(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider overturning a jury’s verdict that found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and awarded her $5 million in damages.
After the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined last month that Trump failed to prove he deserved a new trial, lawyers for Trump on Tuesday requested an en banc hearing, in which the full court would hear the case rather than a select panel.
A New York jury in 2023 awarding Carroll $5 million in damages after it found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her in 2022 when he denied the allegations.
Last year, another jury ordered Trump to pay an additional $83 million in damages for his defamatory statements about Carroll.
Trump argued the trial court in 2023 erred when it allowed two women to testify about Trump allegedly assaulting them, as well as permitting Carroll’s lawyers to show the jury part of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women.
“To have any chance of persuading a jury, Carroll’s implausible, unsubstantiated allegations had to be — and repeatedly were — propped up by the erroneous admission of highly inflammatory propensity evidence,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and D. John Sauder, who have all been picked by Trump for top Justice Department posts in his incoming adminstration.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial court’s decisions, if left uncorrected, could set a damaging precedent of allowing “inflammatory propensity evidence in a wide range of future cases.”
Trump’s request for an en banc hearing is his final appellate option before possibly turning to the Supreme Court.
(LOS ANGELES) — Fires are continuing to burn in Southern California, with further weather-related threats expected to increase as another Santa Ana wind event picks up this week.
While the end to the fire danger is not yet in sight, the hazards that will remain in its wake will be severe, especially due to the urban nature of many of the burn zones, experts told ABC News.
The fires burning in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties are occurring on the urban-wildland interface — areas where wildland landscapes meet with urban dwellings, Costas Synolakis, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California who has studied how urban fires exacerbate post-fire related hazards, told ABC News. The further away from wildland, the less chance of ignition, which is why heavy winds were able to spark house-to-house spread quickly.
But these wildfires are so severe that they have penetrated into more urban areas, Scott Stephens, professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley, told ABC News.
The fires will have unprecedented environmental impacts, Synolakis said.
Landslides will be of great concern once the fires subside
Once the fires are out, landslides from burn scars will be a big concern when rain returns to Southern California and could be an issue for years to come. Post-fire debris flows are particularly hazardous because they can occur with little warning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Post-wildfire landslides can exert great loads on objects in their paths, strip vegetation, block drainage ways, damage structures and endanger human life, according to the USGS. Additionally, wildfires could destabilize pre-existing, deep-seated landslides over long periods. Flows generated over longer periods could be accompanied by root decay and loss of soil strength, according to the USGS.
Landslides already historically occur in California. But conditions are currently extreme enough to warrant concern for increased threat, Edith de Guzman, a water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ABC News
The wildfires are incinerating the shrub cover, so when a rain event does occur, the precipitation hits a ground surface that could be bare minerals and unable to soak it up, Stephens said.
“You’re going to get flows of soil, rock and debris,” Stephens said.
In Los Angeles, debris basins designed to catch some of the materials sliding down the mountain to lessen the threat of landslide hazards have been built in Mount Wilson and near Eaton Canyon.
The landslide danger will be especially dangerous in the Pacific Palisades, the neighborhood nestled in the lower hills of the Santa Monica mountain range on the Westside of Los Angeles that was decimated by the Palisades fire, because there is no debris basin there, Synolakis said.
“Palisades is going to be an area that people need to be on the watchout for landslides because the valley walls are steep,” Synolakis said.
The houses that did survive the wildfire in the Palisades could also be in great danger of a severe rainstorm undercutting the foundation, Synolakis added.
Homes near creeks and steep hills could also contribute a lot of debris to landslides, Stephens said.
An average of 25 to 50 people are killed by landslides each year in the U.S., according to the USGS.
Long-term pollution could impact the region, experts say
An even bigger concern than potential landslides is the environmental impact of the fires, Synolakis said. In the near future, these burned-out communities will be filled with cleanup crews dressed in hazmat suits, Hugh Safford, a research fire ecologist at the University of California, Davis, told ABC News.
Since the fires are burning down manmade structures, the materials used to construct homes and cars are depositing toxins into the air and ground as they combust, the experts said.
“This is going into the local creek systems and in the local soils,” Safford said, adding that many of the homes built before the 1980s likely are filled with asbestos.
Debris from the scorched homes near Malibu’s Big Rock will end up in the ocean as well — by wind and sea — due to the proximity to the coastline, Synolakis said.
In Altadena, homes that were destroyed near the San Gabriel Valley Groundwater Basin could contribute pollutants to the water system, De Guzman said.
Researchers are already monitoring soil to see what kinds of heavy metals and other toxins have seeped in during the combustion process. It won’t be long before the toxins end up in the ocean through the watershed, Synolakis said.
