Malibu To Reexamine Outdoor Sirens In Aftermath of Texas Warning Fiasco, Local FM Stations May Also Be Used To Wake People Up

The current death toll in the Texas flash floods of last week now stands at 134 … and it is clear now that the summer camp directors received and ignored National Weather Service warnings of deadly flooding about to happen.

But there apparently were no warnings from local law enforcement to evacuate … 

No sirens.

Monday night … the Malibu city council put sirens and an FM radio warning system back into play.

Five years ago … the federal government had given 750 thousand dollars to Malibu to build emergency notification systems … money for a series of emergency sirens … or possibly a radio system.

But the city council walked away from that … there were objections to placing more than 20 tall poles around the city … and some felt the sirens could not be heard in high winds. 

That was then … 

Last January … the massive fire was burning towards Malibu … the power was out … cellphone systems were down.

Councilman Doug Stewart.

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“On the night of January 7th … we were sitting in the emergency operation center … and we were afraid we were going to have to alert the western half of Malibu to evacuate that night with no power on.

“How are we gonna do that? 

“Luckily we didn’t have to do it, but we had something like the LA-RICS system or AlertFM or something similar … we might have been able to do that, and that would’ve been our salvation.”

Stewart is referring to two types of emergency alerts that can wake people up … alert them that they need to get up and maybe get out.

One of them … LA-RICS … is a theoretical system that could use LA county’s police and fire radio system to wake people up.

But it requires radios that are in essence police walkie talkies … they are very expensive … complicated to set up … and have never been used for broadcasts to consumers. 

The other … Alert FM … is on the market now.

It uses simple … consumer grade FM radios as pagers.

It would allow the city emergency workers to wake people up if there’s an emergency. 

There’s also the possibility of sirens.

Like we said … many people in Malibu hated that idea … and it was rejected five years ago.

One public safety advocate … Scott Dittrick … told the city council last night … let’s rethink that.

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“Given the disaster that just occurred in Texas … people had their cell phones off. 

“We never counted on that. 

“I would like to ask you guys to revisit having the sirens.

“Because if we are really smart about this, we may be able to prevent a few deaths.”

There are problems with any alerting system .. given Malibu’s mountains and canyons.

Sirens can’t reach every house. 

And AlertFM cannot reach every house … either.

Alert FM uses a subcarrier on FM radio stations … its special radios sit silent and monitor for an official alert. 

Then they go off … like an old fashioned pager.

The idea is to use KBUU in western Malibu …  and some stronger LA radio stations in the eastern part of the city … to put alarms into every home. 

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“The AlertFM system is not dependent on just KBUU. 

“It’s actually any FM radio station that you can receive at your house that’s on the system. 

“The idea of having a 21 century alert system is within our grasp.”

Council members voted last night to ask for a quick recommendation from the Public Safety director … and the advisory commission.

Council member Bruce Silverstein said neither system will be 100 percent effective … but both might be tried. 

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“From what I’m hearing it sounds like the AlertFM or something like it is probably the thing that we are going to end up pursuing. 

“I’m thinking let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

“If the sirens hardly will reach people inside, but the alert FM – even as things currently stabnd, will reach a number of people but not everbody …

“Let’s not not move forward just because we can’t reach everybody as long as we can start reaching people.”

Council member Haylyn Conrad agreed that sirens should eb revisited … and the FM system should be looked at … 

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I think that’s a great idea. 

“I would also like to direct the Public Safety Commission to look back into the sirens, maybe just as a pilot.  

“Maybe just one???

AlerttFM is not cheap … and as KBUU has noted … the FM signals from its three Malibu transmitters are designated by the FCC to be low power signals … maybe too low to carry the emergency traffic.

And sirens cannot be heard in every location … given Malibu’s canyons. 

KBUU management is insisting that an independent engineering study be conducted to make sure the Alert FM signals – via KBUU and any other radio station – are strong enough … in most of the city … to work.

And KBUU management wishes to emphasize that carrying the AlertFM subcarrier on its radio frequency will not be under the station’s control … and will not tune peoples’ home radios to KBUU programming.

The matter will come up to the Public Safety Commission August Sixth … and the city council next month.

