This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI A M. Six forty, The Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. So did you hear about the couple in Altadena who was preparing to sell their home in Alta Dina moving into another home in Altadena lost both homes. So past, present, future all gone. You know, you know what it's like when you're moving into a
new home. You've got pretty much your all your money tied up into those two homes, right and it's all it's all wiped out, all of it gone.
Yeah, I mean, there's there's very We will have good stories, we will have.
Fun stories.
At some point, we will have heroic stories, some of which we've.
Seen a few.
But to be honest, I mean that just there's not a whole lot that's going in the right direction other than the wind starting to die down. But I mean we're still seeing very active flames along the Palisades fire up near East Topanga Fire Road and things like that, where even though the wind is not as aggressive obviously it has been in the last forty eight to seventy two hours, it is still blowing. Red flag warning is
still in effect. It will stay in effect until at least six o'clock tonight, and then there's a good chance that it just comes back. That's the other thing is that we could see winds kick up again on Sunday, and we might have to see some red flag warnings come back in Monday and Tuesday of next week. So, and we mentioned yesterday in terms of the losses, the
loss of life is going to be great. I think the death toll has put at ten right now according to the La County Medical Examiner's Office, but the insured losses could exceed twenty billion. Of JP Morgan, analyst, wrote in a research note that he expects the total economic loss at about fifty billion. ACU weather we mentioned yesterday put it higher than that, at about one hundred and
fifty billion. Either way, if you compare that to the estimate for all of the wildfires in the United States in twenty twenty, all of them was about one hundred and fifty billion dollars, and this is two really large fires.
I know that there have been a bunch of others.
There have been even a few that are a few hundred acres, but those have not had anywhere near the amount of damage that we've seen from the Eaten fire and the Palisades fires.
Well, and you got to talk about all the other fires that keep popping up. I mean talk about anxiety. You know, usually when we cover these fire events, these wind events, we get one big fire. This time we had two big fires, and then it seemed like every no neighborhood was safe. You know, you saw the Hollywood Hills fire pop up on Wednesday and then West Hills yesterday. It's like no one is safe. Everyone is on edge
in La everywhere because of what's going on. So the news that the wind event is dying down today greatly appreciated. To make matters worse, people who were not even in danger were getting evacuation alerts.
Yes I got.
I got all of them. I got every single one of them. And it's funny, because funny's not the right word. It's it's strange because I got the alert the four o'clock yesterday afternoon, and I happened to be out of park at that time, which is kind of on the top of a hill, and I can look around almost three hundred and sixty degrees from my neighborhood and I can't see smoke. I can't even see smoke from the
Hurst fire, which was the closest one to me. I couldn't see anything, So I thought to myself, well, you know what, I must have put in the wrong zone or my phone thinks I'm in an area that I'm not actually in. And then a few minutes later we get the news that, oh, sorry, it was a mistake. And then guess what, twelve hours later, at four o'clock this morning, another alert goes out. Now again, I'm warm
and safe and comfortable and lucky. I have a bed that I'm sleeping in, and I get up and see this thing, and my heart starts racing because it's the middle of the night. I see it. It's the same exact verbiage that it was twelve hours before that, and I think to myself, you know what, I'll bet you
this is another false alarm. I go to the maps, I go to watch duty, I go to the Genesis protect A. I go everywhere I can to find information, and there's not a peep about it there being a fire anywhere near me.
So I mean, I've got a bunch of sound.
The guy who is running the Office of Emergency Management, his name is Kevin McGowan, the director. This guy has given the absolute worst answers to the questions of what the f is going on and what are you going to do about it?
I mean you could.
Tell his boss's boss is in the form of Lindsey Horvath and Catherine Barger, supervisors on the county board. They're clearly looking for this guy's head because they know that this is completely unacceptable. I mean, you talk about the unacceptability of looters. Yeah, everybody knows that. We all get that start shooting people on the legs or something. I don't care, but this is one of those things where you're now you're now playing pretty fast and loose with
people's nerves. And after four days of this, after three or four days of people constantly throughout the county, throughout southern California in general, being on edge, and you can't figure out how to stop a county wide alert from going out.
Yeah, it really costs me.
Of when everyone on Hawaii got the alert that there were what missiles coming in or something right now for North Korea. Yeah, I mean, holy hell, that's stuff that will kill people, Like, give you a heart attack and you will die. You've got to figure out how to get the I mean, the incompetence has become rampant. Usually when I was listening to John yesterday, was that just yesterday? I don't know, I don't know all the days right right,
they just kind of blend together. But you know, usually it's a story that we'd be talking about after the fires are.
