying to drive a vehicle with no awareness or skill. Inevitably there will be vehicles lined up at a light & don’t know what the fuck to do when emergency vehicles come through.
Man some of the responses here explain a lot of things to me - so many people have NO COMPASSION or empathy, no wonder our world is in this sorry state
Um, I'm not rich, but live in a wildfire zone and am watching anxiously how the winds will go. Please tell me what to do if my home is quickly placed in the fire zone and the streets are gridlocked.
I live in Ojai. We had the Thomas fire. Authorities made us evacuate early, focused on keeping the evacuation orderly and moving. Two lanes in and out of Ojai. Out, evacuees only, in, first responders only. That's what we did. I can't really tell anyone else what to do, but good luck and stay safe
Thanks, Were there evacuation orders in Palisades? There was a fire in my area a few months ago and fortunately there was time for an orderly evacuation. I'm afraid the poor folks (yes, you're poor when you have to run for your life) in LA had that chance. It's hard to be judgmental in this case.
It doesn't look like Pacific Palisades had a plan ready in case. I do know that fire-hardening our valley has been a big issue here, especially since we have such limited access in and out without a fire going. I was hosting a homeless shelter in a church during Thomas. Herding cats.
They were told to abandon their cars by police. The roads were blocked by something not necessarily cars. There are power poles and trees falling over just from the wind, regardless of the fire.
These owners are the same kind of people who futz around for their carryons when an aircraft is being evacuated. Obliviousness with comorbidity of severe Main Character Syndrome.
They must have fled for their lives and were not thinking about keys as the road was already blocked. Other needed keys on the ring and no time to remove them. Don't blame them 😞
I'm not judging as I don't have any confirmation of whether that happened, and if officers did yell that I don't know what the officers' observations were that would inspire such actions.
We need to do better. An expansion of civics ed in public schools & free community courses that explain the social contract & how it allows our society to trust that the paved hwy indeed continues beyond the steep hill.
Many in the the US are slow to internalize the reality of the anthropocene era.
When you are fleeing, are you really thinking clearly about people coming to try to move them by driving them out? And hello, keys are in your purse and you are in a panic. Thinking about where your key is or running for your life?
I lived in LA for 30 years and I never understood why people would live in beautiful places like the Palisades or Malibu that burn and flood and slide down the mountains.
I'm not in those areas either, but the thinking is probably that the years of living with the views or next to nature is worth the risk that someday, it may get burned up.
My family and many friends are evacuated. One family, for sure, has lost everything and two are waiting to hear. My daughter went to high school here and she said 15 of her friend’s family homes have been destroyed.
Poof, gone.
Living in an area where these horrible wind driven extremely rapid fires happen I can sympathize with these ppl, I’d be leaving my car stuck in traffic & running too!!!
Reminds me to learn how to drive a dozer. This is just the first firestorm, the felon is bringing on the next one and I'll need to make a barricade like the walking dead.
I was watching when they were telling people to leave their keys behind…Whoever was first in line abandoning their cars and blocking all traffic from escaping the fire, need to be fined or something!!!
So they’re driving their cars and couldn’t get any further, so they left their cars, took the keys. Bulldozers now have to remove their cars in order to get through to put out the fires at the peoples homes. What a conundrum.
They left their cars because the police told them to. Now based on a report from elsewhere in LA where there’s not a fire some of the roads are becoming blocked because of powerlines and light poles falling onto them due to the wind, even in the absence of fire
Thank you for sharing this. I don’t know that I’d have thought to leave my keys in my car if fleeing this way. This feels like an important lesson to learn and a worthy sacrifice to make.
Watched this happening. Loved it!
The privileged arseholes who left their cars on the street, locked, had the privilege of seeing their cars bulldozed. So sweet! 👏🏻👏🏻
My understanding is that these people had to flee on foot. I could be wrong though. Either way, I’m guessing they’re just thankful to be alive and not so worried about a car.
How many cars require having a key in the ignition? If your key is in your pocket or handbag, no one is going to think of leaving their keys in the car.
Exactly what I was thinking. No one has the time to check every car for keys, let alone move each car to … where exactly?
When we have to leave, we’re hopefully ready and we go eastward ( usually)
In the San Fernando Valley I awoke this morning to pink glowing sky. We are most likely safe here, but my heart goes out to all the families that have been displaced. Stay safe out there, my fellow Angelenos. 🙏🏻
All of those cars burned overnight. It's sad that gridlock traffic blocked their way to escape the Palisades fire. Hope you and your family don't live anywhere near these fires my friend. Be safe! 🙏
Have to agree with you on that but they are also up against the same forces we are right now so let’s see how long that lasts…😔 Met a Canadian on vacation recently and he was just as uneducated as our Magas are here..🤷♀️
Saw on Twitter a few hours ago her daughters had to leave their homes and recently that she was evacuating too if I understood her last post correctly.
Or the huge amounts of teslas and rivians out here where the “key” is a card (I just learned this when I had to move my neighbors cars )
I also had no idea how to unlock with said card….
Plus, the fire fighters don’t have time to be hopping into 200 cars and driving them off somewhere far enough (then walk back after each one) that they can actually unblock the space taken up by 200 cars.
Do you think the police or fire department even had time to move all the cars? I have a remote key, I wouldn’t stop to dig it out of my purse hoping someone would maybe move my car if I had to run for my life. Have some empathy.
In a panic, it’s hard to think straight. I’m up in No Cal. Ten years ago I watched a fire on the hills over my town. 8 years ago there was a fire in our largest city. People ran for their lives at 4 am. Now I leave town immediately. Helps CAL fire not to worry about people.
It's habit. When our home and car went up in flame I grabbed the keys. I still have them even though everything burned. We got out with our lives and our id's.
Up here in NorCal it was unseasonably warm today with East-West off shore wind. Reminded me of the Tubbs fire in 2017 that started in Calistoga, in the Napa Valley, and end up on the west side of 101 Freeway in Santa Rosa.The fire travelled over 15 miles & killed many & destroyed thousands of homes.
That’s not necessarily true. In any of these so-called “rich” neighborhoods in California. You have the most recent people who moved in during gentrification and you have the original residents-older folk of no particular means whose net-worth is freakishly high on paper due to zip code.
Not everyone in those areas is rich though. There are apartment blocks and things like that not up on the pretty hill sides but down near the freeway there’s a lot of ordinary folk and also the legacy people who’ve owned their home there since their (grand) parents in the 1940s or so.
billions worth of houses gone. sure ins will pay, but wait till next year and the increases in the homeowners ins rates hit, some people wont be able to afford
i used to live very close. you don't understand that lots of older people who don't work anymore live there and if they have big deductibles, then re building could take a huge chunk of their assets. and if they cant buy ins., or can only do so at exorbitant costs, they might not be able to do it
Total gridlock, no cars were moving. Once a few people get scared and ditch their cars the traffic behind them gets trapped. I don't know the geography of the area to say how that happens, but a woman on the news was describing all the cars surrounding her being abandoned.
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My daughter took the photo on the right shortly after the fire started this morning.
Glad she is safe 🚨
Apparently people lack common sense so this type of event happens🤦♀️
Don’t see SCE shutting down the power.
Still waiting for the power to be restored.
Frightening situation.
Damned prophetic.
PS: the rest of the plot I always thought was ridiculous until this year. A Rich, Charismatic Powerful Madman, bent on species extinction.
Ours.
you leaving your car? or gonna drive it "out of the way"?
#AgeOfConsequenecs
Jk.
That's why I ride a motorcycle and drive a 25k pound work truck... either way, when the world's ending, I'm getting between, around, or through whatever is on the road when I need to.
And will be replaced by free mass transit for al!
There are evac routes which blue bus lines are evacuating to which rec centers and there is triage at Duke’s Malibu by First Responders
If you must leave car leave keys in it etc
Get your papers/stuff/people/ pets in your car, including food/meds and a change of clothes.
Go somewhere where there's a lot of big roads in and out.
At the VERY least, pack everything that isn't a person or pet into your car RIGHT NOW.
That way, you can haul ass immediately.
The clothes/ shoes/ personal massager aren't essential.
One does stupid stuff when one panics.
(This is not a statement about the police in general or LAPD in particular)
https://www.watchduty.org/
Many in the the US are slow to internalize the reality of the anthropocene era.
It’s how the oligarchy won.
Poof, gone.
Prayers to my native state!!
The privileged arseholes who left their cars on the street, locked, had the privilege of seeing their cars bulldozed. So sweet! 👏🏻👏🏻
When we have to leave, we’re hopefully ready and we go eastward ( usually)
and we are saddled with moron Trump and his buttlickers
People panic in disasters but some are still so attached to their material possessions i bet they even locked their doors
i wish i was driving that dozer lol
😢
You better bet I'm hopping out and literally running for my life too
My ex-wife dragged me into this:
https://youtu.be/J_Vc5x6TfjU?si=eugrwSLxTw4W2WOH
https://bsky.app/profile/vintagevirgo.bsky.social/post/3lf6lg26qhk23
Earlier today.
I also had no idea how to unlock with said card….
I'm glad y'all are still here.
😬🦠😷💉💉💉💉💉💉💉🇨🇦🏴🇺🇦
I feel so heartbroken for everyone 💔
Saw this last night
https://ktla.com/entertainment/actor-steve-guttenberg-helping-fire-crews-by-moving-cars-near-pacific-palisades-brush-fire/amp/
They'll all be made whole by insurance.
Like "doesn't know the price of eggs" rich.
It's a toss between Malibu and Bel Aire.
Remember Moonlight Madness?
My office was right in down town on Sunset.
Ted Knight was the Mayor.
All at taxpayer expense, of course.
Despite the fact that the insurers literally assumed the risk of the loss and got paid to do it.
Wind driven wild fires from Santa Anna winds happen on a regular basis.
If they've lived their since the 40's or "all their lives" they know the danger and managed their risk accordingly, or not.
Just hope lives are saved, including their horses.
Edit button, please