BREAKING: Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty, under repair when LA wildfires broke out

As the Los Angeles area deals with ongoing wildfires threatening lives and homes, it has been revealed that a large reservoir in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of LA was out of service for repairs.

The Santa Ynez Reservoir, which holds up to 117 million gallons in the water storage complex, has been closed for ongoing repairs, officials told the Los Angeles Times. The Palisades fire was the first to begin burning Tuesday morning, and as of Friday has burned over 20,000 acres and is just 8 percent contained. It has forced thousands of people to evacuate from their homes. Firefighters battling the largest fire of multiple wildfires burning in the area have faced dry hydrants at higher-elevation streets in the neighborhood and low water pressure. 

Officials with the Department of Water and Power (DWP) said that demand for water during the fire has made it impossible to maintain pressure to hydrants at higher elevations. If the reservoir was operable at the time the fires began, former DWP general manager Martin Adams said that it would have extended water pressure in the Palisades on Tuesday night, but only for a period of time. 

Adams said, "You still would have ended up with serious drops in pressure. Would Santa Ynez [Reservoir] have helped? Yes, to some extent. Would it have saved the day? I don’t think so." He said that while it’s unclear exactly when the reservoir went offline, it had been out of service "for a while" due to a tear in the cover. 

Chief communications officer for DWP Joseph Ramallo said that the reservoir was scheduled to be reopened in February. The maintenance on the facility was needed to comply with water quality regulations. If water had been held in the reservoir ahead of the fires, the water would have been legally undrinkable except in emergencies. Adams said that if DWP had opted to begin filling the reservoir ahead of the "life-threatening" wind situation warned of by the National Weather Service, it is unclear whether it could have been filled fast enough to be useful.

Adams also said that if the reservoir had been in normal use at the time of the fire, it would have been filled below maximum capacity, because customers use less water in the winter. Water remaining stagnant in the reservoir leads to a disinfectant breaking down and evaporating, leaving behind ammonia that could foster bacterial growth. 

"You would not have had a whole pile of water just sitting there," said Adams. "That’s the battle in water storage — you’ve got to keep your tanks and reservoirs fluctuating."

DWP Chief Executive Officer Janisse Quiñones said that 3 storage tanks in the upper Palisades tanks could not be refilled fast enough and the demand for water at lower elevations impeded efforts to pump water to the higher elevation tanks. By 3 am Wednesday, all three of these tanks had gone dry and at one point, DWP crews attempting to reroute water to refill a tank had to be evacuated. 

He said that a demand for water four times the usual level on the trunk line over a 15-hour period led to the water pressure drop. Adams estimated that if the reservoir had been in use, that demand may have been three times the normal level.