Out, maybe next week, maybe the week after.
But it's just so maddening not to just get right to the point of how the hell some of this stuff could happen in a place like Los Angeles.
This isn't Haiti, this isn't a.
Third world country where there is just rampant disorganization and corruption. Oh wait there is, and oh wait, the emperor has no clothes, we are inept, we are out of water, we don't have emergency alerts that work correctly, and we're Los Angeles.
That's a problem.
Yeah, it was.
It was super frustrating to listen to the explanations or the obfuscation or I mean, even on Twitter. There was a video going around of a mom confronting Governor Newsom yesterday in the Palisades and trying to get him to explain to her what's going on, and First of all, I'm surprised that the highway patrol didn't tackle this woman because she came at him pretty aggressively, but then said I'm not going to hurt him or anything. And his lame excuse of I can't talk now I'm on the
phone with the president. Oh really, can I talk to him? Well, I'm not actually on the phone with the president. I'm trying to call the president. Okay, can I stay here and listen because I'm trying. I'd love to know what you guys are planning. Well, I'm actually not calling. I mean I'm trying to find sell service so I can call the president of the guy audience.
Absolutely, we can play when we'll come back.
Do it.
I can't wait.
There's going to be a whole stuff, a whole show. How's Houston.
I can breathe here and there's rain? What I know? Can you bring that home with you?
I know we were landing last night and I was like, hey, it's rain, guys, it's raining here, and everyone's looking at me like I'm insane, just because we've spent all week talking about how we haven't had rain for eight months and how it's led to some of the issues that we're having. And again, you know, as we you know, go after people and rail against them, there was a
lot of this that we could not fight against. When you look at the wind event and the mountain waves and the recipe for disaster, you were just not going to combat this, you know, And that's part of it. But there's also just glaring ineptitude that comes along with it.
This could not have been avoided.
Most of the destruction could not have been avoided, but it certainly could have been handled better and there could have been some mitigation.
We'll talk all about it.
We also have a good news because of the Dream Center Los Angeles and our company iHeartMedia La stepping up to try to bring some relief to those people who have been affected by the firefighters, sorry, by the fires that are sweeping across La County. So Dream Center is helping team up with us to do all kinds of things donating food and hygiene products and clothing and blankets and air purifiers and all the stuff that's going to be necessary. You can go to Dreamcenter dot org slash
donate to give financially. You can learn about all of the drop off locations that are going to be available, but.
We'll tell you more about that as we go through the show today.
The stories, by the way, that are coming out of the ashes, for lack of a better term, not to sound like I'm in a poetry session, but they are wow, heartbreaking, like the amputee, Yeah, the great grandfather of ten who was killed in the Eton fire. We're just hearing about
more about the families and the stories. You know, say what you will about celebrities, but Paris Hilton's account of the destruction of her home really cut through all the hyperbole and all the bologne and really got into it in terms of specific memories of specific rooms, of specific children and what they were doing in each room as she was walking through what's left of the house just maybe maybe a quarter of the framing remains.
And remember, I mean we talked about it yesterday.
For she gets a platform because of who she is, and she's recognizable, and the stories that she's telling very personal. And you know, I guess you'd say normal stories are echoed a thousand times.
For every Paris Hilton, there's a thousand.
Other people who who have stories just like that, and right it's it's it's a it's heart wrenching to see that, and.
It's you know, they do have the money right to be on their feet and to rebuild, and they're not going to struggle the way people maybe in Alta Dina are going to struggle in terms of rubbing nickels together to figure out how they're going to get by and how they're going where they're going to live. Is it going to be a rental How is the rental market? Is it even isn't even doable right now in Los Angeles to rent while your home's being rebuilt, And where
does that money come from? And all of that, But at the core level of what you're losing, what was gone in terms of the memories of the home and where your kids were raised, that's all the same.
Yeah, we were talking about this woman who confronted Governor k Newsom yesterday as he was making his way through the palisades, and I have the audio for you. I Karen Oh, I mean no, that's a response to It'll get to that here in a second.
But this is Governor. You got a second.
She's running up to the suv that is about to get in ear I live here, Governor.
That was my daughter's school Governor, Please.
Tell me are you going to do?
I'm can I heard of my promise.
I'm literally talking to the President right now to specifically answer the question of what we can do.
For you and your daughter?
Can I hear it? Can I hear your call?
Because I don't believe it.
