KBUU NewsScript Thu Dec 2 – Another Machete Attack Blamed On Homeless Person – Fire Confirmed To Be Camp Related – Edison VP Falls On Sword For Blackout Failures

=.  Another machete attack … by a homeless person … this one in Tuna Canyon.

=.  Two people are slashed … as officials conform Sunday’s fire was also in squatter camp.

=.  SCE’s executive vice president falls on her sword for the Thanksgiving power blackouts.

=.   She says it was the right thing to do … but city officials say Edison failed to warn them.

=.  The LA County sheriff’s office says the inability of Malibu to call 911 on Thanksgiving Day really scares them.

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There has been another machete attack associated with homeless people.

It was in Tuna Canyon … two nights ago.

That is the same general area where a fire broke out Sunday night … 

And officials now confirm that fire was at an illegal squatters campsite … it burned as a warming or cooking fire got out of control.

This is the same canyon were sheriffs deputies have been trying to relocate homeless persons.

It is also the same area where Sheriff Alex Villanueva claims that the L A County supervisor who represents the area … Sheila Kuehl … has blocked funding for homeless sweeps.

Kuehl’s office has not addressed that political attack .. but has said the sheriff needs to allocate his budget better to deal with various issues,

Bit as for there machete attack … Sgt Jim Braden explains.

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We still continue to have .. we had a 245 assault with a deadly weapon with a machete it was a transient on transient and it record was probably 1 mile up to Tuna Canyon.

Braden says the victim was badly hurt.

NEWSCART 73910 MACHETE BRADEN

The guy was hacked up with a machete and he was taken to Santa Monica.

And it was kind of found out after the fact so they went interviewed the guys are still looking for the suspect they were covered the weapon.

A second victim of the slashing walked down to the 7-11 at Topanga Beach.  

The first victim got out of surgery last night … with serious injuries.

The suspect was not arrested.

And Braden says he expects more violence up Tuna Canyon. 

NEWSCART 

“It’s no different than gangs.  There’s going to be some type of retaliation retaliatory thing for the person that did this.”

Sheriffs Lieutenant Jim Braden… Speaking at the Malibu public safety commission meeting last night.

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The Thanksgiving power outages in Malibu caught Southern California Edison by surprise … and there were delays in responding because it happened all of a sudden … on a major holiday.

That’s the assessment of the number two person at the big electric company … who was the designated target for public anger at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

Almost all of Malibu was turned off … with western Malibu dead for 44 hours.

Eastern Malibu was shot off nearly as long. 

Five circuits for up to 44 hours. 

Jill Anderson is Southern California Edison’s executive vice president.

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“In the very beginning of the event … I think we didn’t see it going to be as large as it turned out to be and we originally didn’t have any customer resources we deployed mobile vans and also set up kind of pop up Customer Care locations. We didn’t have any of those deployed in Malibu because initially it didn’t look like the weather that was going to hit Malibu was going to be as bad as it was.”

As bad as the outages were … what will SCE do what about damages … food that spoiled … Thanksgiving turkeys that had to be tossed???  Will SCE pay damages for that?? In a word … no.

The SCE executive vice president says the company will only pay damages if its negligent acts acts cause the damages.  Jill Anderson says turning off the power to Malibu was not only not negligent… it was prudent … it prevented fires.  Jill Anderson:

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“I can tell you it was the right decision.   I know it was a hard decision … it was the right decision.  During those patrols after the winds died down we found damage in our system.  And we know that as we’ve seen and as we’ve seen in your area that if we aren’t careful about how we manage the system it is going to create much bigger systems than missed holiday meals.”

As bad as the power outages were … that was not what scared the LA County sheriff’s commanders.

They say it was the collapse of the 911 system … the failures of five telecommunications companies … that was the big problem.

There are five telecommunications companies that serve Malibu … two of them with wired Internet phone and cable TV service… And four of them wireless.

How did they do?

As near as we can tell … it was mostly fail.

T mobile appears to have had generators pre-deployed… And did not lose service.

AT&T… Dismal failure.

Verizon… Total system collapse.

In fairness… We should point out that Verizon has big plans to replace outmoded cell facilities in Malibu with a new switches powered by backup generators.

Those plans have been completely stymied by anti-5G activists… Who have convinced the Malibu city Council and planning commission to delay delay delay.

As for the wired communication systems … the Spectrum system offered by charter communications was completely dead. No phone no Internet no cable TV in most areas.in fact spectrum was still dead hours after Power was fully restored.

Frontier fiber never went down… But people may have lost their frontier fiber service because they did not supply battery or generator power to their terminal boxes at their houses.or they forgot to supply emergency power to the wireless telephone’s base stations..

