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.
Bill's leaving, We're coming in, and you know, you kind of have a conversation with Bill and he always says sort of stuff that is it's funny.
Wrong.
Well, I think it's what a lot of people are thinking, but they wouldn't.
Say, yeah, he's just there's no filter on Billy him.
Zero filter.
It's so funny.
And it had to do with me being pregnant.
Well, it's the thing that you find when you're pregnant.
Apparently I'm learning this from Marlow. You know, Marla is expecting in March, March, March March.
And what I'm learning from you is that people see that you're pregnant and they react and sort of reflexibly say something to you. And I think they're trying to help or trying to contribute anyway to the joy, the journey, the adventure, but oftentimes it lands awkwardly.
Well it's it's a whole whole lot of unsolicited advice, that's one way to put it. They're trying to relate and say, oh, yes, this and then you should this is how you should raise your kid, or this is how this is exactly what you should be feeling right now, all of that. But you know, Bill didn't know I was pregnant, So when I walked in, He's like, either you gained an obscene.
Amount of weight. That was a joke, kid, of course, of course it was.
But that was so so he a.
Bill was reacting in the you know, the initial way that so many people that we're like kind of what we're alluding to react when they see it. They go, oh, uh, wow, you're pregnant. Gosh, it's like kind of late in life to have ah yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, he says, why in the world would you be having a kid at your age, which I've.
Heard before and people that way say best wishes, Yeah, exactly, exciting.
Something and uh, he's not wrong.
I mean, this is part of the the the what we talked about obviously, my husband and I John, we talked about this and this was supposed to happen years ago. I mean, I can get into the whole story. I don't know if you want to hear the whole story, I don't think so. But bottom line is that it happened now, and yes, I'm no spring chicken, but that's what IVF is for, and it's it's.
What we wanted and the other thing is And that's why I think it's instructive just to hear you speak about it, is that a lot of people are going to the same thing making the decisions.
You know.
I've heard from so many couples who've reached out and said, you know, am I too old?
It's a personal decision and it's only you can make that decision.
And for us, it was something again that we thought long and hard about and now could not be more excited.
I have to say something, you know, because you hear this a lot and just turned a little bit of for the handle. You know, you're old, so you know, because you're old, they're going to be you know, you'll be old by the time the child.
Is you know, you won't even be able to meet your RANX. Yeah that's what he said, So play the other end of that. Okay, So you have kids when you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty, whatever, and you end up with this argument people going, well, it's too bad that you had kids so young, because it would have been nice if you had enjoyed each other for a while and enjoyed life for that twenty to thirty decade or whatever.
Again, neither's right, right, Sure one is right.
But you can see both perspectives, and I think both perspectives have merit.
It's a complete lifestyle choice. Yeah, it really is.
You know, I lived a lot in my twenties and thirties, and you know here I am, and I had a lot of good experiences and traveled and obviously worked a lot, and now I'm ready.
Well, i'd also say the wisdom of age helps you. I think as a parent, I would think, Again, I don't know.
I'll let you know.
Yeah, we'll keep you updated.
Speaking of updates today, updating the wildfire situation that pressure was would say there was some information the things that people really want to know, And Marley was saying this earlier. Yeah, we're just kind of talking off the air. The things that people really want to know are associated with when they can go back right to these evacuation.
Zones, because there are tens of thousands of people who are still out of their homes right now.
Yeah. I don't know that question was really answered.
No, So Ellie County Scheff Robert Luna.
He said it's going to be at least a week at least, we're at least a week out until people can return home. And this is because I'm referring to and he's referring to if you are in a current evacuation zone, of course, and he talks about debris removal. He talks about they're still coming through the properties and looking for human remains, God forbid.
So it's a process that has to happen.
There's hazardous materials and waste, hence the debris removal, So it's going to be some time. But then Ellie County Board Supervisor Catherine, of course, the board chair, she spoke and she basically said that's basically not an that that is an unacceptable timeline we had. She said, we haven't given the people a concrete date and they deserve that because they're frustrated, they want to go home.
They should have a better timeline.
So she's pressing Unified Command to be able to pinpoint a date of return.
Yeah, and I get that. There there's so many variables, it's very hard to pin down a date. Perhaps, but you do need to plan, you know, And so I get that.