I'm sorry, there's literally I've tried five times. That's why I'm walking around.
To make is the President taking your call?
Because it's not going through?
Why I have to get cell service?
Let's get it, Let's get it. I want to be here when you call the President.
She's a lot right now, and it's to immediately get reimbursements, individual assistance and to help you. Devis looking for you.
I'm so sorry, especially for your daughter.
I have four kids.
Everyone who went to school there.
They lost their homes.
They lost two homes because they were living in one and building another. Can please tell me tell me what are you going to do with the president?
Right now, we're getting we're getting the resources to help rebuild.
Is there no water in the hydrants?
Governor?
It's all literally is it going to be different next time? Okay?
What are you going?
I wish this was real.
I would fill him up well, you know what I mean.
I mean that sounds like an actress on that was over the top. He did not seem like a real person. She actually made him seem like a real person, which is hard to do.
Listen.
She had every right to do that, I think, but he handled it, I guess as well as he stayed calm. He said, listen, I'll figure out what we can do. And I mean he used all the normal politician platitudes if we're going to rebuild, and of course it has to be different, et cetera.
But I almost feel like that was planted by him and his.
People to make him look good.
Yeah, here's a comment that we got.
I Karen, Oh, I mean Gary, so sorry to both you and that annoying woman who accosted the governor yesterday. But I'm so sorry. The governor is not your personal manager of like Coles that you can yell at about your coals cash. All right, So, Karen, I mean Gary, get it together. You don't get to walk up to the governor and yell and scream just because you one selfish person isn't getting what they want or need.
Just to clarify, that's not one selfish person who's not getting what she wants. You're talking about probably somewhere ten to fifteen thousand people who lost their homes, so somewhere in that and I mean that's just the people who
lost their homes. You're not even talking about people who lost their businesses or people who's now are going to have to find a different place to work, or I mean, it's not just that this woman has every right to walk up to the governor of the state that she lives in and ask questions about what happened and how do we prevent it in the future. He's not going to have the answers necessarily, but she has every right to do that.
You can't compare burn down homes and lives burned down to Cole's cash. I don't think that that person was indicative of people listening right now. I will say I wish that that person was a real person that confronted the governor. She was over the top, She didn't sound real, but the sentiment was real. I think everyone has that sentiment. Is it his fault of out everything that happened. No, but you're the governor, you're the face of the state.
If you get to take the victory lap. When things go well, you get to take the heat when things don't. I do feel like there should be more heat put on Karen Bass locally because of the cut to the fire department, because of the fact that we knew this forecast was happening and that it looked bad from go I think that those are all things that are valid right now. If you want to go after the governor for protecting the baby smelt and not sending the water
down from northern California, that's one thing. But going after him for stuff that isn't in his purview maybe not fair. Albeit totally game. It's fair game. It's just probably not something that he can answer. He just doesn't have those answers.
When we come back still air quality issues, we'll be talking with a pulmonologist with Keck Medicine about what we can do to keep ourselves protected, and then we'll get into this whole issue of false alarms that have been plaguing people's phones about potential evacuations because of these fires. Quick set the scene for the latest information on the Palisades Fire and the Eaten Fire. The Palisades Fire now burned twenty four hundred and thirty eight acres eight percent contained.
They said more than five hundred structures. CalFire specifically says fifty three hundred structures either damaged or destroyed by the Palisades Fire. The Eaten Fire out in the Altadena Pasadena area is about thirteen thou nine hundred fifty six acres. They pegged their containment there at three percent, but also another four to five thousand structures that were damaged or destroyed. We will have more air tankers and helicopters in the
air today. In fact, two large air tankers and two very large air tankers assigned to the Palisades Fire, and they have ordered a fifth tanker. Helicopters have been working right now on the west side of the Palisadesire.
Whoever was flying a drone that ran into a Super Scooper should be shot by an execution squad.
You could. I don't even think shot would be nice enough.
I think no, I mean, like not fatal shots initially, you know, flesh wounds, gray's wounds, things that'll make you suffer, and then go for.
The kill shot.
You just let it, let them bleed out.
Is that too much?
It might be a little much, But.
The Supreme Court has asked tough questions to the lawyer representing TikTok over a law that would force the sale or ban of TikTok by January nineteenth. In the US, TikTok is citing our free speech safeguards despite the fact that it is from China, which has none of that. The Biden administration defends the law. Trump opposes the ban.
Speaking of Trump, he was in appeared virtually in a courtroom today in New York. He is officially a felon in that business records case.