The environmental impact of a series of wildfires this big is yet to be seen, Synolakis said. And the cleanup process will be long and arduous, Safford said.
Fire danger expected to persist
On Monday afternoon, winds will begin to pick up in the mountains and higher elevations gusting 20 to 30 mph, locally 50 mph.
There is very little rain relief for the fires in sight for the Los Angeles area in the near future, forecasts show.
While there is a 20% chance for a sprinkle on Saturday, that precipitation is expected to occur closer to San Diego.
Dry conditions are expected in the long term as well. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that La Nina conditions are expected to persist through April 2025, with Southern Californian expected to be very close to drier than normal.
(LOS ANGELES) — As strong winds in Southern California pick up further early on Tuesday, a “particularly dangerous situation” with a red flag warning will go into effect in western Los Angeles County and most of Ventura County, weather officials said.
The warning begins at 4 a.m. local time. Winds are forecast to gust between 45 mph to 70 mph, with relative humidity as low as 8%.
Those strong winds and dry conditions are likely continue to fuel the historic wildfires raging in Southern California.
The largest, the Palisades Fire, has spread by late Monday to almost 24,000 acres with only 14% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Thousands of firefighters are battling the blazes across 45 square miles of densely populated Los Angeles County.
Winds overnight and early on Tuesday have been gusting up to 67 mph in the mountains near Los Angeles. The West San Gabriel Mountains have seen gusts up to 67 mph, with the Central Ventura County Valley hit about 66 mph.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the gusty Santa Ana winds will come in periods.
The strongest gusts are expected Tuesday morning and early afternoon, which will then be followed by a break in the evening. More gusty winds are expected Wednesday morning.
It has been so dry that any spark could produce major fire that would grow explosively. The weather in Los Angeles last year and early this year has been the second-driest water year on record to date. Water years are recorded from Oct. 1 to Sept. 2, with records going back to 1877.
After Wednesday, winds will begin to calm down and by Friday and Saturday humidity will come up a bit. There a very small chance for a rain shower Friday into Saturday across southern California.
(Washington City, UT) — Human remains that had been decomposing “for an extended period of time” have been discovered just off of a public hiking trail in Utah, police said.
The Washington City Police Department announced the discovery of human remains near the Bone Wash Trail and Elephant Arch hiking area in Washington City in southern Utah — some 125 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada — according to a statement released by the authorities on Tuesday.
“On January 12, 2025, a hiker reported what appeared to be human remains near the Elephant Arch hike,” the Washington City Police Department said in their press release. “Officers from Washington City Police and Deputies from Washington County Sheriff’s Office responded promptly to the scene and confirmed the presence of human remains in various forms of decomposition, indicating they had been there for an extended period of time.”
Detectives immediately began processing the area and were able to identify the remains as belonging to a man, police said.
“The remains have been transported to the Medical Examiner’s office for a thorough investigation to determine the cause of death,” authorities said. “At this time, foul play does not appear to be a factor.”
The identity of the deceased man was subsequently confirmed by authorities and his family was notified of his death, though he has yet to be publicly identified.
“Out of respect for the family, the identity will not be disclosed at this time,” police said. “The case remains active pending the completion of all reports, including finds from the Medical Examiner’s office.”
Officials did not say how they were able to identify the remains or when they plan on disclosing more information on the case.
“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the deceased,” authorities said. “We also express our sincere gratitude to the various agencies that have assisted in the investigation.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The fires blazing through Los Angeles County are the latest unprecedented natural disaster likely amplified by our changing climate. In the weeks and months to come, climate attribution science will determine by just how much.
However, we do know that heavy rains, followed by drought and mixed with winds and low humidity created a perfect storm of conditions — just weeks after Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina’s Buncombe County, with fatal floods and landslides 400 miles from where the storm made landfall.
Experts say that extreme weather events worsened by climate change are knocking on the doors of people across the country, and local officials must proactively prepare their regions before their residents become the next victims of tragedy.
“One of the things that every local government, every city government, should be doing right now, and the cost is well worth it, is investing in very comprehensive climate risk assessments,” Albany Law School’s climate policy expert Cinnamon Carlarne told ABC News.
These risk assessments look at the potential harms facing a community, their exposure level and vulnerability to disaster — properly setting regions up to plan for and minimize the destruction a disaster can cause.
If lawmakers don’t take action, the toll — both in human life as well as economic damages — will only compound, according to Thomas Culhane, a professor of global sustainability at the University of South Florida.
“I’m frustrated that my now cousin’s home may be lost, and her family was in jeopardy, and my family is in jeopardy because there hasn’t been enough good dialogue about all the incredible solutions that we’ve had for thousands of years, for hundreds of years, for decades, some brand new,” Culhane told ABC News. “We’re not getting together and discussing and then implementing so people can see with their own eyes.”
