This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Keeping a close eye on all the hell fire that has surrounded La County in the past three days or so. Right now, our attention is on Mount Wilson, where flames are encroaching upon the all powerful TV and radio towers there.
A couple TV stations do have engineers on site up there, and as we had Doug Irwin, one of our engineers who's been up to Mount Wilson countless times, you could see some of the pictures that are broadcasts from the cameras that exist on those broadcast towers up there. There are a dozen or so fire protection vehicles that are on the site up there.
They are not doing anything.
To fight the fire, but apparently some of the television engineers up there have been saying it's because they want that to burn. They feel protected enough that the flames themselves are not going to croach on the buildings or the towers, which they would try to protect, but they're not trying to put the fire out in the bush
area because they want that to burn. So that's kind of what it looks like right now, but again that fire has reached those peaks of Mount Wilson up there where almost almost all of the TV and radio stations that you hear in LA are broadcast from fire insurance.
We pay a lot of fire insurance to live where we live in southern California, and sometimes they won't even ensure you based on where you live. We heard accounts from actor James Woods that some of the insurance was canceled just months ago for people at least to live
in the Palisades around where he lives. Rich McHugh works for News Nation, joins us now all about this issue about insurance claims and how daunting of a path and a journey this will be for people who have lost their homes or had damage in these fires.
Good afternoon, Rich, Thanks for taking time for us.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
We have been covering these stories about loss of fire coverage in throughout California, but also throughout the Western United States because insurance companies are afraid that they would break the bank. Now we see a total, you know, a price tag on this thing upwards of fifty billion dollars. What's going on in the insurance industry. First of all, that makes them want to pull out of California.
Well, I think it goes back to twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen. They were back to back, you know, wildfires in back to back years, one in northern California, one in southern California. And I believe the losses from those fires were something like twenty three billion, which is already a lot less than where we're at now, but that was enough where the insurance companies essentially paid out twice
as much as they took in in their premium. And so I think All State pulled out of California in twenty twenty three, and State Farm with respective Pacific Palisades, they told I believe it was seventy percent of the residence Pacific Palisades just this year alone, that they will not be renewing their coverage. And so I spoke with one woman who basically had was forced to evacuate. Obviously
she doesn't know the status for home. In the conversation, she mentioned, oh, and then we have to deal with insurance. Her plan was canceled or not renewed as she was informed about this in November and so she's kind of left to fend for herself. And your options, as you guys know, are not great. You have something called the California Fair Plan, which apparently only covers you up for individuals or homeowners up to three million and for commercial
for business says up to twenty million. And so this is going to be the real first major test of this like emergency system. And you know, I don't I can't begin to guess how it's going to go, but I can't imagine it's going to go smoothly. I'll say that this is well, the losses are going to be so high.
We just had the governor come out and pat himself on the back for his new budget plan that he says there's going to be a surplus.
But the size of.
Whatever this price tag is, and I mean, it's hard to even I mentioned the fifty fifty billion that came from ACI weather, and that would be more than twice as much as the entire nineteen ninety four North Rich earthquake in terms of property loss.
Yeah, it's like it's it's a staggering number. It's only
going to go up because these things aren't contained. And you know, ultimately you're going to get to a situation where it's almost like you know, Florida, California and Florida going to be it's almost going to be impossible to be insured when you live in these states because insurance companies don't want don't want the business because of the natural disasters, and so as a as a resident there, you're going to be left to to face massive premiums
from some unknown company, or or go with this the fair plan, which you know, we'll see how this all operates in the coming weeks.
And nothing makes people feel more comfortable than looking at insurance and raising your hands and going we'll see yeah.
Yeah, I mean, and you know, for a lot of people, you can't even get insurance. You can't even get a mortgage without having insurance to go hand in hand. So it's a complicating mess. I can't even not only have people lost their homes, but you know, if you have mortgages still to pay on those homes, how much is insurance can to how much you're going to get back? How are you going to rebuild? Like the questions, it's just too much to process for how you find your
way through this. It's just just awful.
