Fire coverage thread

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

NBC's Jacob Soboroff finds the burnt-out home where he grew up, as wildfire stories turn personal

The rows of burnt-out homes were shocking enough, until NBC News' Jacob Soboroff came upon the Pacific Palisades house where he had grown up.

apnews.com

Jake Soboroff of NBC News lost his home due to fires.

 

[radiofan2023]

NBC's Jacob Soboroff finds the burnt-out home where he grew up, as wildfire stories turn personal

The rows of burnt-out homes were shocking enough, until NBC News' Jacob Soboroff came upon the Pacific Palisades house where he had grown up.

apnews.com

Jake Soboroff of NBC News lost his home due to fires.

The article says the house where he grew up was burned. Not "The house he has lived in since he was a baby".

 

[davideduardo]

Oh my goodness!!!!

Do they have backup towers in downtown LA or somewhere else in the valley?

A lot of the Mt Wilson FMs have sites on lower "mountains" in the Glendale / Burbank area. iHeart has aux transmitters at the Mulholland Drive site one of its FMs uses as a main site.

This is bad for communications. 🙏

The real issue is all the public service communications gear up there. From police to electric company radio relay gear, Mt Wilson is THE location.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

The article says the house where he grew up was burned. Not "The house he has lived in since he was a baby".

True and it says Jacob Soboroff currently lives near Dodger Stadium in other parts of the article and notes the current residents lost their home.

Channel 7 is back from black: Watch live coverage via TV, app, web

ABC7's over-the-air signal was having issues Friday morning as the Eaton Fire burned near the Mount Wilson Observatory.

abc7.com

Here’s more details specifically how KABC-TV can be reached via TV apps in this link.

 

[cc333]

From what I'm seeing, there is a community group in the Palisades that is trying to control the rebuild process. They're hoping to retain a lot of the original character of the neighborhood. We'll see how successful they are.

I've seen that before, in Santa Rosa and Paradise, among others, and it usually isn't majorly successful, in large part because of this:

The scariest new words in the English language: "I am from BlackRock and I am here to help."

Every time fires like this happen, the big developers swoop in like hungry vultures and buy up the land which has been rendered almost completely worthless so they can build high end luxury apartments, town houses and mansions to turn a tidy profit, while leaving many of the original residents of that land in the lurch because they often lack the money to simply clean up and detoxify the land, let alone rebuild even a small house. And so begins the often cruel gentrification process....

It really hurts to watch it happen time and again, because money talks, and these developers have more of it than all the affected residents combined in many cases.

Hopefully this time will be different, since there's already a pretty high concentration of wealth in many of the affected areas.

c

 

[Doctah]

From Variety: L.A. Reporters Cover Devastation in Their Own Neighborhoods During Wildfires: ‘Feels Like a Nightmare’ and ‘Fatigue Is Setting In’

 

[TheBigA]

Hopefully this time will be different, since there's already a pretty high concentration of wealth in many of the affected areas.

The story I'm hearing in Palisades is that because of the location, and the stunning ocean views, these homes hardly ever went on the market. They were passed down from generation to generation. This is likely the same situation with Malibu along PCH. Obviously rebuilding is a complicated process, with the infrastructure that needs to be replaced. So it's easier when all the details are handled by a contractor. So they might be able to get one to do a group deal. It depends on how many homeowners want to do a rebuild, and how many will just move somewhere else.

 

[KMan]

KNX's Nataly Tavidian also lost her childhood home in Altadena. Her mother was still living there.

She was covering the Eaton Fire Tuesday night overnight and barely was able to keep her emotions in check. She hasn't been back out reporting since - presumably she is tending to her family.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1877253577858543617

In other KNX news, Holly Quan has arrived from KCBS San Francisco and is reporting on scene for KNX.

 

[KMan]

The story I'm hearing in Palisades is that because of the location, and the stunning ocean views, these homes hardly ever went on the market. They were passed down from generation to generation.

Don't forget the Prop 13 tax incentive to do so.

 

[30james]

This is utter devastation my heart goes out to the evacuees

 

[30james]

Some will rebuild others Will be homeless the latter I hope doesn't happen if you are able to donate to the red cross please do so

 

[ericcooper56]

It was headed in that direction earlier. However, there is now another new fire, the Archer fire, in Granada Hills, and a few stations are now covering it live.

Incidentally, an update on the outages: KOCE and KCET have now returned to the air. However, KABC-7 is still off the air. Additionally, I noticed several hours ago (and still the case now) that KLOS 95.5 is off the air. If they have an operating backup transmitter on-air right now, it isn't receivable at my location -- 95.5 is simply noise. Could this coincidence be down to their former ownership by ABC, and a possible continuing co-location for transmission facilities?

