A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power worker took nearly five hours to respond to an order to de-energize electrical circuits during the catastrophic Palisades fire, then attempted to change a computer log to make it appear he had arrived much sooner, according to an amended lawsuit filed Wednesday, July 9.

The suit, which blames LADWP for damages caused by the devastating fire, amends a complaint filed in March and contains new allegations of city mismanagement and various attempts by LADWP to cover up its part in stoking the fire that destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and businesses and killed 12 people.

The California Parks and Recreation Department also was added Wednesday to the suit, filed under the name “Grigsby et al,” for allegedly allowing a smaller blaze extinguished days earlier on state property to smolder and rekindle Jan. 7 as the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.

“I’ve been doing wildfire cases for a long time now and I’ve never seen the level of anger and mistrust from my clients (toward the defendants),” said Alexander Robertson, one of the attorneys in the lawsuit. “People were angry before, but now to learn the additional facts, they are livid. This is literally salt in a very raw wound.”

‘No evidence to support claims’

LADWP spokesperson Ellen Cheng said in an emailed statement that the agency’s heart goes out to all impacted by the fire.

“But there is no evidence to support claims, nor does this complaint allege, that LADWP equipment played a role in starting the Palisades Fire, and we are confident that LADWP was not responsible for any of the tragic losses that the fire caused,” Cheng said.  A federal investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.

Conducting their own probe, plaintiff attorneys found evidence that an LADWP worker was ordered at 1:40 p.m. Jan. 7 — during the early hours of the devastating fire — to go to the Pacific Palisades substation and de-energize the electrical circuits for Palisades Village and surrounding neighborhoods. The worker did not arrive at the substation until 6:18 p.m. and was not able to de-energize the circuits because the antiquated equipment failed, the suit said.

Altered log ‘inexcusable’

With flames fast approaching, the worker fled the substation. Twenty-two days later, on Jan. 29,  the worker entered the utility’s computer log and attempted to alter the time he arrived at the substation from 6:18 p.m. to 1:47 p.m., trying to eliminate the long delay, the suit alleged.

“There’s no logical explanation for going back 22 days later and trying to change the time. It’s inexcusable,” Robertson said.

Lawyers contend that energized power lines throughout the area triggered scattered fires that contributed to the rapid spread of the main blaze. The suit also portrays the attempt to alter computer records as part of a larger campaign by LADWP to cover up its part in the unprecedented destruction of the community.

Reservoir focus of suit

Much of the amended lawsuit focuses on the 117-million gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir, which had been drained nine months earlier and was awaiting repairs on a 160-foot tear in the cover.

The empty reservoir is believed to have contributed to the lack of water power at some fire hydrants.

The suit faults LADWP for not having a backup plan for the dry reservoir and for not doing yearly underwater inspections of the cover as required by its own policy and state regulations. The damage was discovered in early 2024, three years after its last inspection.

LADWP officials tried to mask their failure to conduct the required annual inspections by changing their policy to require inspections every three years, despite a history of damage and tears to the cover, the suit said. Furthermore, the suit faults LADWP for allegedly dragging its feet on the maintenance and repair of the reservoir cover.

When a similar tear occurred in 2022, the reservoir was drained, the cover repaired and the structure refilled in three months. Yet nearly a year had passed — and a fire had ignited — before the utility showed any sense of urgency on the latest tear, the suit said.

On the morning after the Palisades fire began, Andrea Yip, a property manager in LADWP’s Water Operations, sent an email to the repair company, Layfield USA Corp.

Yip wrote, “Our management has reprioritized the repair of this reservoir and would like it to happen sooner due to the recent fire in the Pacific Palisades. What is the earliest date your crews would be available to be on site for repairs?” according to the suit.

If the inspection schedule had been followed, the tear could have been discovered earlier, before the damage was bad enough to require the reservoir to be drained, the suit said.

“This ‘wait until it breaks’ plan of maintenance to save on the cost of properly inspecting, repairing or replacing the cover resulted in fire hydrants running dry during the fire,” the suit said.

Robertson added: “It’s unbelievable it took the town burning down to make this a priority.”

Because the reservoir was empty, water-dropping helicopters were forced to fly long distances outside the fire zone to refill their tanks, losing a total of six hours and 25 minutes of time during the critical initial attack on the fire, the suit said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department had warned as early as 2004 that a back-up reservoir was needed for firefighting helicopters if ever the Santa Ynez reservoir was drained, the suit said.

Attorneys believe the Palisades fire, which spread to Malibu, was caused by smoldering embers from a blaze called the Lachman fire six days earlier on a state parks hiking trail at Skull Rock. While the Lachman fire was contained within hours, no one kept watch or used thermal imagers to make sure it did not reignite, the suit said.

Attorneys further criticized the city for allowing city-owned vacant lots to become overgrown with brush despite local ordinances that they be cleared, adding fuel to the flames.

The allegations are the result of an investigation by law firms Robertson & Associates and Foley, Bezek, Behle & Curtis as well as retired U.S. Magistrate Judge Jay C. Gandhi, who together represent 3,300 victims of the Palisades fire. The probe looked at internal LADWP emails obtained through Public Records Act requests, analysis of Los Angeles Fire Department radio transmissions, electrical fault data, video surveillance footage and flight radar data for water-dropping helicopters.