Rich Mchughe hopefully we can have a better conversation at another time.
Thanks, Rich, appreciate it. You got reporder there from News Nation.
Uh, there's really no way to put lipstick on that pig, is there?
No?
And listen, insurance companies already have an awful reputation, many of them for instances like this and the hoops that people have to go through despite having been covered by the same company for decades in some cases, and.
Then when you really need them, where are they.
Yeah, hopefully that's not the case, and hopefully there are some good stories, but still it's not. It's not an easy path forward for anybody.
I mean, I think everybody feels the need to throw projectiles at the television whenever one of those commercials comes on. Yeah, well, we're by your side, Yeah, my ass.
Especially juxtapose that with the images of the devastation that we've seen exactly and we'll continue to see. Unfortunately, fire coverage continues some of the far away helicopter shots of the Eton fire that was burning above Altadena and Pasadena, as the fires down below in the flatlands have for the most part stopped spreading, that fire continues to grow up that hill and as moving towards Mount Wilson and all the broadcast facilities that are up there on the top of Mount Wilson.
I did get an update from my city there along the foothills that said, you're going to see the fire moving up into the hills today and it's probably going to be moving east.
A little bit and get a little bit.
But this was the plan is moving up. I don't think they expected it to move as up as far up as Mount Wilson.
And those towers.
There was a retardant line that they laid down before the fixed to win aircraft had to be grounded at least that was the story about an hour ago because of turbulence. So hopefully that has calmed down and they can resume the air attack.
That's got to be all.
That's got to be a difficult place to fly. Oh yeah, mountain terrain, the all of the air currents coming.
Off the fire, weather, the weather system the fire creates in terms of the gusts and the breezes and the shifts.
It's incredible. We have been taking some of your messages on our talk back feature.
More in California.
Up in Mendosino, we already heard you and your daughter's safe and she's in North rich something.
Hi Gary, Jannon. I've been listening and working and all that about the fires. I'm really sad about it.
I haven't heard too much about what do they believe are the causes. I have to be in and out and off and on the radio, but what what they determine the causes of all these fires?
Thanks?
Nope, No, there was a backyard fire that they talked about starting potentially the Palisades fire. We don't know if that was a backyard fire and a fire pit or something that was sparked into a fire into the backyard.
We just have no information about them who licks fires in their backyard.
It could be a fire pit is a cold morning.
Well, you're right, I guess that's true. Yeah, I don't have a fire pit, so for just that reason, I don't.
Hello, Garyan Jenning Maria from also WEO. I just wanted to say thank you guys again so much for keeping us up to date on the current and real information and everything that's going on, because apparently our own local government can't even do that because apparently she wasn't even here. So again, thank you, so so much for all that you do, and my mom now listens to you.
Guys take okay, thank you, we'll take them.
Did you see the interview I don't even know if you'd call it an interview, the attempted interview where a reporter had approached Karen back British she was getting off the plane. The British reporter. Yeah, yeah, you got to stay on top of these people too. Like that was just the beginning.
She was hit a little bit at the press conference today in terms of the water and the cuts to the fire department and all of that. I mean, here's the thing that hit me when I was on my way home yesterday. When you think of what you want from government, you want police, you want fire, and you want.
Roads right and water? Water, you know what I mean?
Like, those are the four biggies in my head, that's what I want you to provide us with the tax dollars we provide you, the ridiculous amount of tax dollars you squeeze from us. Those are the four things you should be able to do. Police, fire, roads and water. And what are you failing at? Police? Fire, roads and water? What is your attention on is it tampons? In the boys bathrooms.
I don't know.
I don't know what you're paying attention to. Like, what's a priority at La City Hall right now? It's not police, fire, roads and water.
It's feelings. Remember there's an emphasis on.
Failing care about their feelings. Well, that's why we talk about You don't have to tell me, I don't.
You don't have to tell me how prayers in your hearts and your thoughts and your hopes.
