Firefighters are rushing to clear dry vegetation and cut firebreaks before even more dangerous weather conditions occur in Los Angeles in the next few days, and in the meantime, the search for bodies of the dead in the devastated neighborhoods continues, the British newspaper writes. “Telegraph“.
The publication quotes California Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the fires were probably the worst natural disaster in the country's history “in terms of the costs associated with it, in terms of scale and scope“.
The newspaper also points out that the National Weather Service has issued the highest level of warnings for strong wind gusts, which are expected tomorrow and Wednesday, which will again increase the risk of any fire becoming a devastating disaster.
Meanwhile, the winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump, who returns to the White House in a week, continued to make accusations, taking advantage of his social platform “Truth Social“ to criticize Newsom and other representatives of the California authorities for the way they worked before and during the crisis, the newspaper writes. “Guardian“.
On Friday, Newsom ordered an investigation after reports emerged that a critical water tank was not connected to the network and that some emergency faucets had low water pressure or ran out quickly, the publication said.
“Guardian“ commented that Trump and other Republicans focused their criticism on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for signing a budget that took $17 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Democrat Bass was used to traveling the globe as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the newspaper wrote. „New York Times“.
The newspaper quoted an interview she gave before becoming mayor of Los Angeles in which she said that if elected mayor, „not only will I, of course, live here, but I will not travel abroad“.
That promise was spectacularly broken, the newspaper wrote, noting that when a series of deadly and destructive wildfires broke out in the Los Angeles area last Tuesday, the mayor was in Ghana, West Africa, for the inauguration of the country's new president.
A review of her public schedule over the past year shows that Bass traveled outside the country on official business at least four other times in the months leading up to her visit to Ghana - once to Mexico for the inauguration of President Claudia Sheinbaum and three times to France for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the „New York” notes times“.
Before the wildfires, Los Angeles voters accepted - and in some cases even welcomed - the mayor's identity not only as a city leader but also as a Washington-style global player, the newspaper commented. Now, however, her decision to leave the country at a time when the National Weather Service was warning of “extreme weather conditions with fire danger“ has triggered a political crisis for Bass, the publication points out.
When she returned to the United States, Bass faced unpleasant assessments of the city's handling of the fires, the “Los Angeles Times“ wrote. She stood silently at the airport while a reporter from “Sky News“ bombarded her with questions about her decision to go to Africa, the newspaper said.
Video footage shows Bass keeping her eyes down as the reporter persistently asks her if she should apologize to the city's residents for her decision to travel to Africa and if she regrets cutting the fire department's budget earlier this year, the newspaper said.
This is not the first time that the mayor of Los Angeles has been out of town during a major crisis, the Los Angeles Times noted. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Mayor James K. Hahn, who was in Washington at the time, spent several days in the capital without being able to return to his workplace, as all domestic flights were canceled.