He was hit with.
A sentence of unconditional discharge. Sounds awful. It means nothing. It means nothing in that there's no jail time, there's no real probation, there's no punishment or anything like that. So that stuff that's going on outside of our worlds.
You see that Notre Dame Penn State game last night, the very end of it.
Yeah, I saw the fourth quarter. It was so much fun.
It was tied up when we were on the buses to the hotel, and then my brother's like, you gotta watch this game. You gotta watch this game, and so I turn it on when I get in and it was just like pick for pick for pick, a touchdown for touchdown, and I mean that was just what a wild finish to end on a pick and then that late field goal.
That was a lot of fun.
So the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play the winner of tonight's Cotton Bowl game between Texas and Ohio State in Dallas. Well, we've got in some places, especially along the Palisades Malibu coastline, there even some sections of Catalina Island, we've seen some very hazardous, very unhealthy and unhealthy ratings when it comes to common air pollutants in particulate matters
as well. Because of our fires, obviously, we wanted to get some words from experts from an expert, doctor Richard Castriota, pulmonologists with KEC Medicine of USC talking about the issues that come up with this and doctor thanks for taking time for us today.
Good morning.
What do you suggest for people?
I mean, obviously they're going to people in the fire areas that are going to be regardless of how healthy they are, affected by the smoke and the particulates. But for people in general La County, what should we do to uh to kind of protect ourselves from this bad air quality.
Yeah, I think that for everybody, we would suggest to stay in if you can. If you must go out, and nine five masks would be helpful. Don't do any real physical exertion.
Uh.
You know, while good physical activity like jogging and running might be healthy in some other circumstances, under these circumstances, you're just going to be forcing more toxic particles into your mungs. So no running and jogging. If you're driving, put the circulation system down recirculation system button on the car.
Most cars will have this. They're designed to keep from getting carbon monoxide lady tunnel air in when you're going through tunnels and things, but it basically recirculates the air and the car, so you're not getting the toxic smoke in from the outside when you're driving around. If you can at all stay in, it's better to stay in.
Run the air conditioner if you If you have people in the home that are particularly susceptible, so there's people with asthma, CLPD, pulmonary fibrosses, heart disease, young very young children, pregnant ladies, then I would suggest getting a HEPA filter. Some with filters labeled MERV thirteen or higher to run
and try to keep your home safe. And this advice is sort of increases the closer that you'll get to the fire zones, palsades and eaten fires, and the stronger your exposure, this stronger the recommendation would be from us to limit your outdoor activity and protect your home with recirculating sapper filters and your car as well.
It's a good call about the air conditioning, something you would think of because it is cold, and especially you know, I was evacuated from my home, so it is ice cold in there right now because the heater.
Hasn't been running. But it does smell a lot.
You can't really get away from the smell of the smoke inside the home because it's coming in through the chimneys and whatnot. But great advice to kind of blow it out of there using the air conditioner at least for a period of time.
Good. I hope you folks are all safe.
Yeah, so far.
I do have a question though, if you're in an area where I was seeing a lot of smoke in my neighborhood, but the last two days, last day and a half, I haven't seen any smoke. Is there something I need to kind of keep an eye on about myself. If I start coughing uncontrollaby, how would I know if I'm affected by these particulates that I don't necessarily smell or see.
Yeah, it often takes a couple of days before the full effects health effects of the smoke in relation to manifest. So the initial things are going to be cough and the eye irritation. Those are due to the larger particles and irritating the effort airways. The smaller two point five microns and and and and smaller are going to get down to the lower levels inside the lungs and impair
your immune system. So sort of have to imagine that the lungs are the first, the first place of defense against everything and bring in acres and acres of air laden with all kinds of stuff every day, and our lungs are able to deal with that in a in a very efficient manner, preventing us from getting sick and getting infected. When we breathe in these toxic particles from the smoke, we overwhelm the immune system and impede that
immune response. And so you're going to be more susceptible to all kinds of viruses and bacteria that ordinarily you're while you would be able to withstand. So you're you're you're going to have a lower level of assessment when you're saying, oh, gee, I got a cough, Maybe I should go and see somebody sooner. The clock is going to be normal just as part of the reaction to the smoke, but it also is coming in feature Amian response, and so you will be more susceptible to infections.
All right, Doctor Richard Castriota, Palmonologist, KC Medicine, a USC.
Thanks, we appreciate your time.
You're welcome.