Yeah, don't tell me how strong the community is. The community's strength will be shown by the community. It doesn't need to be called out or asked for by a politician. It will be shown by the people and the neighborhoods that let that stand by itself.
This was Karen Bass. You can't even hear Karen Bass. This was a.
Reporter trying to get Karen Bass to answer questions. This is as yesterday. She was on her way back to La after she had gone on a I guess you would see a diplomatic mission. I suppose she was attending the inauguration of the new president of Ghana.
Do you owe citizens and apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret coming the fire department budget by millions of dollars out of mare. Have you nothing to say today?
She's just staring at him.
Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today? Elon Musk says that you're incompetent. Are you considering your position?
Uh?
And it goes on for several seconds. She is then led down the jetway and I mean, that's right outside the airplane. I don't know how that guy got access to where he was. She has no problems shutting down.
I tried to talk to her in the jetway when we got to wherever we went, Chicago. Was that we were on the same plane. She and I were on the same plane to go to the convention. Oh oh, that's right, And I'm like walking with her down the jetway. I waited in the jetway till she got off the plane. She was sitting kind of in the middle, and I waited. I'm like, mayor baths my name Shannon, I hosted Sean KFI, would love.
To have you on.
And she wouldn't even make words to me.
That's that's exactly what was happening to this guy. And that listen.
I wasn't even being provocative. That's a skill I'm not giving her compliments. I'm just saying that's a skill to be able to stand there and look at someone while they're asking you a question. And granted the guy's trying to bait her into some sort of a response, sure that's probably going to get her in trouble, but that seems to be her mo. But not to respond at all. I mean, she didn't smile, she didn't change her face,
she didn't do it. She's waiting for security because she's going to get she doesn't have to go through the terminal.
She's got she.
What do they call a SUV, she's got, you know, her car is waiting down on the tarmac and she's waiting to go outside to get in the car.
The part of my problem with her at that press conference today is that I've heard from people who have been with her behind closed doors that she as tough as nails. She takes no bs. Where's that person at that press conference? The reason I had a problem with that is because she came out she's like we are one voice. You know, lasusqualas in las braces. You know what I mean, like baloney and flowery and light and garbage and bs don't be that person, because that's not
who you are. When you get in front of the cameras and you're not one hundred percent genuine, it shows we can see it. That's the same problem I have with Gavin Newsom. You have to be yourself, you have to be genuine, or else you just look like a phony. If she came out and if she is as tough as nails nobs person, she came out there that press conference and she's like, I am pissed. I was pissed that I was away and on that trip. I should have been here. You're right, I saw the wind event
in the forecast. I should have been here. I screwed up. And now I'm pissed about the water situation, and I'm pissed that I made the decision to cut the fire department. And you know what, right now, starting right now after I leave here, I'm going to get set on rectifying the situation. I am upset by the mismanagement that has
gone down city wide. And yes, there were things that we could not control with this wind event, but if I can make it that much better the next time this kind of thing rolls around, I'm going to make sure I do so, Like if she's if she came out and did that, do you know how far that would get her politically and not just politically.
Well I don't even know.
Well I don't know about politically, but it would get her at least the aspect and a little bit of leeway, like, hey, we're gonna get okay, so we understand you're upset about this clearly. Now we're going to give you an opportunity to do something about it right and then give you know, just a little bit of slack in the line. But I mean, she just set herself up for more condemnation, for more questions about well, why didn't why why didn't you?
You asked all of us to heed these warnings, You asked all of us to be prepared for an emergency situation that was far beyond it turned out to be far beyond what anybody was expecting.
Why weren't you doing the same thing.
Don't be the absent parent that comes back to the home that is in shambles and go, oh, we.
Are such a strong family.
No no, no, Go to the grocery store, get us some groceries, you know, go to work, pay the bills and do the.
Stuff the other thing. And you mentioned Gavin Newsome.
He was on with Anderson Cooper because they're both trying to show off there. They were upset that they didn't think of it of the clothes pins.
Dude, did you see Gaven Newsome one untouched part of his shirt.