Yeah, I mean a lot of people are. They're staying with friends, they're at hotels. It's it's like CouchSurfing all over and at a moment's.
Notice, couch searching with a family. I mean, yeah, yeah, right. Twenty five people are believed, as Marla was sort of saying, believe to be dead. More than a dozen others remain unaccounted for the Palace Age fire, twenty three seven hundred and thirteen acres again, twenty two percent content, nine deaths in that blaze, fifty three hundred and sixteen structors structures burned to the Eating fire in the San Gabriel Valley
fifty five percent contained fourteen thousand acres. Just over fourteen thousand acres. Excuse me, I had a curb my throat.
I'm here for you.
Approximately, yeah, just over seven thousand structures believe to be damaged or destroyed, including vehicles at sixteen deaths, another and five firefighter injuries in that fire as well.
That's the Eating fire in San Gabriel Valley.
And did you I'm sorry, did you go over the Palisades fire?
Yeah?
We did the policyze so yeah, And as.
A journalist though, and I know we can get lost in the numbers and all of that. I if anyone from cal Fire or La County Fire is listening right now, there is a major discrepancy that is being reported and we need to get to the bottom of it. And this just has to do with structure loss, and maybe not to the average person, it doesn't matter, but I do think it makes a significant difference.
And what do I mean by this?
That La County Fire Chief today and all along for the last several days, has been reporting seven thousand plus structures damaged or destroyed in the Eaten fire.
Seven thousand plus structures.
We've been going with that number at Fox eleven, all of the local stations have been as well in the Parrot Palisades fire, fifty three hundred structures lost there. Well, then when you go to cal Fire on the Incident Command page, which we get a lot of our updates from in terms of containment, those numbers are the same as CALF or as La County Fire, but their numbers for structure loss are about half of what La County Fire is reporting.
So are there discrepancies here that have to be squared?
Yes?
Those, yeah, I mean.
But it's not one or two or a dozen.
It's we're talking fifty percent, which is a significant difference.
Also, we'll get to.
An emerging aspect of this fire in the aftermath, which is the toxic ash in particulate matter.
So we'll get to all of that as well.
There are other things happening too, Middle East to a piece deal appears to be shaky. We'll touch on that. There's actually a lot going on today. We will continue.
Okay, so we're talking about the latest as it relates to our wildfires. The other bit of good news that we heard doesn't come as a huge surprise. But finally most of the red easy for me to say red flag warnings have expired. That second huge, big wind event didn't materialize as terribly as anticipated. So no little to no new growth on both the Palisades and Eaten Fire.
So that is great news.
The only other thing to think about is come Monday, there's another Santa Ana wind.
Event now the end of Tuesday. They say they were saying that the press conference. It's funny I was thinking as they were speaking and they were talking about the fact and obviously, as Marla's just noted, the read well, the wind event that was supposed to be bad, but not quite as bad as the initial event didn't really materialize it, and we spoke to him. We spoke to a National Weather Service meteorologist who had sort of hipped us to the fact that it may not be quite
as bad as originally forecast. So in a way, even the revised forecast didn't really.
Know because he gave it a nine versus a ten last week.
Oh, is that right, he's about twenty percenty. Whatever the however he computed it or calculated it or described it numerically, it wasn't as bad. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder if Karen Bass, who was so embattled. We talked so much about her yesterday and I don't think she'll survive this. But I wonder if she was thinking to herself, you know, she's doing her own calculation, like, well, the forecast is bad, but forecasts sometimes can be wrong.
I'm going to take this trip to Africa and kind of hope that this forecast isn't. Now I think that's a bad don't get me wrong. Well, I was trying to figure out how she somehow rationalized that trip to Africa at a time when her community was likely imperiled by this major weather event.
We live in southern California, So the red flag warnings that people hear.
That's that's all.
They're common.
They're common, very common.
But what's not common when the forecast warning comes with life threatening Well, and that's exactly what she heard before she left.
Look at the wind velocities that were forecast eighty to one hundred mile an hour winds. I mean, I had not seen a forecast like that, and I was a forecaster. Okay, yeah, this is in your wheelhouse. I hadn't seen anything like that in years. And usually you see those wind velocities quoted, and they're associated with mountain peaks where they're typically much
higher winds, et cetera. But at sea level, they were looking at wind velocities, forecast wind velocities in excess of sixty and seventy miles an hour.
I mean, that is an alarming cast.
So somebody either didn't communicate that to her, or she didn't take it seriously, or she hoped it was wrong. But whatever the breakdown was, it is unacceptable and I think she'll pay a huge political price for it.
How much credence do you put into the change dot org petition that's demanding her resignation.
It ain't a good thing. I'll tell you that. It ain't a good thing.
It seems to be sort of losing uh speed, though I.
Think it's because because because things lose visibility over over the days.
Sure, sure, I mean I just I checked it this morning, and yesterday it was at one hundred and forty three thousand signatures. Today it's at one hundred and forty seven thousand, So just four thousand people in the last twenty four hours and needs to get up to one eighty for it to really do something.
And the drum beat to replace her or for her to resign, it's going to fade over the days. And I'm sure again in politics, you hope that you know something else bumps it if you're apologic.
Hey, look at Kevin da leone perfect example. He waited it out. I mean, he lost the election, but he survived Initially.
There is in the Altadena area concern about several things.
First of all, the air is bad.
The toxins that are suspended in the air really bad. In fact, we're going to talk about that a little bit later this hour with a doctor who is a medical contributor I know over there with you at Fox eleven, who will talk about the fact that there is ash suspended in the air and it doesn't show up on air quality maps. So when you see these air quality maps that you constantly see on local news, and you know it's green, it's yellow, it's red, it looks green,
which is a lower level of particulate matter. But the reality is it's not measuring a lot of the toxins that are most dangerous.
Yeah, it's an interesting story because it's pretty deceiving when we show you the air quality sensors in your area, and by and large, despite the fires, despite the eating and Palisades fires, it's currently reading at healthy or at worst case moderate, and that's a green and yellow.
It's not even in the unhealthy or hazardous.
And doctor Michael Daniel he will join us coming up because he's going to explain why that is why the air quality sensors are showing green.
I mean, in a way I have to say, no offense, but I would get rid of the air quality map until it can I mean, in this case, it's giving you almost a disinformation about these.
I agree with you on that.
I one hundred percent agree with you, because if you're even not even listening to you have the TV volume turned off, and you see, oh it's good.
Yes, exactly, And all the all the maps, all the apps, everything, they all use the same information.
And the air quality officials they actually held a webinar yesterday. And I know doctor d I call him Doctor d Danielle will get into this.
They com bear this to the aftermath of nine to eleven.
Yeah, that's precisely it.
There are suspended materials, metallic substances in the air that get deep into the lungs and can produce all kinds of you know, awful health effects. We're talking fires in this first hour, and some aspects of the fires that are not maybe getting the attention that they should.
Yeah, in particular, the air quality out there, and are we being deceived by the air quality sensors that all the meteorologists show and right now they're showing good basically good or moderate air quality, which okay, that sounds like I can go outside. Let's talk more about this with doctor Michael daniel He's an er doctor and he happens to be the Fox eleven medical contributor. I call him Doctor d doctor d Good morning, thanks for being here.
Good morning, Mark and Marla.
How are We're doing well?
But we want to we're investigating these air quality sensors.
What is the truth about our air quality right now?
And why do the sensors say that we have good air quality?
Yeah, as you alluded to and as we discussed on Fox eleven the other night, you know, when you look across the board at the sensors, they're all green. But what people need to know is that they don't measure for a lot of things that we should be concerned about. They check for ozone at the ground level, they check for carbon monoxide, sodium dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and then that particular matter. So that's the smoke from wildfires and things
like that. But when we look at the sheer amount of buildings that have been destroyed twelve thousand plus, you have to think about as bestosed in lead, especially in those older buildings that were put up pre code, things like volatile organic compounds, so that's burning plastics, fuels, household items,
air conditioning, you know, even things like electric vehicles. All that stuff is going to get in the air, and that's not tested for in the AQI, And you know, my concern is we're looking at a potential situation that we had in New York, you know, Post nine to eleven, where you know, first responders were exposed to a lot of carcinogens in the air, you know, right when it happened and in the immediate aftermath of the cleanup in particular.
So you know, I just want people to be aware that AQI, although useful, can be limited and falsely reassuring.
Right, That's what I was saying before, So it's misleading. I mean, in a way, I wish they would suspend posting those maps at least for the moment, until such time as they can tweak these technologies so that they can measure some of the stuff you're talking about.
