The independent review ordered by L.A. County to investigate emergency alerting and evacuations during the Palisades and Eaton Fires makes no mention of a major blunder that caused widespread confusion and undermined the integrity of the county’s alert system at the height of the January emergency.
Officials initially struggled to explain why, on Jan. 9, a wireless emergency alert with an evacuation warning was delivered to nearly every phone in the county - nearly 10 million people - some receiving it multiple times. Elected leaders and emergency management officials broadly acknowledged the error made subsequent alerts less credible and damaged public trust.
The error was later blamed on a glitch in the county’s third-party software system, Genasys, possibly caused by a network disruption. But the 130-page report from The McChrystal Group, a consulting firm hired by the county, makes mention of neither the error nor the investigation.
In response to a request from KNX News, one county official indicated it was because the errant alert was actually about the Kenneth Fire, which ignited on Jan. 9, and the McChrystal report’s scope was limited to the Palisades and Eaton Fires. However, the alert was delivered countywide - overlapping in both time and geography with the two major fires.
An official response from the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center told KNX News the incident was not included because it was previously addressed in a report released by Rep. Robert Garcia’s office. That report, however, calls upon the county for further inquiry:
“The independent after-action review by the McChrystal Group, ordered by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, may want to further investigate Genasys’ claims of what caused the error, and how a network disruption would have occurred,” the report said.
If The McChrystal Group conducted such an investigation, it was not included in the final draft of the report.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
A spokeswoman for Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents the area impacted by the Palisades Fire, told KNX News: “This will be among the Supervisor’s questions to McChrystal and County Counsel because she agrees that this is likely a question residents reading the report will have and they deserve to understand why that is not part of the report.”
Officials acknowledge a draft of the McChrystal report was reviewed by county agencies prior to its public release. “For a document of this significant impact on the agencies being reviewed, standard practice includes a validation step where the draft AAR is reviewed with stakeholders,” said Helen Chavez, a spokeswoman for Supervisor Chair Kathryn Barger.
Chavez said this process is necessary to ensure recommendations are “realistic,” but said the county made no “substantive changes” to McChrystal’s findings or recommendations.
Multiple cities and agencies declined to participate in interviews for the after-action review, including Los Angeles, Pasadena, the Federal Communications Commission, and the state Office of Emergency Services. Others, including local emergency response agencies in the San Gabriel Valley, were not contacted by McChrystal. Sources told KNX News that limits the report’s ability to reflect a complete picture of the complex response.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM