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PACIFIC PALISADES, LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Nearly a year after the Palisades Fire destroyed thousands of structures, some Pacific Palisades residents rebuilding their homes say delays by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have slowed their return, prompting an apology from the utility’s interim general manager.
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Watch 7 On Your Side Investigates’ full report on Eyewitness News tonight at 11 p.m.
More than 7,000 structures were destroyed in the fire, leaving homeowners to rebuild in an area with aging infrastructure. Some residents say navigating the utility’s permitting, inspection and power restoration processes has become a major obstacle.
7 On Your Side brought you the story of Palisades Fire victim Jack Nguyen who was one of the first to rebuild but couldn’t get his power turned on by LADWP.
“We have been through hell literally and you would think that if anything, the bureaucracy would be shortened and we would be able to ease through the process,” said Nguyen.
And then there’s Rebecca Baron who had to rebuild using a generator because she never got temporary power and has had this open trench, dug for powerlines, almost all of construction.
“Every time LADWP says to jump, we say how high and we do exactly what they ask, but they never follow up,” said Baron.
So we took these issues, and more, to Dave Hanson, LADWP’s Interim General Manager. He met us at LADWP’s rapidly growing Pacific Palisades Inspections and Permitting Support Center in the Marquez section of the Palisades.
“My deep apologies to everybody that’s had to deal with any sort of a delay on the account of DWP,” Hanson said. “We’ve been having evening meetings on virtual with a couple of customers that have specific concerns. I just met with three on Monday and some of the things they were telling me that they were being told by our own employees were pretty disturbing. It’s hard not to get upset at that, but also, you know, it’s something that we all have to keep focused on. This is a tragedy.”
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“These people lost everything that they own, their memories, their keepsakes, that they just want to go home. that’s all that matters. I want to be part of the solution, and so do our 13,332 employees,” Hanson added.
Hanson says the solution is already underway. LADWP has increased staffing in the Palisades and established a military-like management structure with a forward operating base also at that Marquez location with a theatre commander in charge of all of it.
“We had some high-level managers out here before, but what we didn’t have was a single point of person that was over everything with ultimate responsibility. That’s been rectified,” said Hanson.
ABC7 reporter Josh Haskell then asked Hanson “Some people may, again, appreciate what you’re saying, but they may say, ‘Why didn’t they do this from the beginning? They knew how many homes burned and how many had to be rebuilt and come back online?'”
“That’s a very fair question,” said Hanson. “I think the volume of inspection requests ramped up quicker than we were staffed for and we were dispatching our inspectors from an area in the valley instead of locally to here. We’ve fixed that. We’ve hired five or six additional inspectors just for this area.”
Hanson says part of the reason why it took LADWP so long to get to the robust Palisades operation they have now is that they had to move their Palisades home base three times. It’s finally on land they own which will help them achieve their goal of bringing underground power to the palisades by 2031. DWP also launched a customer portal last week to help those rebuilding and their contractors navigate LADWP’s checklist.
“When I’m talking to a customer that I know just wants to go home and I’m the reason they can’t go home, I do take that personal,” said Hanson.
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