Los Angeles County is no stranger to extreme weather events. But according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, seven of the 10 largest wildfires in California history have occurred since 2017.
A recent assessment of LA County’s risk and vulnerability found that it was likely that wildfire conditions such as drought, high winds and extreme heat would compound.
The report found that areas between “urbanized land and undeveloped wildland vegetation” often sit within high or very high fire hazard severity zone. Notably, these hazard zones include the regions where the Palisades and Eaton Fires are burning.
It said that 19% of residents live in “Very High Fire Severity Zones” and developers continue to build in these areas despite concerns. The report noted that builders of new housing or infrastructure in such areas must follow requirements that “limit the impacts of wildfire on these properties,” including fire-resistant roofing, improved attic ventilation, tempered glass for exterior windows and maintaining 100 feet of “defensible space” between their structure and nearby landscaping or wildlands.
According to an October 2024 draft Climate Vulnerability Assessment from the office of LA City Planning, officials and researchers took the risk assessment back to communities to garner feedback about the best ways to implement mitigation strategies and create resilient infrastructure that stands strong in the face of climate disasters.
The draft assessment highlighted potential solutions to prevent against wildfire damage.
This included enforcing zoning restrictions to prevent new development in regions with high wildfire risk; requiring building codes in high hazard areas to include the use of fire resistant materials; ensuring reliable water sources and road access for emergency vehicles; and the installation of backup power in strategic locations to maintain essential services during outages.
Additionally, the draft also noted plans to “strengthen power lines, utility poles, and communication networks in wildfire-prone areas to withstand fire impacts” and “create and maintain fire defensible space around structures and infrastructure.”
The draft also encourages the use of indigenous fire risk reduction practices, such as intentional burns. It also suggests that community members can take part by clearing potential wildfire fuel such as dry underbrush, as well as restoring native habitat and plants.
The LA County Office of Sustainability and the LA City Planning office has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment about the climate assessments.
“When you look into indigenous practices or local practices, you see people dealt with these extremes by developing systems and then we ignored them,” Culhane said. “We set up systems that were bound to fail.”
He continued, “If you took seriously the catastrophic potential … put the money in because then we don’t have to pay later. The recovery costs are huge.”
This doesn’t take into account the cost of human life — at least 24 people have been recorded to have died thus far, according to officials.
If cities around the country can uncover and address targeted and individualized potential climate resilience techniques, they can save lives, according to Cinnamon Carlarne.
“We’re committed to a certain level of warming going forward, simply because greenhouse gasses are accumulating in the atmosphere, and we are not reducing our greenhouse gas emissions,” Carlarne said.
However, she argues, it’s vital to continue to do the work to ensure the climate does not worsen further and cause more damage.
“So you are starting to see, because the frequency and intensity of disasters is mounting, and the human and economic cost disasters are mounting, that more and more city and local governments are actually starting to engage in planning, to assess infrastructure and to create ways where they can learn from one another,” Carlarne said. “But we have more and more cities and local governments that are actually recognizing this is one of real, serious challenges for their government systems.”
(NEW YORK) — Preliminary data from the first week of New York City’s highly debated congestion pricing program shows the country’s first such plan of its kind is working, officials said.
“The purpose of the program is to reduce the number of vehicles entering what had been the most congested district in the country,” Juliette Michaelson, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s deputy chief of policy and external relations, said during a press briefing on Monday. “The program is working.”
Michaelson said there has been anecdotal evidence of less congestion in the center of Manhattan since the program’s launch on Jan. 5, newly charging passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s transit system. The extra per-ride surcharge is 75 cents for taxis and black car services, and $1.50 for Ubers and Lyfts. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses will be charged $14.40, while large trucks and tour buses must pay $21.60.
Now, an analysis of one week of travel patterns also shows there are “significantly lower volumes” of traffic in Manhattan’s central business district, with an average of 7.5% fewer vehicles than would have been expected without congestion pricing, she said.
A conservative baseline for vehicles entering the central business district daily in January is 583,000; since congestion pricing started just over a week ago, the daily number has dropped to between 475,000 and 560,000 vehicles, she said.
Travel times have also improved, particularly for river crossings, Michaelson said. It now takes 30-40% less time to travel between Manhattan and New Jersey via the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel and Holland Tunnel, she said.
Buses in particular have benefited from reduced travel times, the MTA said. Cars driving crosstown have also benefited, with those trips anywhere from 20-30% faster, the MTA said. Results are about the same to 20% faster traveling north-south on avenues, according to the MTA.
The MTA has not yet calculated the revenue generated so far from the new program, since different vehicles pay different amounts, Michaelson said.
