{"id":69224,"date":"2025-11-25T14:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T14:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69224\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T14:35:09","slug":"delays-in-alerts-for-hazardous-fire-at-port-of-l-a-spark-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69224\/","title":{"rendered":"Delays in alerts for hazardous fire at Port of L.A. spark concern"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Los Angeles Fire Department waited nearly six hours after responding to a massive hazardous materials fire<\/a> at the Port of L.A. on Friday to order residents to \u201cget inside IMMEDIATELY and close all windows and doors\u201d due to potential toxic smoke. <\/p>\n

The department\u2019s shelter-in-place order for areas of San Pedro and Wilmington was then lifted<\/a> at 6:30 a.m. Saturday as fire crews gained the upper hand on the stubborn blaze aboard cargo ship One Henry Hudson.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t until 8:58 p.m. Sunday \u2014 more than 38 hours after the order expired \u2014 that many residents received a series of alerts informing them the order had been lifted.<\/p>\n

In addition, some residents in Rancho Palos Verdes reported erroneously receiving shelter-in-place alerts from the city of L.A.\u2019s emergency alert system. The city of Rancho Palos Verdes released a statement<\/a> via email and social media around 1:30 a.m. Saturday instructing residents to ignore the order. <\/p>\n

These time lags and errors have sparked concerns among residents, including about the effectiveness of regional emergency alert systems \u2014 an issue that surfaced during the Eaton fire in January<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The L.A. Fire Department and the city\u2019s Emergency Management Department did not respond to The Times\u2019 requests for comment Monday.<\/p>\n

\"San <\/p>\n

Firefighting crews battle an electrical fire on the One Henry Hudson on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

A Times investigation previously revealed that there was a delay in the county\u2019s evacuation orders<\/a> in the area of Altadena where 18 Eaton fire deaths occurred<\/a>. <\/p>\n

During January\u2019s firestorms, evacuation orders intended for a small area of Calabasas were accidentally sent countywide. A similar phenomenon took place this month when an internal test of the city of South Pasadena\u2019s emergency alert system sent a message to phones across L.A. County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are truly appreciative that there\u2019s an emergency alert system in this city and county, but it\u2019s less than helpful when alerts go out late,\u201d said San Pedro resident Sandra Waddell, pointing to the tragic results during January\u2019s firestorm. <\/p>\n

Waddell said she was concerned about the approximately six-hour delay between when the toxic fire was first reported and when the shelter-in-place alert was sent. She also noted that this was not the first time alerts were sent to residents in the wrong geographic area. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems there\u2019s still work to be done fine-tuning these systems,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Fire Department first responded to reports of an electrical fire originating below deck on the 1,100-foot cargo ship One Henry Hudson at 6:38 p.m. Friday. <\/p>\n

The incident was declared a major emergency as 186 personnel were deployed to the scene of the hazardous material fire wearing protective gear such as body suits and oxygen masks.<\/p>\n

Around midnight, the Fire Department issued a shelter-in-place order on its website and on social media. Residents were told to shut windows and doors, keep pets inside and turn off air conditioning due to air quality concerns.<\/p>\n

Then at 12:36 a.m., a wireless emergency alert was sent to phones in the geographic area of the Fire Department\u2019s shelter-in-place order by the city of L.A., according to PBS\u2019 Warning, Alert and Response Network<\/a>, which maintains an archive of all such alerts. Residents also reported receiving an email alert for the shelter-in-place order around 12:35 a.m. from the city\u2019s Emergency Management Department.<\/p>\n

The ship was moved out of the port area overnight and anchored offshore in open water as firefighters continued to combat the blaze Saturday morning, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, which took over command of the incident as the boat was moved into its jurisdiction. <\/p>\n

At the peak of the fire, 100 containers were alight in four different compartments of the ship, according to Fire Department spokesperson Capt. Adam VanGerpen. <\/p>\n

The department posted to its website and on social media that the shelter-in-place order was lifted at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning as air quality monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency showed results within a normal range. However, it wasn\u2019t until 9 p.m. Sunday that the city of L.A. phone and email alerts about the lifted orders were sent directly to many residents.<\/p>\n

The blaze was still smoldering Monday as the Coast Guard continued fire suppression efforts at sea, according to Joint Information Center manager Steven Groner. Once the fire is out, there will be a salvage operation, followed by an investigation into the cause of the fire and the specific hazardous materials that burned, he said.<\/p>\n

Times staff writers Grace Toohey, Terry Castleman and Suhauna Hussain contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Fire Department waited nearly six hours after responding to a massive hazardous materials fire at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9907,599,29250,1409,38907,41006,15829,13792,2303,21933,48,52,51,47,50,49,29137,29378,288,16485,4412],"class_list":["post-69224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-a-m-saturday","tag-area","tag-cargo-ship","tag-city","tag-electrical-fire","tag-emergency-alert","tag-hazardous-fire","tag-january","tag-l-a","tag-l-a-fire-department","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-p-m-sunday","tag-rancho-palos-verdes","tag-resident","tag-shelter-in-place-order","tag-social-medium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}