The catastrophic fires in Los Angeles are far from extinguished, but the blame game is already raging. Apocalyptic images of entire communities returned to ash have been interspliced with a steady stream of critics engaging in a depressing and all too familiar spate of finger-pointing.
Why wasn’t there enough water in the city’s water system to fight the blazes? Why did some city hydrants run dry? Why was the city’s firefighting budget cut?
Politicians, mostly Republicans, quickly mobilized not to help the affected but to score cheap political points.
Apocalyptic images of entire communities returned to ash have been interspliced with a steady stream of critics engaging in finger-pointing.
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly and childishly pointed blame at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling him Gavin “Newscum.” Newsom, he said, refused to sign a “water restoration declaration” that would have allegedly allowed Los Angeles to fight these fires.
Meanwhile, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. attacked the L.A. Fire Department for donating surplus supplies to Ukraine in 2022. The president-elect’s benefactor Elon Musk aimed his fire at a familiar target, blaming the LAFD for “prioritizing DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] over saving lives and homes.”
Other conservatives have blamed “the far-left policies of Democrats in California,” “wokeness” and environmental activists for putting the survival of a “tiny fish” called a smelt ahead of the personal safety of Angelenos.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has taken the brunt of the criticism for traveling to Ghana for the inauguration of the country’s new president days before the catastrophic storm hit her city.
Even liberals have gotten involved in the finger-pointing, with Rep. Pramila Jaypal, D-Wash., head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeting a picture of a burning McDonald’s with the caption, “Corporations got us into this mess, but even they can’t escape the devastating reality of climate change.”
What’s missing from all this — beyond the basic empathy that one might hope would be in ample supply when so many of our fellow citizens have lost everything — is reality.
No, the L.A. Fire Department’s budget wasn’t cut — it was increased.
Despite Trump’s insistence to the contrary, there is no such thing as a “water restoration declaration.” Meanwhile, Southern California water reservoirs have never had more water stored in their system. Fire hydrants ran dry, not because of a lack of planning but because the demand for water as the fires raged simply outstripped the supply. No urban water system has the capability and resources to fight fires like those that enveloped Los Angeles this weekend. Wokeness didn’t erode the capabilities of the brave firefighters battling these fires.
Even liberals have gotten involved in the finger-pointing.
“L.A. County, and all 29 fire departments in our county, are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone clarified on Wednesday. “There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude.”
Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin put it even more succinctly: “We could have had much more water. With those wind gusts, we were not stopping that fire.”
As the great Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak pointed out this week, “You could kill every Delta smelt that ever passed water through its gills … and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference these last few horrific days.”
It would have been preferable if Bass had been in the country when the storm hit, but her presence in the jurisdiction of Los Angeles would not have stopped what could end up as the worst natural disaster in recent American history. Few want to acknowledge the sobering reality that when it comes to natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and even wildfires, Mother Nature is still undefeated. The catastrophe unfolding in Los Angeles is the result of a perfect confluence of environmental factors — that even the best planning likely could not have stopped. A lack of rainfall (L.A. hasn’t had significant rain since July) left the terrain exceptionally dry and susceptible to forest fire. Unusually fierce Santa Ana winds not only spread embers from the fires at breakneck speeds but also grounded water-dumping helicopters, which are the primary tool in fighting such conflagrations. While Southern California’s disaster has brought out the worst partisan instincts, it has also highlighted hubris that we have the foresight and wherewithal to prepare for every possible contingency, particularly the most destructive natural disasters. After the Woolsey Fire in 2008 that ravaged the beachfront community of Malibu, destroyed 1,000 homes, and forced the evacuation of 250,000 people, an after-action report concluded that “the public has a perception that public agencies can always protect them. As an incident the size of the Woolsey Fire shows, this is not always possible.” Even those who rightly note that L.A.’s unending expansion and suburban sprawl — in a region long known for wildfires — has more than tempted fate acknowledge that this week’s disaster was a worst-case scenario. Many have rightly pointed out the effects of climate change in fanning the flames — and the lack of federal attention to the issue — but it’s far from clear that global warming was the direct cause of this week’s disaster. Few want to acknowledge the sobering reality that when it comes to natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and even wildfires, Mother Nature is still undefeated.
None of this is to suggest that we are helpless in the face of nature’s fury. In time, missed warning signs might become more evident, and policies to prepare for the next disaster will hopefully be implemented. Whether Southern Californians will willingly incur the costs necessary to prevent another similar catastrophe is a question to which, I suspect, we all know the answer. It’s easy to blame public officials when disaster strikes, but an electorate that keeps electing climate change deniers, insists on living in high-risk fire areas and resists the higher taxes and restrictive policies that would keep their communities safer makes preparing for natural disasters that much more difficult. The apocalyptic images from Southern California should shock us all. But they also offer a dose of humility. Pointing fingers and casting blame is natural, but humans are not omnipotent. Mother Nature can be subdued, harnessed and even restrained … but ultimately, her fury cannot be stopped.
Michael A. Cohen is a political writer and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. 
