For many residents of west Altadena, it’s hard to shake the feeling that they were victimized twice by the January firestorm that swept into their neighborhood.
Not only were massive swaths of their neighborhoods destroyed in the blaze, but hundreds were forced to flee in dangerous conditions because evacuation alerts came hours after smoke and flames threatened their community. Many believe the delayed alerts in west Altadena were a key reason all but one of the Eaton fire’s 18 deaths were there.
Revelations about the delay, made by The Times in January, sparked outrage toward Los Angeles County officials, who were tasked with issuing evacuation alerts, and an ongoing independent investigation into what went wrong.
Despite continued community anger and frustration, no one has yet filed suit against the county for the lapse.
Almost a dozen residents told The Times that they were, at one point, considering a legal case against the county over its delayed evacuation alerts, but as the six-month deadline to file such a claim rapidly approached, more and more people abandoned the idea.
Several decided after talking to lawyers they couldn’t risk jeopardizing any settlement with Southern California Edison, which hundreds of residents already have sued, alleging the utility started the fire and should be held liable — potentially to the tune of $24 billion to $45 billion.
Others worried that legal hurdles could make a court battle unwinnable. Many, such as Heather Morrow, simply realized they didn’t have the time or wherewithal to keep going, as much as they supported the effort.
Morrow was planning on filing a legal claim against the county — in the hopes that an attorney might eventually take up the cause — but after a few weeks of consideration, she decided she couldn’t devote that much time to another exhausting effort, on top of the complicated rebuilding process and an art show she’s putting on that honors Altadena’s humanity.
“I would still like answers,” Morrow, 55, said. “I just decided that it’s not an effort that I have time to do. … I just decided I’d switch my energy more to a positive thing.”
The decision has left some in an unsettling state of limbo. They fear they can’t rebuild or move forward without transparency and assurances that mistakes won’t be repeated. Others simply want answers from Los Angeles County officials about why or how their section of town was left behind, so they can process their trauma or prepare for the future.
County officials confirmed this week that no lawsuits have been filed against the county related to the Eaton fire. It wasn’t immediately clear whether any claims — a precursor to a lawsuit — had been filed.
Morrow said she does worry that residents may never understand what went wrong the night of Eaton fire without pressure from a legal case.
“I don’t know that there will be an answer,” Morrow said. “Hopefully they’ll get there, hopefully they’ll figure out that they need to tell the community what happened. … If the truth doesn’t come out, there’s no lesson to be learned.”
Los Angeles County officials have repeatedly declined to share information or answer questions about what happened with the delayed evacuation alerts in west Altadena on Jan. 7 and 8, citing an ongoing, independent investigation into the fire’s evacuation process by disaster management firm McChrystal Group.
In a statement this week, the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center said residents “deserve an answer to what happened with evacuations in West Altadena.” However, the statement said county officials had no timeline when that would come. Officials said they would not speculate on what the independent investigation would find, or what might be included in McChrystal Group’s next update, which is scheduled for late July.
The company’s last report simply shared the status of the investigation, without any substantive information. McChrystal Group did not respond to questions from The Times about ts next report.
An electronic evacuation order was not issued for residents west of North Lake Avenue, the town’s east-west divider, until about 3:30 a.m. Jan. 8, nearly nine hours after the Eaton fire broke out and several hours after smoke and flames began to threaten the area. Some neighborhoods in southwest Altadena weren’t ordered to evacuate until almost 6 a.m. People east of North Lake, closer to the fire’s origin, received their first evacuation alert about 6:40 p.m. Jan. 7, according to a review by The Times.
The disparity was particularly concerning because west Altadena was known as an enclave for Black homeownership, and remains home to a much more diverse population compared with neighborhoods east of North Lake.
To many, it felt like an obvious case for a lawsuit. Not only did their electronic evacuation alerts come hours after the area became unsafe, but many residents reported seeing no emergency personnel in the area at the time they ended up evacuating.
“I didn’t hear any fire engines,” Morrow said. “They could have gone through the streets doing a megaphone to evacuate. If the system’s failing, there’s other ways to notify people. … I don’t understand why there was no notice.”
But as the coalition of west Altadenans looked further into pursuing a lawsuit against their local government, the more challenging it seemed.
No attorney agreed to take on their plight, and several lawyers advised residents that such a case could potentially fracture payouts from Edison, if the utility tries to deflect liability to the county.
Experts said suing a government entity is much more challenging than suing a private company. There also appears to be no precedent in California for a case successfully proving liability related to delayed or failed evacuation alerts.
But the most glaring hurdle would be getting around the broad immunity that government bodies in California have from failing to provide fire protection or evacuation alerts, said Neama Rahmani, president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm in Los Angeles, which is handling Eaton fire cases against Edison.
“Failing to provide fire protection or insufficient fire protection or firefighting services — they are absolutely immune from liability on that basis,” Rahmani said. “These cases are very, very, very difficult.”
Rahmani said any attorney who agreed to take such a case would be giving residents “false hope,” as he expects most judges would dismiss such a case.
It also would be hard to attribute harm or damages specifically from the county’s failure for evacuation alerts, said David Levine, a professor of law at UC San Francisco.
“It’s going to be really hard to separate out the category of damage that you could lay at the feet of the L.A. County officials,” Levine said.
Given all the challenges of such a case, Rahmani and Levine said they thought the circumstances were better suited for the public sphere, actions such as contacting elected officials and lobbying the county’s Board of Supervisors.
“The remedies are in the political realm, not the legal realm,” Levine said. “That’s probably a far better route if you’re really looking for prevention in the future, accountability — far better than litigation, because in this instance there’s just so many hurdles.”
The county has said it is committed to learning from what happened in Altadena.
“We will also spare no effort in addressing any findings found [through] the multiple after-action reviews that the county is currently engaged in and cooperating with,” it said in a statement. “These processes are deliberative, thorough, and intended to bring substantive change to how we serve our residents.”
But many residents question whether the McChrystal report will shine a light on what exactly went wrong or county officials will ever accept full responsibility for their mistakes.
One woman who was determined to file a claim against the county over the failed evacuation alerts decided at the last minute she didn’t want to risk compromising her case against Edison after a lengthy discussion with her attorney.
The woman, who requested anonymity for fear she could be subpoenaed in a future lawsuit, said she wanted to hold government accountable. In the end though, she said she faced an impossible choice: “Do you want accountability, or do you want money? … Do you want to be made financially whole? Or do you want to live in a county that has learned from its mistakes and acknowledged its role in harming you?”
Mark Douglas was among the first people calling out the county’s missteps during the evacuation, starting an Instagram page with his partner called Altadena West of Lake, where they continue to advocate for accountability and call on the county and local leaders to better protect and respond to the needs of Altadena. He said he wasn’t against the idea of a lawsuit against the county — and that he’d hear out any lawyer if one took the case — but he’s decided to focus his time on mounting public pressure, raising awareness about all that went wrong.
“All we want is answers,” said Douglas, who lost his west Altadena home to the fire. “There was no coordinated effort to warn people, to knock on doors, to go up and down the street with sirens … to me that is the bar for failure. … There was just this feeling that the whole town was left to burn, especially west Altadena.”
Morrow said she’s found some new peace, focusing on her photography show that details the aftermath of the Eaton fire. The exhibit, called “Bearing Witness: Fragments of Humanity,” is set to debut July 12 at the Artists & Makers Studios in San Gabriel.
“There was humanity here and now there’s just these fragments,” Morrow said. “We’ve got to continue to move on though. We can’t live in that misery — or the anger.”
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