Can that be done?
This might be a little out of your area, but I mean you're a medical doctor, so you know, you see what these substances do to the body. But I'm wondering if the technology can be tweaked so they can actually measure some of this stuff.
Yeah, no, good question. I've been doing some research and that in particular because that question has come up from our viewers and you know, friends of mine, and of course coworkers and patients too, and you know, the index as it is right now, it's very difficult to measure
lead and asbestos with like a commercial test. And so, for example, the way that IQ Air works, which is the company that generates that map, is crowdsourcing these devices that people have at home that you know, you hold up into the air and they measure the five things, the five common flutins we measure, but to measure lead and asbestos, we don't yet have that type of commercial test. It takes a very specific kind of filter and then you have to you know, do the measurement in the lab.
And so, you know, it'd be great if somebody could innovate and come up with this, because it's going to be an issue for the next days, weeks, and months for all of us in southern Caliberlifornia, whether you're close to the fire, you know, upwards to you know, about fifty miles away, I would say, so that's really going to affect a broad swath of La County that's going to need to be concerned about this for quite some time.
Well, it's got applicability beyond the southern California and California generally, I mean, these fires and wildfires are affecting the west in Canada. We've seen it in other countries as well. So that technology, I mean, as you say, if it can be innovated, it would have a lot of places it could work.
But in the meantime, with your I just want your professional opinion. Do you think that meteorologists should stop showing that map?
Because what's the point?
Right?
Yeah?
No, good point. I mean, you know some of that we talked about. The one of the five pollutants is the particulate matter. And if you look at the size of lead and asbestos, it can be picked up by the particular matter two point five particular matter keen, which are the micrometers, and so those particular substances are within that range. But again it doesn't tell us is it let is it as best those? Is it hydrocarbons? You know? Is it carcinogens? And you may go outside and be like,
I don't smell any smoke. The air looks clean to me, but you may be inhaling things that could cause you trouble in the weeks to months ahead.
Yeah, and in terms of a timeline, and you sort of just answered that, But do we have how long will it take with all the cleanup for those toxins to disintegrate, to to evaporate, evaporate.
Yeah, I was trying to come up with a way to riskstratify for people, and I think, you know, the two ways to look at this are time and distance from the fire. And I think you know, the risk over time obviously is going to go down as the winds pick up and hopefully we get some rain. But I think you know, we're looking at weeks two months, which still hide to marrow risk, particularly when particular matter it gets resuspended during cleanup.
Sure, sure, and there's no way it needs to go on for some time, yes, absolutely, Yeah.
The building materials sort of being resuspended into the air, that's going to be a contemporary concern. And you have all those workers who they wear the masks, et cetera. But they you know, they're obviously suffering the greatest risk.
That's what happened after nine to eleven. Right, it seems like a troubling situation that has to be dealt with, maybe a little more aggressively from the standpoint of talking about how much of this stuff, how much of this in the way of toxicity is affecting us day to day. I would say, even if you don't want to commit, doctor, I would say they should stop showing those maps.
I think it's deceiving the public.
Doctor d Mark was a forecaster for many, many years, so he he would be up there right now, and you'd be the one saying, well, I.
Would say, I don't think we should show them map. That's what I would say. I mean, so, I don't know, but I love that you've put it in some kind of framework for us.
So thank you.
And I think you've identified something else, which is hey, it's it's one problem now, but the problem re emerges in a way as the reconstruction begins, as as we build, you know, back these communities.
So thank you, doctor.
All right, Doctor Michael daniel Er, doctor and medical contributor at Fox eleven, thank you so much for joining on CAFI.
A lot of Fox eleven. Of course, thank you.
I'm a little biased.
It's great my old stomping ground. I mean, if you go to Fox eleven now, they used to have a life sized statue of me in the lobby at Fox a lot.
We moved it into the newsroom.
Oh did you Yeah, because I heard that they'd put it in storage, but it's nice that it's in the newsroom.
Yeah, yesterday you heard Gary Hoffman. He called in from his fantasy baseball camp in Arizona.
Gary is living his best life. He really is a shortstop and third base. Apparently, that's right. State Farm making a major announcement. They have said they will offer renewals to residential policy holders that are affected by the La County fires. They had previously indicated to many of those
policy holders that they would be dropped. This decision apparently applies to policies held by homeowners and owners of rental dwellings and residential community associations that include condo associations.
