After Gavin Newsom tooted his own horn about how much California has learned its lesson about fire prevention, and shoveling out $170 million for just that purpose, someone on X sent up a drone over the famous empty Pacific Palisades reservoir ... and found it still empty:

Business as usual, empty reservoirs, and the L.A. Department of Water and Power still makes $750,000 a year. Perhaps the state has a new illegal alien benefit to dole out. The reservoirs were specifically built to ensure a large supply of water for firefighters to fight fires in the event the inevitable happened. It did, and the reservoir was "under repairs" for years, making it empty.

Obviously, they don't care.

And just as appalling, amid all the bragging about Los Angeles 'rebuilding' and 'rising up' after January's conflagration, someone sent a drone up to take a gander at how that's going:

Still a wasteland. They're going to go the full Managua, it seems, leaving the waste and rubble all around with no rebuilding permitted -- they've issued a grand total of 12 rebuilding permits, obviously hoping their property taxes will force the owners to sell to political cronies of their liking.

Yet they're still issuing gaslight propaganda like this:

Since the first day these firestorms ignited, Governor Newsom has been on the ground leading an all-in state response. 

The Governor deployed resources before the fires broke out – growing to over 16,000 boots on the ground at the peak of the state’s response. And in the hours that followed, Governor Newsom launched historic recovery and rebuilding efforts to help Los Angeles get back on its feet, faster. 

Even before the fires were out, Governor Newsom worked closely with outgoing President Joesph Biden to secure a presidential major disaster declaration and then coordinated with the Trump Administration to ensure full-throated federal support for Los Angeles. 

That work has paid dividends as California is on-track to deliver the fastest major disaster cleanup in American history. The current pace of debris and hazardous waste removal is months ahead of the cleanup timeline for the Camp, Woolsey, Hill fires in 2019 and Tubbs Fire in 2017/18, which at the time were themselves the fastest of their kind. 

That work has paid dividends as California is on-track to deliver the fastest major disaster cleanup in American history. The current pace of debris and hazardous waste removal is months ahead of the cleanup timeline for the Camp, Woolsey, Hill fires in 2019 and Tubbs Fire in 2017/18, which at the time were themselves the fastest of their kind.

Sorry, pal: We saw the videos.

Was there ever a state as badly mismanaged as this one? Either change comes, or the state is going the way of Managua.

Image: Screen shot from X video