Residents were already on edge as more fires broke out across the Los Angeles region, traumatizing millions of people who feel no end in sight after four days.
Then came another jolt in the form of a text alert on Thursday afternoon.
This was mistakenly sent to every mobile phone in the district – home to around 10 million people – warning them that the fire was close and they should prepare to evacuate.
Rebecca Alvarez-Petit was on a business video call when her phone started ringing.
“An EVACUATION ALERT has been issued in your area,” the text message read.
The sound echoed around her as all her colleagues received the same startling message.
“It was like a huge panic that I was watching in real time,” she said.
She and colleagues began to investigate and try to see if they were in immediate danger.
Momentary relief came in the form of a corrected warning telling them to ignore the warning, but that soon gave way to new anger, she said.
“We’re all on pins and needles and sitting anxiously by our phones, staring at the TV, the radio – trying to stay as informed as possible because there wasn’t a good system in place,” said Ms Alvarez-Petit, who lives in West Los Angeles.
“And then this. It’s like—you’ve got to be kidding me.”
The death toll from the wildfires has continued to rise, with at least 10 people known to have died, and that number could rise.
For many, anxiety about saving lives and property has turned into frustration at handling fires.
Frustration of the mayor
Officials acknowledged some of the complaints, from hydrants drying up that hampered firefighting efforts to questions about preparedness and investment in fire mitigation.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass returned to the city from a pre-planned trip to Africa to find it in flames. On Thursday, she faced intense questions about the region’s preparedness, its leadership in this crisis and the water problems that have let down firefighters.
“Was I frustrated by this? Of course,” Mayor Bass said, when asked about the water issues and whether the area was adequately prepared. She emphasized that it was an “unprecedented event”.
Like other officials, she stressed that Tuesday’s fires could have spread because of strong winds — the same winds that prevented planes from dropping water or fire retardant on the flames. She said the city’s water systems and neighboring fire hydrants were not built to put out thousands of acres of fire.
She noted that there will be a review of how the incident unfolded and how officials and agencies handled it.
“When lives are saved and homes are saved, we will absolutely do an evaluation to see what worked, what didn’t work, and to correct or hold accountable any body, department, individual,” she said.
“Right now I’m focused on lives and homes.”
Questions about the lack of water
The unfolding disaster turned into a need to understand why it happened and how it escalated into the most devastating fire in Los Angeles history.
As one of the now five wildfires burning in Los Angeles County approached Larry Villescas’ home Tuesday, he grabbed the only tool he could – a hose reel.
He and his neighbor quickly dealt with the embers that fell on their homes from the Eaton Fire and ignited the grass.
Then the hose dried up.
He watched the house of his neighbors in Altadena burn. Then there was a bang – a nearby house was on fire and it sounded like it had exploded. He had to go.
As he drove, he watched as the fire engulfed his garage.
“If we had water pressure, we could fight it,” said Mr. Villescas standing in front of the charred remains of his house.
He remembered seeing firefighters that night – as the community burned – sitting in their trucks, unable to help.
“I remember my anger. It was like ‘do something’ but they can’t – there’s no water pressure,” he said. “It’s just infuriating. How could this happen?”
Some experts say the water shortage is due to unprecedented demand, not mismanagement.
“The problem is that the scale of the disaster is so large that thousands of firefighters and hundreds of fire trucks are pumping water,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Water Resources Institute, told the BBC.
“Ultimately only so much water can flow through the pipes at one time.”
Other neighbors shared the opinion that the state was not prepared despite regularly seeing devastating fires.
Hipolito Cisneros, who was surveying the remains of his now-destroyed home, said utilities in the area have been in need of modernization for years.
“We’ve lived here 26 years and we’ve never tested it,” he says of the fire hydrant at the end of his block that failed to draw water when it was most needed.
Down the street, Fernando Gonzalez helped his brother search the ruins of his home of 15 years.
He noticed that his own home in Santa Clarita — about 45 minutes away in Los Angeles County — was also threatened by another type of wildfire.
“We were just on standby,” he said. – It’s all around us, you know.
