The “Do Not Drink” notice in the Palisades will be lifted Friday as recovery continues months ahead of expectations
LOS ANGELES – Mayor Karen Bass today announced that the “Do Not Drink” notice in the Palisades will be lifted tomorrow, Friday, March 7, as she continues to lead the recovery effort in the Palisades months ahead of expectations. Mayor Bass also highlighted progress and emphasized the City’s commitment to expediting the rebuilding process and getting families back home and back to work as quickly and safely as possible.
“In the two months since the devastating fires broke out, we've made historic progress in rebuilding," said Mayor Karen Bass. "Water and power have been restored and last week, we completed Phase 1 of the debris removal process – both months ahead of expectations. We're leading the fastest recovery effort in modern California history, and we won't stop until this community is made whole."
The Mayor made the announcement alongside local leaders and federal partners at the City’s new Unified Utilities Rebuild Operations Center, where LADWP customers and contractors can work directly with agency personnel on the restoration of water and power services to properties in the Pacific Palisades.
Mayor Bass also highlighted urgent recovery and rebuild actions taken:
Fastest Hazardous Materials Clearing in EPA History: Phase 1 of the debris removal finished in 28 days – months ahead of expectations – and removed more than 300 tons of hazardous materials, such as exploded lithium ion batteries, from the Palisades. In comparison, Phase 1 of the debris removal process for the devastating Camp Fire in Paradise, California took more than twice as long to complete.
Debris Removal Moving at Historic Pace: Phase 2 of the debris removal process has already been completed at some properties, speeding up the process to get residents back home.
Record Rate of Utilities Restoration For Standing Homes: Power has been safely restored to nearly all structures in the Palisades. Safe drinking water will be restored to all of the Palisades affected by the Do Not Drink notice on Friday. In comparison, safe drinking water was restored in Paradise, California 18 months after the Camp Fire.
Reinforced Burn Areas Prone To Slides: The City shored up burn areas ahead of wet weather this season by urgently installing more than 7,500 feet of concrete barriers and laying down more than 6,500 sandbags.
Provided Relief and Protections to Fire Survivors:
Cleared the way for residents and business owners to rapidly rebuild their homes and businesses by cutting red tape and bureaucracy.
Expedited the reopening of schools and child care centers to help children and families move forward.
Opened a Disaster Recovery Center to centralize critical resources from 70 city, county, state, and federal agencies. More than 8,800 households and counting have been helped so far.
Opened the One-Stop Rebuilding Center to help streamline the rebuilding of homes and businesses.
Worked with the Governor’s Office to ensure homeowners can access as-built plans and allow the City to automatically re-issue permits for homes built in recent years.
Opened four new Impacted Worker and Family Recovery Centers to help residents with job placement, financial assistance, youth opportunities, and more.
Signed new City ordinances to:
Deliver tax relief for local businesses that were destroyed or severely economically impacted by the wildfires.
Prohibit residential evictions for tenants housing people or pets displaced by the wildfires for the next year.
Prohibit price gouging for essential housing, lodging, and consumer goods and services, including contractor services for debris removal and rebuilding, during a declared state of emergency.
Brought Helpful Information Directly to the Palisades Community: The Office of Mayor Bass hosts virtual community briefings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, each attended by hundreds of Angelenos, to share information on recovery and rebuilding. Mayor Bass worked with the County Assessor and the California Insurance Commissioner to get tax relief and insurance resources to community members.
LADWP crews will continue their testing of water in the Palisades to ensure safety for residents. In addition to reiterating the already-announced commitment for undergrounding powerlines in the Pacific Palisades, Mayor Bass also outlined the following near-term upcoming actions:
Encourage resiliency in rebuilding homes, businesses, and community facilities and make utilities more fire-hardened.
Continue cutting red tape by creating a new program to allow accredited architects and engineers to self-certify building plans to speed up the City’s building approval process.
Continue to work with the City Council to waive all unnecessary building permits and planning fees using Mayoral executive authority.
LADWP crews worked 7-days a week to flush and test water pipes and worked closely with the state in order to safely and quickly lift the Do Not Drink notice entirely. See the below tips from LADWP on flushing your water before use:
Prepare your site for flushing. Remove aerators and screens from all faucets. Set water-softening devices and filters, both point-of-use and whole-house, to “bypass mode.”
Flush outside plumbing. Open and flush any external fixtures and hose bibs/faucets for about 10 minutes or until water is clear and temperature is constant.
Flush cold water. Run all cold-water faucets on the property beginning with the faucet closest to the water line. Run the water at the highest flow (or fully open) for about 10 minutes or until water is clear and temperature is constant. Then turn off all faucets in reverse order.
Flush all toilets and urinals. Do this at least once but repeat if the refilled water is not clear.
Flush hot water. Drain your hot water tank to discharge any accumulated sediments. Wait for the hot water tank to refill and flush as in Step 3.
Clean aerators and screens and reattach to faucets, shower heads, and fixtures.
Flush appliances. Run an empty dishwasher and washing machine once on the rinse cycle. Empty ice from ice maker bin; run ice maker and discard 2 additional batches of ice.
Restore all removed filters and reset all water devices from “bypass mode.”