Council Facing Reality After Fire: Support For Stand-Alone Arts Center Fades

So … what is the city council going to do with all that vacant land … and all those requests for parks … swimming pools … arts centers?

Last year … the city council was moving quickly to build parks facilities and a standalone arts center on some of the five vacant parcels that are municipally-owned in Malibu.

That was before the Palisades Fire destroyed one tenth of the city.

The issue before the city council Monday night was extending the contract for its vacant lands outreach coordinator … Tripepi Smith … for a relatively measly 50 thousand dollars.

But it turned into reflection by the council on where to go.

Support for a city arts center … a standalone theater and gallery … may have come and gone from the favor of the Malibu city council.

City council member Haylynn Conrad .. last night. 

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“The city has changed … and we don’t need to belabor over some sites that aren’t going to be possible to build on. 

“I actually looked through this and I don’t see a lot of support for the art center, which is bonkers to me.

“In the surveys that came back … I see open space … grass field … and community pool on every lot.”

Conrad was looking at the opinion polls taken by a consultant company called Tripeppi Smith … over the last two years.

The city council had embraced the theory of putting an arts center in the civic center area … maybe on a vacant lot donated by the new Cross Creek shopping center. 

Athletic fields for kids would be placed at the Heathervliff Lot on Point Dume. 

Bruce Silverstein said his preferences have crystalized …. And and arts center is not on his list. 

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“I can see us trying our best to move forward with doing something with Heathercliff right now. 

“I don’t know how we’re going to do anything with the chili cook off lot (the Ioki Lot) or with the Triangle Lot (PCH at Webb Way), as long as these (fire reconstruction equipment yard) projects are ongoing. 

the project that has the Loki lot being utilized I envision is going into the indefinite future. 

“We thought it would be an easy thing to put some ballfields there or other sports facilities and that’s just not happening. 

“I can tell you I’m not gonna be supportive of building an art center right now, especially at the La Paz lot, which is very challenged.”

But then the question comes … with one tenth of the city burned down … and the city staff drowning in fire recovery and other major projects … can the city afford building parks?

Or an arts center?

Mayor Marianne Riggins said last night … the city can’t afford not to.  ARTCENTER MR 71397

“It may seem confusing to people why we’re still pursuing these sort of things, when we have so many people in our community displaced.

“I think we need to be looking at making these improvements … so that residents that are out there making a choice whether or not to move back to Malibu, will move back to a community that has community-serving amenities such as a community recreation spot … that has a community theater … that that they’re coming back to a place that is welcome to back with, everything that a community should have.”

In the end … the council decided to extend the Tripepi Smith contract for another six months …. and to keep the planning process going.

LA-DWP Claims It Did Not Fake Data When It Changed Its Records To Cover 5 Hour Gap In Killing Power In Fire Area

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is denying that its workers went back to change computer logs that show a half day delay in shutting off power to the Pacific Palisades as a fire roared out of the hills … heading towards Malibu.

As we reported Friday … lawyers for some Palisades fire victims accuse the DWP of tampering with records regarding to the circumstances that caused the Palisades fire.

They say that DWP went back into its computer records to erase a four hour delayed arrival… A delay in shutting off power lines in the fire area.

A DWP spokesperson admitted yesterday that there was a gap of four hours and 38 minutes after the time that an order was given to turn off electric power to the Pacific Palisades.  

Ellen Cheng told the LA Daily News it would be a mischaracterization to call it a “delay.”

And she said the changes made to DWP logs three weeks after the fire were not an attempt to hide the four hour failure to kill the circuits. 

Cheng told the newspaper that changes were made to the computer log, but not by the same worker who tried to deenergize the circuits and not in an attempt to hide the gap of nearly five hours. 

Instead, more information and times were added to the log to give a clearer picture of what transpired, she said.

Although the cause of the fire has officially been determined, lawyers are operating with evidence that DWP powerlines may have sparked and contributed to at least one of several fire originations that merged together.

The lawsuit also claims that DWP logs show that the power company did not kill energy to the city circuits in the Palisades until 6 PM the night of the fire… About eight hours after the fire broke out.

The lawsuit alleges that the energized lines resulted in separate spot fires all over the palisades.