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California Gov. (and stealth presidential candidate) Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Saturday night following a devastating Los Angeles fire that has shut down part of Interstate 10 downtown «until further notice,» according to local officials. While officials have yet to reveal the cause of the fire, it seems obvious from local reports, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
«Officials said that they wanted to prepare the public for significant delays in the coming days [and] weeks as all lanes within a two-mile stretch of the I-10 downtown are closed until further notice,» reported KTLA-5. Los Angeles doesn’t have enough freeway to begin with. Having I-10 partly closed downtown is going to make a bad situation worse.
«The fire was so hot that it melted some of the freeway’s steel guardrails and concrete pillars,» according to the story. «It eventually spread to eight acres before being contained.»
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass compared the damage to the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Back then, she said, «Caltrans worked around the clock to complete emergency repairs to the freeways… and this structural damage calls for the same level of urgency and effort.»
Here was the scene on Sunday after the flames had been extinguished.
Interstate 10 is closed in both directions in downtown LA between Alameda St. & East LA interchange. Caltrans is assessing damage from a fire under I-10 & will reopen I-10 as soon as possible. In the meantime, use other routes! Here’s a peek under the freeway. pic.twitter.com/tuuiegdCpV— Caltrans District 7 (@CaltransDist7) November 12, 2023
«More than 164 firefighters fought the blaze,» according to LAist, «which was largely contained within three hours.