The Department of Insurance said that among the thousands of policies State Farm had targeted for non renewal, more than seventy six hundred were in the Palisades fire zone. There were also five hundred and twenty five more and San Gabriel valleys eaten fire.
So if your policy lapsed before January seventh, you're not included in this. They're not like doubling back and saying, hey, I know we canceled you, but you're going to be now you're going to be covered. But they were saying, essentially, if you got to notice saying we're going to cancel you, now we are not going to cancel you.
That's nice of them.
The pressure, I'm sure comes from the state. And you know, the relationship between insurance companies in the state of California is one in which the state has to approve their rate high es et cetera. So I think there is a dance that is done there.
Yeah, because we heard late last week when the insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Lara, he came out and he had urged insurers to suspend pending non renewals in both those fire zones, and then he announced a moratorium on doing that. In fact, he had expanded the boundaries of the moratorium he moratorium he issued last week that bars insurers from issuing new cancelation or non renewal notices for one year.
Yeah, exactly, so precisely what Marla is saying that the you know, if you had a non renewal pending, you are then covered by this, But if you had a non renewal already and they suspended your coverage, you're not covered by this.
How much is this all going to cost.
The head of State Farm says it's too early to determine, though at least one estimate has put them over two hundred billion, which would exceed Hurricane Katrina and make it the most expensive disaster in the nation's history.
Which is why these insurance companies are pulling out of California because the price tags on many of these dwellings that are covered.
Those price tags are enormous.
This is some of the most expensive real estate in the world, and so these insurance companies are taking a.
Big hit from this time, huge, huge hit covering them.
In addition to that, State Farm also announcing that it is canceling it's Super Bowl ad.
The Super Bowl, of course, is less than a month away.
I believe February second, if my memory serves correct, it's on our station.
It's on Fox. But well it is what the day, February ninth.
February ninth, Thank you, Amy, It's you were close seven days off.
I wanted to.
Hear you should sit a week early. The pregame show does start a week early. It does the thing about State Farm Insurancemorrow. I don't know how much football you watch or sports you watch, but certainly football. State Farm is all over football like a bad smell. I mean, you cannot find anything that doesn't have State Farm signage. Those State Farm ads they use, the the athletes, they you know, it's it's utterly ubiquitous.
Is everywhere? Is it?
Jake?
Is that j sweet?
Jake? Yeah?
Yeah.
So but last year they're commercial their Super Bowl commercial with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. That one one USA Today's annual Popularity Contract.
Yeah, that's where they vote for the most part popular I think among the readership and the public.
Basically, they had planned something four February ninth, and they're.
Pulling that because they're getting a lot of pressure. I mean, State Farm is in a tough spot, and insurance companies are in a tough spot just generally because they are there's some reputational damage to them as a result of what's happening in California. Them pulling out of many of these areas bad luck, right, and so there. It's interesting tho, though, that it spills over even to their ad agency because they've already baked this cake, they've already shot this spot.
You know, it's expensive. These are immensely costly, and yet they're they're dropping it.
So yeah, it says here they spent twenty three more than twenty three million on national linear TV since January one.
Crazy and so super Bowl, of course biggest annual event, and advertisers spend tremendously to both produce the spots and then to put the spots there in the Super Bowl. Don't look for that State Farm commercially. I know many of you might have been looking forward to that State Farm. It will not be but I'm sure Jake will still be there and that halftime show sponsored by State Farm, with all the signings for a State Farm, it'll all be there. And by the way, it's not just State Farm,
you know all State Farmers. They're all over sporting events as well. It's just a weird and by the way, I think I posted on this it's optics. It's a weird thing when you're in the middle of the fire as we were last weekend, and you see these insurance company adds everywhere about how we'll be there for you. State Farm will be there. All you're in good hands with all State Farmers is there for you.
You know that guy who it sounds like you're the guy the pipes.
But the reality is, guys, you're not really there for us, are you. We're living it. We're living the nightmare, absolutely all right. Much to do as we continue, Gary and Shannon Show, Mark Thompson along with Marletteus sitting in, and we'll get to Alta. Dina talk to an Altadena resident who lost his home in the Eaton fire next. It's actually a remarkable story and we'll tell it next.
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 app.