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.”
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.
Note the cover in the above photograph from 2022. The rationale for the cover—the construction of which was completed in 2012—was to comply with EPA regulations.
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.”
Hellbound and Down 