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When fire fighters at the scene of the catastrophic Pacific Palisades fire got the wrenches out to open the fire hydrants…they were dry. And that, friends, is the avatar for all that is wrong with the incompetent leadership of Los Angeles and the state of California: a dry fire hydrant. 

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I could have sworn that water was somewhere close to the top on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Yep, there it is, number one. Jesus described himself as “living water.” It seems like water’s kind of important to sustain life and put out fires.

Where’s the water, Gavin Newsom? 

We thought it was terrible when Newsom and the previous Democrat tenant of the governor’s mansion, Jerry Brown, forsook food and water for people to send millions of acre feet per day of fresh water into the salty ocean, during droughts and rainy days alike, to save a bait fish. 

But a lot of people in California didn’t really connect the dots and think it affected their lives. After all, Jerry and Gavin have our best interests at heart, right? 

Wrong. 

It is quite a different story when you can see your house burning down and there’s no water. 

Welcome to the party, pal. 

Rick Caruso, a developer who owns Palisades Village and also served as a commissioner on the L.A. Department of Water and Power board, says the lack of water is from the mismanagement. Caruso, who lost to Karen Bass for L.A. mayor in the last election, says the reason there was no water in the hydrants is because the Department of Water and Power failed to fill the reservoir. 

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 “We’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. It should never happen,” the L.A. Times reported. Caruso lamented, “The firefighters are there, and there’s nothing they can do.”

Caruso is being quoted by the L.A. Times because the city’s mayor is currently on a junket to Africa and was unavailable for comment.

“This is a window into a systemic problem of the city — not only of mismanagement but our infrastructure is old,” he said.

In fairness, we note that low water pressure in fire hydrants has happened before. Indeed, the L.A. Times reports it happened in 2022. “In November, hydrant failures complicated efforts to combat the Mountain fire in Ventura County when inactive water pumps delayed the delivery of hillside water,” the woke newspaper of record reported. Pro tip, L.A.: Some cities test fire hydrants.

But things are even worse than you can imagine in California.

Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Pastor Jack Hibbs amplified a message by President-elect Donald Trump, who has been railing against Newsom’s radical resource decisions for years. 

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Hibbs said, “Every single time the California voter had the opportunity to bring water not only to all of California but to our farmers and our growers, Newsom stood against it.”

California’s Democrats have mismanaged the state’s most precious natural resource, after people, to favor things other than people.

As I explained in the story “Incompetence Is Why Fire Insurance Companies Have Fled California“:

California has always suffered from Santa Ana winds, wildfires, and hot weather. Those things haven’t changed. What has changed, however, is the state’s management of resources and its response to fires. California is a state of 40 million people and the state has roughly the same water capacity as when Willam Mulholland oversaw the construction of the 233-mile-long L.A. Aqueduct back in 1913. 

Why doesn’t California squirrel away more water? 

The last reservoir built in the most populous state in the country was finished in 1979 — the New Melones Lake reservoir in Northern California. It holds 2.4 million acre-feet of water. 

A new reservoir is on the books to be built near Sacramento by 2034. Plans for it started back in the 1950s. Newsom says he hopes construction will start in 2026.

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The Oroville Dam is in disrepair. 

California taxpayers have demanded more water retention and voted to tax themselves to get it. That money reportedly is sitting unspent. So far, Newsom and his Democrat bureaucrats have done nothing to retain the millions of acre feet of water.

And then, there’s always this solution for Palisades, Malibu, and fires that are close to the coast: 

If California Democrats don’t use the usurious amount of taxes jacked from citizens to help actual citizens then what good are they as leaders?