‘There’s Nothing They Can Do’: Firefighters Stymied As L.A. Hydrants Run Dry

Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso ripped into Democrat Mayor Karen Bass, saying that “absolute mismanagement by the city” caused the city’s fire hydrants to run dry as the area went up in flames.

The Los Angeles Times reported in the early hours of Wednesday morning that firefighters battling the blaze in Pacific Palisades had begun to report over radios that fire hydrants were losing pressure and running out of water entirely.

“The hydrants are down,” and, “Water supply just dropped,” they said, according to the outlet.

The Department of Water and Power provided a statement to the Times acknowledging the hydrants were running out of water but did not give any indication as to how widespread the issue was.

“This area is served by water tanks and close coordination is underway to continue supplying the area,” the statement said.

Caruso, a developer in Los Angeles, commented on the still-unfolding tragedy: “There’s no water in the fire hydrants. The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen.”

Calling in to a local news station, Caruso revealed that his daughter’s home was among the 1000 structures that had burned thus far — and said that if the city was better managed, the situation could have been much less disastrous.

WATCH:

"This is like a 3rd world country"

Rick Caruso says there is 0 water coming out of the fire hydrants. Mayor Bass is in Ghana. pic.twitter.com/GPXmDVvLS1

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“My heart goes out obviously to the people with their homes, and I’m watching the small businesses around us go up in flames, you know this is people’s livelihoods,” Caruso said. “So it’s devastating. but what is most concerning to me is our first responders and our firefighters who are trying to battle this, there’s no water in the Palisades.”

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Caruso went on to point the finger at the mismanagement of resources, saying that reservoirs had not been refilled and noting the fact that Mayor Bass is out of the country, traveling in Ghana.

“There’s no water coming out of the fire hydrants. This is an absolute mismanagement by the city,” he added. “It’s not the firefighters’ fault, but it’s by the city. And I’ve got to be very honest, we’ve got a mayor that’s out of the country, and we’ve got a city that’s burning, and there’s no resources to put out fires.”

“So if you look at your pictures, you don’t see the firefighters there because there’s nothing they can do,” he claimed. “It looks like we’re in a third-world country here.”

Caruso went on to say that the people needed to ask some tough questions of their local representatives, saying that he did not believe much had been done in the way of mitigation in the last couple of decades: “What’s predictable is preventable.”