KUSC appears to be on reduced power, signal much worse into Riverside thank usual plus I am not getting HD from KKGO which I normally do.

 

[TheBigA]

Here's another summary piece on what radio stations are doing related to the fires:

While Still In Wildfire Coverage Mode, L.A. Radio Stations Quarterback Recovery Efforts.

While Los Angeles radio stations continue to provide coverage of the massive wildfires in the area, relief efforts are beginning to take shape to help victims of the disaster, which

www.insideradio.com

Meanwhile the governor is calling for an investigation:

https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/newsom-calls-for-investigation-into-wildfire-water-supply/

 

[Frequency1]

There are no police or fire radios at Mt. Wilson. LASO is at Mt. Disappointment.

 

[KMan]

In addition to Holly Quon, I just heard Matt Bigler from KCBS out at the Palisades reporting for KNX.

With only 6 reporters on staff at KNX and Alex Silverman having gone out himself to report a couple of times this week, looks like reinforcements are in to give the crew a chance for some rest. Even Pete Demetriou needs to sleep sometime.

 

[crainbebo]

More celebrities lost their homes:
Eric Braeden (Victor on Y&R, Rat Patrol) lost his home of 45+ years.
Also, Milo Ventimiglia of 'This is Us.'

 

[Will_H_69_9]

this Wildfire will go down as the worst disaster in the LA area's history just like how 9/11 & Sandy was New York City's worst disasters, Katrina was New Orleans', Harvey was to Houston and how Helene was to many different communities in the south recently. all of those except 9/11 were natural disasters and 9/11 was man made.

also hearing about Mount Wilson broadcast towers almost going in flames, now if they did went up in flames, then that would be the 9/11 of LA in terms of destruction to broadcasting towers as almost off of New York City's broadcasting signals came from the north tower of the World Trade Center and when it was struck by the plane i think many stations went off the air for a bit then when it went down, they lost signal until backup signals could be established or they moved to a unaffected signal for a bit while they got their replacement signal set up.

now being from North Texas, wildfires destroying Mount Wilson or the World Trade Center's collapse on 9/11 as the source of broadcasting being destroyed would be compared if a EF3 or higher tornado decided to topple all the broadcast towers of North Texas which is in Cedar Hill, TX. so yeah, it;'s important to have backup tower sites and also make sure the primary tower sites don't get destroyed in a disaster.

my thoughts and prayers goes out to those in So Cal right now.

 

[yeoldeschool]

KABC-7 and 95.5 are both on-air again.

There are no police or fire radios at Mt. Wilson. LASO is at Mt. Disappointment.

https://forums.radioreference.com/t...ansmitters-repeaters-are-on-mt-wilson.157150/

If you or anyone else want to find everyone on Mt. Wilson, go to the FCC's ULS database search page, use the "geosearch" feature, and give Wilson's GPS with a one mile radius. You will receive a full database dump.

A few lucky amateur radio operators also have repeaters on Mt. Wilson. There used to be a couple of repeaters up there in the 1990s where many of the area's SBE engineers gathered to chat and ragchew. I particularly remember hearing Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, talking on the air quite often.

As I said earlier, fire crews were able to stop the Eaton fire from reaching the radio & TV towers on Mt. Wilson.

Was this comment to me? If so, yes, I knew about that part. I was asking about something different: whether the Edison power going up to the mountain had failed somewhere shy of the site itself, and if everyone was accordingly on their generators. As opposed to just the KABC/KLOS facility losing its Edison service, IOW.

Don't forget the Prop 13 tax incentive to do so.

Proposition 13 does not cover construction additions, only the parts of buildings that existed when it originally passed. I dread thinking what happens when someone needs to "add" a whole new house. Hopefully there's some provision in the law that grandfathers the old tax rates for re-constructed square footage following fires, earthquakes, etc.

 

[TheBigA]

I was asking about something different: whether the Edison power going up to the mountain had failed somewhere shy of the site itself, and if everyone was accordingly on their generators. As opposed to just the KABC/KLOS facility losing its Edison service, IOW.

That's why I provided the quote from Audacy. They say they've had no interruption. They didn't say if they're on generator or not.

Karl said KABC had a generator failure. So their situation is different from everyone else.

 

[FledSoCal]

my property (not my primary residence) in Altadena was burned down, was a nice single family residence. i lived in the SGV for a number of years and acquired some residential real estate in Alta/PDA/SM. and actually for a time was a member of that little altadena town & country club.

the house was not rented out, as we were doing some work. not looking forward to a long process to rebuild - 1) how to start, 2) scarcity of qualified contractors, 3) prices will be jacked up, 4) the red tape of permits. half of me just wants to sell out and move on.

the great news - no one was harmed.