Angry Crowd Confronts Malibu City Council Over Woolsey Fire Response
MALIBU (CBSLA) — A harrowing month of wildfires, evacuations and then rain prompting fears of mudslides led to several people venting angrily at a special Malibu City Council meeting.
Tuesday night's meeting was the first since the destructive Woolsey Fire ravaged the communities in and surrounding the Santa Monica Mountains. So many people were at the meeting, city officials had to open spill-over rooms.
Residents were angry over a range of issues, from the way evacuation orders were carried out to the way supplies for those who stayed were brought in.
"The control over the evacuation orders needs to be better structured and some sort of transparency to when people can go back," one man said.
"It's amazing, absolutely amazing, that they had to bring supplies in by surfboard, kayak and boat. C'mon," another man said scathingly.
One woman, who said she worked in real estate, said people would leave Malibu because they don't feel safe after the deadly and devastating fire.
"I'm stuck all the way in Broad Beach, took me five and a half hours to get to the city, and I was one of those people stuck behind that big smoke thing," she said, describing her ordeal in evacuating from Malibu.
After hours of public testimony, council members acknowledge there had been problems in the handling of evacuations.
However, at this point, there is no timeline for a new plan to deal with future fires on the scale of the Woolsey Fire.