Yeah, he's he's in the street, he's busy, he.
Doesn't have time to think about his T shirt.
I want to know. I want to meet the aid who was like, wait a minute, let's untop this side.
This will make you look like a man of the people, your honor.
Let me just We've done some focus groups and we think that the untucked should.
Be on the right side totally, because.
We know you're left handed, but it makes it look like you're actually you're.
On both sides.
Totally.
Bunch of horses. And this was him with Anderson Cooper last night. What is this situation with the water. Obviously in the pala stage it ran out last night in the hydrants. I was trying the firefighter in this block. They left because there was no water in the hydrant here.
The local folks are trying to figure that out. I mean, just when you have a system that it's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity, whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system. I mean, those hydrants are typical for two or three fires, maybe one fire.
You have something at this scale. But again that's going to be determined by the local He's listen, it's not his job. This is a local thing.
The governor doesn't control state water problems, I mean local fire hydrant level problems with water. But again that's an opportunity for him to go, hey, you know what, this is unconscionable that this was able to happen in a system, even if it was an emergency situation like this that was overwhelming.
We cannot allow this to happen again.
When it's great, they take credit for local things. One, it's crap, they say it's a local thing, all right.
Our continuing coverage of the fires throughout Los Angeles and the best news. I think that some of the good news that came out of the news conference from earlier today was that the three lesser fires are all pretty much nothing to worry about. I shouldn't say nothing, but are less concerning. How's that the Hearst fire up near
Silmar eight hundred and fifty five acres. It was ten percent contained as of this morning, and from my experience, that's the one that I drive towards once I leave here, and yesterday afternoon there was virtually no smoke left from that fire. The Lydia fire up near Acton about three hundred and forty eight acres, that one was forty percent contained.
The Sunset fire the one that burned in Hollywood Hills overnight, about sixty acres, but that one was handled very quickly, and in fact, the evacuation orders have all been lifted through the through the Hollywood Hills. There was a story that came out today, and I honestly think it's a little early to talk about the specific numbers, but the chief meteorologist for ACU Weather, if you've used them, has said that this is already one of the worst wildfires in the history of California.
And I mean, you could talk about that individually.
You could talk about the Palisades fire as being one of the worst wildfires in California history. You could also talk about the Eton fire as being one of the worst. Is simply based on the number of structures lost in both of those. One of the things that was mentioned today by the County fire chief was that over in the Palisades fire, the number of fires, the number of structures I should say damaged or destroyed, is into the thousands. And then for the Eaten fire over an Altadena, over
one thousand structures damaged or destroyed. And I referenced yesterday, I was referencing the ninety one Oakland Hills fire, the Tunnel fire back then that didn't burn very many acres I think it was about fifteen hundred acres back then, but destroyed almost three thousand homes and apartments and condos and things like that. And it appears like this is going to eclipse that in terms of the number of
actual living dwellings that were destroyed. The Paradise fire holds that distinction of being the most which I think is closer to eighteen or nineteen thousand structures that were destroyed. The Eaten fires at ten than six hundred acres. Most of the growth has significantly stopped, but we did at least through the flatland areas. But we have seen that fire moving back up the hill towards Mount Wilson, which
is what we're talking about. With all the broadcast facilities up there, there are fire crews there, and one of the reports from an engineer for a television station that was on the scene at the top of Mount Wilson was that the crews were planning on allowing the brush to burn itself out and just protect the buildings and
the critical communications infrastructure that's up there. The Palisades Fire, however, continues to grow towards the mountains, and this means that now that the wind has died down, at least that northern northeastern wind that was coming through and blowing from the hills to the ocean. As that has died down, that has allowed the Palisades Fire to grow into the hills and start going up some of those hills towards
the eastern and northern flanks of the fire. So it's moving east towards the four h five slowly but it is, and then north towards the San Fernando Valley and could potentially get up and crest that hill. It's at seventeen two hundred plus acres right now, but could be higher
than that. And again the ACU Weather Chief meteorologist put a number at about fifty two to fifty five billion dollars, and they estimate the total damage and economic loss at fifty two to fifty five billion, fifty two to fifty seven sorry billion, And again that's not this is nowhere near complete, because we've seen more homes catching fire today, more businesses that have been destroyed, and that's just the
rough early estimate. To compare that to what we saw in the Northridge earthquake in ninety four that came in at about thirty billion dollars on the high end, so thirty billion for the north Ridge earthquake, and this one all ready estimated well over fifty billion dollars. We've been taking your talkback messages on the talkback feature on the iHeart app.
