Palisades Has 3 1-Million Gallon Water Towers; After 15 Hours At 4X Demand, They Ran Dry

[hatrack]

Ed. - Not a conspiracy, not incompetence, not an evil plot. Water demand at unprecedented levels because of a fire beyond anything the city of Los Angeles has seen before, plus the physics and time of pumping water uphill to fill the water system.

As firefighters battled three wildfires raging across Los Angeles in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the water tanks supplying Pacific Palisades – where the largest of the fires broke out – ran dry. Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer and CEO of the Los Angeles department of water and power, told reporters that by 3am Wednesday, the three 1m-gallon tanks serving the Palisades had been depleted.

“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades. We pushed the system to the extreme,” Quiñones said during an early Wednesday morning press conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”

Although all 114 water tanks serving the city of Los Angeles were completely filled before the fire, water use in the Palisades caused the first of three tanks to run dry at 4.45pm on Tuesday, followed by the second at 8.30pm and the third at 3am Wednesday. As those tanks – located in the high-elevation Palisades – emptied, it became more difficult to refill them from lower-elevation reserves.

Emphasis added.

“Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants in the hills of Palisades,” Quiñones said. “Because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used before it [went] to the tanks, we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough. So the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in our trunk line.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/08/los-angeles-palisade-fire-water-tanks-empty

[pfitz59]

1. Physics and mechanics

Laws of nature, not man. MAGA nuts will never get it. They are screaming about 'negligence, incompetence, over regulation'. OK, so tax those mega rich residents and build better water systems. Oops, easier to play the blame game than actually identify and fix the problem.

[Johonny]

2. I demand the fish story be retold

Again and again.

This just in, a lot of America's infrastructure was built a long time ago and can't face the modern demands.

[speak easy]

7. :facepalm: There were fish in the water towers!

That explains it. Like raking the forests, all this could have been avoided by breaking out the rods and reels.

[Maeve]

3. And virtually no rain in the past 8 months. And 85 mph winds

[wcollar]

4. Normal Design

I work for a civil engineering firm that specializes in water systems. That is a standard design. It was set up with reserves.that would cover “typical emergencies”. What they faced was not something they could have imagined when the system was designed.

Welcome to a whole new world! With climate change we’re only going to see more of this…

[Frank D. Lincoln]

9. Yet Trump and other Republicans think climate change is a hoax.

The implementation of Project 2025 will gut many policy measures and systems that are designed to fight climate change.

Actor James Woods consistently votes Republican, but when his house burns down due to out of control wildfires, he criticizes Democrats for being 'incompetent' when the underlying cause was climate change.

That these wildfires started out of season (for California wildfires) in the first place speaks to the reality of climate change.

Republicans will never learn.

[Strelnikov_]

18. NOAA is in the process of developing Atlas 15

The NOAA atlases are the standard source for rainfall probability data for engineering design.

Atlas 15 will include not just historic depth frequency, but projected D-F for Climate Change scenarios. Once completed, this would be the definitive source for making CC hydrology estimates for general engineering purposes.

This was funded through legislation in 2021.

Unfortunately, the work will not be completed until 2026/27. I fully expect it to be killed.

[Strelnikov_]

17. The Engineering profession needs get in front of what is coming

Over my career, I have seen too many times where ‘averages’ are used for design, with no allowance for risk.

Contracted to do a design, use the typical values. The ‘profession’ needs to adopt an approach to broach the subject of risk based designs to clients.

LA, with their hills, have the opportunity to build some serious elevated storage.

My rice bowl the last number of years has been riverine hydraulics. Procedures I have developed using NCHRP guidance indicates, for Iowa and adjacent, a 12% increase in rainfall resulting in a 25% increase in discharge resulting in a 2 to 3 x shift in probability (the historic 100 yr discharge will be more like the 25 yr discharge near the end of the century). This is for a ‘moderate’ carbon scenario which is too optimistic. I am presenting this as the minimum to be considered. Higher risk designs need to consider the higher carbon scenarios, which are grim from a precip standpoint (30%+ increase in precip).

Most designs being built today are obsolete out of the gate.

[IronLionZion]

5. When people complain about the rain here in DC

I respond that rain keeps us safe from wildfires.

There was a DUer yesterday stubbornly denying that wind spreads wildfires. That person may have been a troll.

[ananda]

6. Yes, we have lots of trolls here.

You can always tell the true Democrats
from the trolls, even when they try to
be sneaky about it and appear resasonable.

[Kali]

10. the fuck?

series? denying wind has anything to do with fires?

[IronLionZion]

11. Yes, that person was advocating a "rake the forests" solution

of clearing out brush and arguing that wind doesn't blow fires to other areas with brush.

There's nothing wrong with clearing out brush or doing other fire prevention methods. The wind denial was a big tell that the person may be a troll.

[yagotme]

13. The 3 legs of fire:

Fuel
Heat
Oxygen

Without all 3, there is no fire. Oxygen provided at a high rate (wind) increases heat, and accelerates the fire. Wind also blows embers (heat) to new fuel sources, starting fires ahead of the main line. That person must be an idiot, or a troll. Or both.

[ananda]

8. Very interesting. Also, this feed from BBC is very helpful.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5y81zyp1ext

[LSparkle]

12. Rick Caruso is already running against Karen Bass

Caruso has been on local news lately pushing the water shortage angle and blaming incompetence. He’s a wealthy real estate developer who lost the mayoral race to Bass and lived in the Palisades (I think he lost his house). He’s also a pal of TSF and is probably hoping he can stir up enough discontent to launch a rematch. Sick use of grief for political gain ...

[maveric]

14. It's a shame they can't get seawater out there.

I read that there are storage issues involved with that.

[druidity33]

15. Really high winds and helicopters don't mix well....

otherwise they would be doing just that.



K&R

[LeftInTX]

16. As long as the power is turned off!