Some people in Malibu still use frontier copper wire DSL and phone service … which in many cases failed.

This news analysis… 

The total collapse of Malibu’s communication system may show that more attention is being paid at City Hall to blocking wireless system generators and wireless system upgrades… than is paid to keeping the wireless facilities up in power failures.

There was failure by public officials to provide some sort of way to contact 911 when communications are backed out. 

No effort was made to deploy CERT team members with portable radios to pre-designated specific spots along Malibu … who could summon fire or sheriffs help via their battery powered two-way radios.

Although driving down to Trancas Market or the Pavilions to summon a paramedic or call in a fire may be primitive… it may be the only way to get an ambulance or firetruck in a power outage.

Sheriff’s Lieutenant Jim Braden.

NEWSCART 73906 BRADEN SCE 

“The scary part for me is that somebody doesn’t have that ability to call 911. Like I said that could cost someone their life (PAUSE) Literally.”

And in fairness … the city was blindsided by this cascading series of outages and failures on a Thanksgiving holiday.

And that was exacerbated by incomplete information coming from SCE. 

City emergency services director Susan Duenas says City hall was not notified … not given any heads up … that outages were even possible.

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“We’re talking about a couple of days without power which is pretty significant and pretty scary and I was on the phone a lot with SCE and Steve McClary. 

“Our biggest concern was people being able to call 911. You know that cold turkey or in ability to have Thanksgiving where you want it is one thing but not being able to call 911 in an emergency is a serious problem.”

SCE is required by state rules to give advance notice … and ratepayers are paying for an expensive weather prediction effort that SCE claims will give advance warnings of blackouts. … so that cities can prepare.

SCE did not do that.

Repeatedly … SCE shut off circuits with zero advance notice … either to the city ..,. the wireless companies … or the general public. 

That left public service providers flat footed.

Power went off Wednesday night in parts of Malibu … without warning.

And with no notice … the city was unable to get its act together. 

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But there was one place where the City of Malibu excelled during the outage. Most traffic lights failed during the outage …as the batteries died.  Most of them were brought back to life when city workers got the city generators hooked up to the Caltrans signal boxes.

Malibu is the only local city doing this.  Power outages hit the entire region … and traffic lights blacked out allover … over the hill.  In Agoura Hills … there were four separate crashes at just one blacked out signal… Agoura Road at Lost Hills Road. 

That’s right next to the sheriff’s office. 

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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu .. FM 99,.1 KBUU and Radio Malibu.net Our 99.1 FM signal went off this morning … we’re transmitting silence.

Apparently the wind damage was worse than we thought at one of our relay points.

That’s not good.  

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The number of people possibly sick with Covid 19 … and who are connected to Malibu High School and Malibu Middle School … has inched upward.

Letters went out yesterday to parents … advising them that they would be contacted in person if their child had contact with five people who either tested positive or who are showing symptoms of COVID-19.

That’s five people out of the 1200 students teachers and staff at the Malibu high school and Malibu middle school campus on Morning View Drive.

Another 13 people are in quarantine after possibly coming into contact with positive cases. Malibu elementary school on point Dume has zero positive COVID-19 cases or symptoms… But two people connected with that school are in quarantine.

Zero positive cases or quarantined people at Webster elementary school in eastern Malibu.

Interestingly… The gigantic Santa Monica high school has zero cases… And zero quarantines.

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In news from up the coast … Camarillo has just turned on its desalinization plant. 

It’s not going to desalinate salt water from the ocean… It’s going to pool salt and minerals other minerals out of water from underneath the Strawberry Fields up beyond point Mugu.

It’s a $66.3 million project… 

The project will take in 6,000,000 gallons per day of underground water that is tainted with salt… Iron… manganese and other minerals.

3.4 million gallons of pure drinking water per day will be sent to Camarillo.

Add about 2,000,000 gallons a day of concentrated mineral solution will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean at Point Mugu.

Camarillo expect to save $50 million a year by not having to buy water from the Colorado river or from the Sacramento delta… Which is where Malibu gets our water.

The wholesale water district that serves Malibu and other Southbay cities is considering a desalinization plant to taking ocean water near LAX dot but it has run into heavy opposition from environmentalists and the Surfrider foundation… And the City of Malibu is opposed to it as well.

The state water project yesterday announced that it will deliver zero water to municipalities this year from the Sacramento river delta.

Instead… Malibu will be relying on the dwindling supply of Colorado river water… Plus ground water pumped up from the Los Angeles basin area and water stored in reservoirs in the inland empire.

Despite this precarious situation … there are effectively no restrictions on landscaping … hosing down driveways … washing cars or other types of possibly wasteful use of water.