Good afternoon, Gary, and Shannon. Just wanted to take a moment to let you know that not everyone that you are serving and helping with your helpful information, and that goes for everyone at CAFI is in the greater Los Angeles area. I'm in upstate New York with quite a few friends in the Los Angeles area, and I have literally been glued to KFI and guiding them through their evacuations and it's all thanks to you, so thank you from all the way across the country.
Cheer, thank you, cheers to you too. Appreciate that. It's nice to hear that people getting something out of it from far away.
Hey you guys, Hey, good to hear you.
I'm up in Oregon. I just want to let you know that I'm up by city Call between Salem and Portland. There's a lot of fire trucks heading out of the area up here, headed for LA. I know a couple of friends, minor firemen heading that way.
Yeah.
I used to drive ambulance in La but rover out with Selmar fire in the seventies, so I know what it's like.
Thank you appreciate that, and it's it's good to hear that, even people from you know, far northern Oregon making the way down here.
Hey, Gary and Shannon. I talked to a fireman at one of the firehouses and he said what they could use are things like cliff bars and stuff that's individually wrapped, because he said other kinds of foods kind of roll around in the rigs. So I took a bunch of cliff bars, individually wrapped, individually wrapped these sticks. Did a cost Co run but just an idea for people that want to help these these firemen out who are just doing such an amazing job.
Yeah, well, thank you for that, and they thank you for that. That's the other thing to think about is that even if you're not in the direct affected areas by the fire, if you're not in Altadena, Pasadena and Rovia, if you're not in Pacific Palisades or Malibu, chances are your local fire station has crew members that are and that they have been deployed to those areas. So even your local fire station may appreciate those things because they do have the men and women out there serving toaky.
Hey, a couple of days ago, somebody on KFI mentioned that because Biden was in town, there's a mandate of a no fly zone in a third mile circumference around where he is, and because he was in Santa Monica, they couldn't get the fire retardant up fast enough to quell this stuff.
Right when it started.
Be great to know if.
This is indeed true, and another huge fail not true.
There is a temporary flight restriction whenever the president or vice president comes into town, but that is mostly for civilian aircraft, so you're going to see that. That's why the TV helicopters weren't up, but there were firefighting aircraft that were up as quickly as possible based on the weather.
Remember that the weather was the biggest issue right away because with the winds gusting the way they were, it was making it less safe for the for the firefighting airplanes and helicopters to get in there.
Right.
Wait, man, if it's not contained, it's a state of emergency, but it's worse than north Ridge. Yeah and still ongoing. Yeah, where's our backup? Like, where's all this awesome military tools that we have, Like why aren't we using that?
Because F eighteens don't generally drop water or fire retardant generally. That's the only thing. National Guard has been activated. But they're going to be doing things like helping traffic control, helping secure neighborhoods and things like that.
This is a nice story.
Mina Thomas is the owner of Bath and Bun's mobile pet grooming, and she wants to help out by offering complimentary bath services for cats and dogs affected by the fire. You get all ashy, maybe burned, whatever it is, and probably a little stressed out. So maybe the bath and Buns mobile pet grooming on Instagram at Bath and Buns. Be careful b a t h N b u ns bath and Buns or TikTok bath and Buns or go to bathroom buns dot com if you've been your animals
affected by it. We've been taking messages from the talkback.
Hey, Gary, Shannon, Mike from behind Desert.