We will be doing a quick pop in with Michael Monks from KFI News. He's out in the Palisades once again and ran into a couple of people who were hiking, I'm sorry, hiking apparently hiking, yes, hiking during the fire and it's very La.
It's just very southern California.
Wait, they were hiking when the fire broke out, or hiking yesterday.
We're going to find out from Okay, the death toll from these fires, the Palisade Fire and the Eating fire is at ten right now. We heard La County Sheriff Robert Luna said that the death toll is likely to rise. The death toll that we're getting is from the medical examiner who is investigating these ten fire related deaths. Apparently two of them from the Palisades fire that we know of, the rest of them from the fire over in Pasadena.
Here is one of the stories behind that statistic.
Sherry Shaw. She's sixty two years old. She's a graphic designer.
She lives in Pasadena, and she saw the news and what was happening in Altadina. She knew her brother Victor lived in their family home there in Altadena, so she drives to the place seven thirty pm on Tuesday. This is when things were popping off. This is about when I got out of my house. So this was some things that we're getting out of control in Altadena and people were scrambling to get out of there anyway, seven thirty pm Tuesday, she goes to Victor's She tries to
help them pack up some of the family's belongings. This is a home that the parents bought back in the sixties on Monterros to drive and her brother, Victor, she says, has been recently suffering from balance vision issues. He's got diabetes. She goes into the house seven thirty ish. She finds him watching the local TV news, getting upset, getting agitated, as you can imagine, as he sees a footage of the fires just in his neighborhood, essentially around his neighborhood.
She says, she starts grabbing all the meds, the seizure meds that he's on that help him calm down, but he starts to feel groggy because of it, so he's starting to drift off to sleep. As she's kind of running around the house packing things up, parents' wedding pictures, things like that, documents, more medications like that, and he's growing deeper and deeper into sleep. She's loading up the suv.
She sees the flames getting closer, and a home about a block away starts to catch fire, and she sees the ember start flying, so she runs inside and she tries to grab Victor off the couch.
Hey, you got to get up. We got to get out of here. We got to get out of here right now, and he's just kind of not moving.
He's dead weight, right, and he says, you know, let me just sit here for a couple of minutes, and she hops in her suv drives to the bottom of the street to find out a better idea of what's going on, to get help. She sees a police officer there. He's got his hands full. He says, don't go back up there, and she can. At that point, she looks and the fire had overcome, overcome the street, and can you imagine that moment.
And I opened the front door and just yelled in Victor, we got to get out.
This is it.
We have to get out.
The fire's here.
And I didn't hear him say anything.
I heard him say nothing.
So I ran to the car and I just I just got out beside it to step in the debris and see if he can call his name, and maybe he's unconscious, maybe he's in a corner somewhere. And he turned around and he looked on the ground, and he was there. He was on the ground. I didn't want to look because I just didn't want to see my brother like that.
We discovered he had a water hose in his hand, so we think that he might have tried to put the fire out, or tried to make a path to lead.
To his truck, or maybe had dowst himself.
She says, it plays in her head.
Had she been able to go back stay five more minutes, would it have made a difference. I mean, that is the kind of life changing stuff, and I mean obviously not her fault. There's an impossible situation, but that is happening. That has happened time and time again in the past seventy two hours of people you gotta believe, trying to get family members out, realizing it was too late to get family members out that may not be completely mobile.
I can't even imagine.
The other one is this sixty seven year old guy, Anthony Mitchell, retired salesman, amputee, his son in his twenties, bedridden. They both died when the fire hit through Altadena, and there's no listen. There's an excitement. There's an adrenaline pump that comes when you start to talk about when it's happening. In the moment, you know, the images that we had of these embers blowing sixty seventy miles an hour through these neighborhoods and catching tree and house and car and
everything on fire. There's a certain amount of I don't know, nervous excitement about what's going on. But as that fades and we are those you know, feelings of sort of this tingly excitement are replaced by this just thud, this weighted thudd of loss that these people are going to be going through. That, I mean, these entire neighborhoods are
going to be going through. And in Altadena, it sounds like most of the deaths were kind of concentrated within a couple of blocks, so the stories don't get a whole lot better. I don't know if you heard Keana producer. Keana got yet another warning, another alert on her phone just a few minutes ago. So we'll talk with Michael Monks here in a few minutes. We'll also be talking about those false alerts that went out and what the county says they're going to be doing about.
It, and how we're going to kill the person who flew the drone into the super scooper grounding it.
Yep.
Gary and Shannon will continue with our fire coverage right after this.
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