In Smokey and the Bandit, Sheriff Buford T. Justice's son Junior hands him an unloaded gun to shoot tires, explaining it gets too heavy with bullets. This mirrors the Santa Inez Reservoir being empty during fires, raising questions about water supply management in LA. Governor Newsom ordered an investigation into the situation. A fire sprinkler installer notes that most people underestimate fire risks, failing to invest in prevention until losses occur.
Why Was Reservoir Supplying Pacific Palisades Empty? Santa Inez Reservoir was "closed for repairs to its cover" since February. Mon, 13 Jan 2025 04:41:49 GMT https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/why-was-reservoir-supplying-pacific There’s a funny scene in the film Smokey and the Bandit when Sheriff Buford T. Justice tells his son “Junior” to hand over his service revolver so that he can use it to shoot the fleeing Bandit’s tires. Junior obeys his father and hands over his pistol, but to Buford’s chagrin, the hammer falls on an empty chamber. When Buford asks why his son’s pistol isn’t loaded, Junior replies, “When I put bullets in it, daddy, it gets too heavy.”
Junior found that loading his service revolver made the weapon too heavy.
I was reminded of this scene when I saw the news that the Santa Inez Reservoir, supplying backup water to Pacific Palisades, was empty during the fires.
Coincidentally, last April I attended a garden party in Pacific Palisades. The back patio of the magnificent (and now incinerated) home commanded a sweeping view of the hills, including the reservoir, and I noticed that the 117-million-gallon water storage facility was empty.
Does it really take almost a year to repair a water tank’s cover? Or—following the same weird logic that Junior applied to leaving his revolver unloaded—did whoever is in charge of LA’s auxiliary water supply conclude that filling the reservoir would make the structure too wet?
As was just reported in the Los Angeles Times:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered an independent investigation of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over the loss of water pressure and the empty Santa Ynez Reservoir, calling it “deeply troubling.”
“We need answers to how that happened,” Newsom said in a letter to leaders of DWP and L.A. County Public Works.
DWP spokesperson Ellen Cheng said, “We appreciate the Governor’s letter and believe that an investigation will help identify any new needed capabilities for water systems to support fighting wildfires.”
Today I had a long conversation with a man who installs fire sprinkler systems in buildings. Having worked in fire suppression for forty years, he is a walking encyclopedia about fire, how to prevent it, and how to put it out if one flares up. As he explained:
The vast majority of people—including sophisticated people with valuable properties in places with high fire risk—have no understanding of this risk. They believe that big fires that destroy entire neighborhoods are a thing of the past, and they therefore see no compelling reason to invest in fire prevention—neither in the private nor in the public spheres. I can take one look at a property or a neighborhood and spot the risks, but most people don’t believe me when I point them out. Sadly, it seems that people only learn through loss.
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