Hey, Mike, let's just face it, there's two kinds of people in this world.
Those who listen to KFI like us, and those who don't.
I guess that's have a great thing. That's the poetry that I was looking for.
Yeah, this is for Gari and Shannon.
Hey, whatever happened to the thing of defensible space h.
Around hole well still required many cases. I mean, I live in a house that I get any message from the department every year that they're going to come check and make sure that my house has defensible space or the appropriate trees and well watered plants in front of them. But that what we saw tuesday, what we saw go through Pacific Palisades in Altadena and into Pasadena, there's no such thing as defensible space when it comes to fire that was burning like that.
It's just it just doesn't happen.
And when you think of what happened scientifically, meteorologically, weatherwise
over the course of the last few days. First of all, you got this low pressure system right that pushes what we see these winds out of the North Santa Ana winds at a higher elevation than usual, so the winds were able to not just hit the bottom of the mountain on the other side over there, they were able to go up and over the mountains and descend down into what Channon actually referred to as these wind waves speeds of eighty one hundred miles an hour in some
of the more widespread areas. So that means that a community like Altadena or Pasadena, even farther into the flatlands that are usually projected protected, i should say, from the stronger of the gusts, actually got to see them firsthand. That's why they were referring to this as the strongest wind event that we've seen in probably thirteen years, since
twenty eleven. And one of the people that was working on all of this, a climate scientist with the UCLA Institute of Environmental Environment and Sustainability, is a Daniel Swain, and he referred to this also not just the wind portion of this, but the lack of rain portion of this as hydro climate whiplash. You got two very wet years rain years in twenty three and twenty four annual rainfall that was, you know, forty three inches in Pasadena,
twenty six inches in Santa Monica. And that rainfall, we heard this man by David Ortiz from La Fire Department earlier today, that rainfall prompts new grass growth, and we have a full summer with a very little amount of rain, which allows the grasses to then these new ones to cure, dry out and be ready to burn. That's all. That's all they were. They were ready to burn. Since September, Daniel Swain says, we've seen the driest start to the winter on record, as well as the hottest start to
the winter on record. So it's dry and hot, which of course is going to cure those grasses even better. This season, Pasadena registered six tenths of an inch of rain so far, compared to six inches almost in a normal year. So not only did we have extremely wet years the last two years, we had an extremely dry beginning to this season, which is why we find out find ourselves in the in the situation that we're in now.
And he said that you combine that you've got the incredible bad luck of Santa Ana winds higher than in some cases higher than ever Santa Ana winds. That he said, if we had even an inch of rain, just even an inch of rain anytime over the last six eight weeks, whatever it was, we would not be.
In the situation that we're in today.
I mean, if the windstorm's weaker, if we get just a normal Santa Ana wind event, where you know, gusts are fifty sixty miles an hour, that would be one thing, but we would still see fires. Very strong wind event, he said, would not have produced a fire catastrophe. If we had even an inch of rain in just the last couple of weeks here in southern California. Preparations warnings ahead of the windstorms probably lessened the damage, might have saved some lives. But I'll tell you what next time.
Next time we get a wind event like this, it's not just upon us to do our thing. To get ready, you know, ready to evacuate, plan to be out of the house for whatever it is, get your emergency kit up and running, it's going to be incumbent upon city, county, state officials to make sure that we now know what is possible, because I don't think anybody would have thought what we're seeing in the last couple of hours was possible.
But if you go through the streets in Altadena or Pasadena and you see these burned out cars, entire neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades where not one house is standing, not just dozens of homes, dozens of blocks of homes where there's not one house that's still standing. We will continue to bring you any updated fire information that we have.
We're not out of this yet.
We are still in red flag warning conditions because of the wind, because of the low humidity, So there is a possibility that even more fires do crop up, and if they do, we'll definitely bring them to you. Live here, Okay, John Cobalt got some rest. He'll be back in here in just a couple of minutes. Gary and Shannon will see you tomorrow.
Stay dry. Everybody you've been.
Listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday. And anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio Lab