Pastor Connie DeVaughn talked to 40 Eaton fire victims about that horrible night and not one mentioned paying attention to social media, where posts by county officials listed coming Santa Ana winds and red flag warnings in the hours leading up to the fire.
About half of these Altadenans — mostly members of her congregation, Altadena Baptist Church — lost their homes, and the rest removed smoke and ash from their damaged homes. However, they did own cell phones and many said they did not get the evacuation alert on their phones telling them to get out, as the Jan. 7 – Jan. 8 firestorm was burning through their town.
While a just-released report analyzing the alerts, notifications and evacuation policies during both the Eaton and Palisades fires praised Los Angeles County for the early weather notices, it also said cell phone alerts did not reach everyone, because cell towers did not transmit the messages, as they were non-functioning due to emergency power shut-offs from utility companies.
“One couple was sitting in their house, waiting to hear from sheriff deputies or firefighters to tell them to leave immediately. They were waiting for the old-fashioned kind of alert,” she said on Thursday, Sept. 25, adding perhaps more foot patrols with bullhorns would be a better option.
Others characterized the McChrystal Group’s “after-action review” of alerts and evacuations commissioned by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors as a failure of a system that is supposed to protect people from natural disasters.
Whipped by winds closing in on 100 mph, the erratic Eaton fire changed direction, from the Angeles National Forest above Eaton Canyon and east Pasadena toward the west and then southwest going west of Lake Avenue. It wiped out rows and rows of homes in unincorporated Altadena as it morphed from a wildfire into a “community conflagration.”
The Eaton fire resulted in at least 19 confirmed deaths and nine non-fatal injuries, destroying 9,400 structures and damaging 1,000 others, while impacting 23,000 residents.
Community activist Zaire Calvin, 48, who lost three family homes in the Eaton Fire, said the review “shines a harsh light on what many of us in Altadena already knew: the infrastructure meant to protect us is outdated, underfunded, and unprepared for the realities we live with. Evacuation policies are inconsistent, communication systems failed, and critical agencies remain short-staffed.”
Calvin’s sister Evelyn McClendon, 59, died in the fire. His extended family, including his 85-year-old mother, now live scattered throughout the area. Calvin said the report highlights not just broken systems, but broken priorities.
“For decades, decisions about infrastructure have been made without centering the people most at risk,” he said. “The result is predictable: communities like mine bear the heaviest losses, while those with more resources recover faster. That cannot continue.”
The report cites weaknesses, including outdated policies, inconsistent practices, and communications vulnerabilities” as some of the causes. Also, it says staffing shortages in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and within the Office of Emergency management added to the problems of a disjoined alert system.
In the report, it said “heroic firefighters” acted bravely, fighting fires that moved quickly and suddenly turned toward the houses as fuel. Many said they had never seen any fires like these.
Perhaps DeVaughn’s idea of getting more boots on the ground is not possible. But she and others said there has to be a better way to alert people.
Martin Gordon, chair of the Pasadena Community Coalition, lived west of Lake Avenue near Loma Alta Drive and Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. His home burned down and he never received an evacuation alert. He only knew about the fire when his wife called him.
“The excuses don’t hold water. You almost killed us all,” Gordon said. “Not sure there is enough money to account for the pain and suffering dumped upon me and my community.”
Many didn’t wait for authorities to tell them what to do. They relied on friends and neighbors to plan their escape.
“What I know is that in the absence of a public evacuation system, neighbors banded together,” said Joy Chen, CEO of the 8,500-member Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
“Our emergency evacuation network was a pickleball WhatsApp group, because the county one failed. It was obvious we were evacuated way too late.”
What she hopes to come out of the findings is a more workable evacuation system.
“We evacuated each other. My family evacuated around 7 p.m. but I’m in the area that didn’t get an evacuation order until 5:46 a.m. and that was after people had died,” she said.
Pinpointing the Eaton fire’s next move became next to impossible for authorities because there was no aircraft to help them see the movement of the fire, the report stated. High winds kept away both surveillance crafts and water-dropping aircraft.
This hampered the alert notices because authorities did not know where the fire was going next, the report said.
Chen, who is a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, said WhatsApp messages and phone calls among neighbors helped them triangulate the trajectory of the fire.
“Equipment and personnel shortages were magnified under the extreme conditions of this incident. Compounding this were gaps in situational awareness tools and communications interoperability, which impaired real-time coordination,” read the report.
Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Altadena, said the report was not about placing blame. “I called for this independent review to make sure we had a clear, fact-based look at how alerts, warnings, and evacuations were handled. This isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about learning lessons, improving safety, and restoring public trust,” she said.
Altadena Town Council member Nic Arnzen also said the report could be a help to the community recovery.
“I don’t think it offered us any surprises. But I hope it provides clarity, because clarity brings comfort,” said Arnzen. He and his husband Ray and their family lost their Altadena home in the fire. “The more information we can get out there, the more we can make fixes and continue moving forward.”
Calvin said he wants the community to get involved with any new kinds of alert and evacuations systems. Too often, a lack of input from affected people makes for poor policy choices, he said.
“True safety will come only when infrastructure is rebuilt not just for efficiency, but for dignity, justice and for the safety of the people,” Calvin said.
SCNG Staff Writer David Wilson contributed to this article.