“What is most on our mind at this point in time is that New Yorkers see and feel the effects of congestion pricing in their lives, and that’s what we most wanted to know about first,” Michaelson said.
During a separate press briefing earlier Monday, Mayor Eric Adams called congestion pricing a “major change” for New Yorkers and said the city will be analyzing the data to see what we “need to do better.”
“I want the data to come forward, I want us to analyze the data, see what we need to tweak,” he said.
Adams said last week that the NYPD will be helping to crack down on drivers looking to evade the new fee by covering up parts of their license plates.
(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel David Weiss slammed President Joe Biden’s characterization of his probe as being infected with “raw politics” in his final report detailing his investigations into the president’s son Hunter Biden, which was released Monday by the Justice Department.
Weiss’ work culminated in two separate criminal convictions of Hunter Biden that his father wiped clean with a sweeping pardon in early December, just weeks after Election Day. In July 2024, Weiss’ office secured a guilty verdict from a Delaware jury on three felony gun charges, and months later, on the eve of trial, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to numerous tax crimes, including six felonies.
Weiss’ report — 27 pages in length plus hundreds of pages of public filings — caps a yearslong and politically fraught probe that remained a source of seemingly endless fodder for President Biden’s political opponents in Congress and elsewhere. Weiss’ prosecutors examined Hunter Biden’s years of drug and alcohol abuse, his controversial foreign business dealings, and his procurement of a gun in 2018.
When President Biden issued a pardon for Hunter Biden in early December, he claimed that “raw politics has infected” the investigation into his son.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden wrote.
Weiss, in the report, criticized the president’s assertion.
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations,” Weiss wrote.
Weiss defended his work as “thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics.”
“Eight judges across numerous courts have rejected claims that they were the result of selective or vindictive motives,” Weiss wrote. “Calling those rulings into question and injecting partisanship into the independent administration of the law undermines the very foundation of what makes America’s justice system fair and equitable. It erodes public confidence in an institution that essential to preserving the rule of law.”
“These prosecutions were the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics. Eight judges across numerous courts have rejected claims that they were the result of selective or vindictive motives,” Weiss wrote.
“Calling those rulings into question and injecting partisanship into the independent administration of the law undermines the very foundation of what makes America’s justice system fair and equitable. It erodes public confidence in an institution that is essential to preserving the rule of law,” wrote Weiss. “These baseless accusations have no merit and repeating them threatens the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”
Weiss says because of the pardon, he was prevented from making “additional charging decision” regarding Hunter Biden’s ‘s conduct over an 11-year span, suggesting there were other cases he could have pursued against the president’s son. However, because of the pardon, “it would thus be inappropriate to discuss whether additional charges are warranted,” he wrote.
Hunter Biden’s legal team said they were not given an opportunity to read Weiss’ report prior to its release.
Calling Weiss’ probe “a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power,” Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said that Weiss’ report “continues to ignore some of the major mysteries of his 7-year investigation.”
“Mr. Weiss conveniently omits his proposal to resolve this investigation in 2023 with a pair of misdemeanors and a diverted gun charge recommended by career prosecutors,” Lowell said. “Mr. Weiss also fails to explain why he reneged on his own agreement, a reversal that came at the 11th hour in court as he and his office faced blistering attacks from Republicans and his then filing unprecedented charges for someone with no aggravating gun factors who had paid his taxes in full years before the charges were filed.”
Federal investigators began looking into the younger Biden’s taxes in 2018, before his father launched his successful presidential bid. That probe grew to include scrutiny of his overseas business dealings in China, Ukraine, and elsewhere, ABC News previously reported.
In the summer of 2023, prosecutors in Weiss’ office struck a plea deal with Hunter Biden that would have allowed him to plead guilty to a pair of tax-related misdemeanors and avoid prosecution on one felony gun charge.
But that deal fell apart under questioning by a federal judge — and within months, Weiss secured special counsel status from Attorney General Merrick Garland and filed charges in both cases.
Over the course of his probe, Weiss emerged as one of those rare figures in politics who attracted scrutiny from across the political spectrum. Republicans loyal to Donald Trump accused him of failing to bring more serious and substantial charges against the Biden family, while Democrats complained that a GOP-led pressure campaign influenced Weiss’ prosecutorial decisions.
Sentencing in both cases had been scheduled to take place just weeks after President Biden issued his pardon, with Hunter Biden facing the possibility of years in prison and more than a million dollars in fines.
Weiss also brought a third successful case against a former FBI informant who pleaded guilty to spreading lies about the Bidens’ business dealings. Last week a federal judge sentenced the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, to six years in prison.
(BUTLER COUNTY, Pa.) — First responders from Butler County, Pennsylvania – the site of the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump during the presidential campaign – played a pivotal and personal part in his run for the White House.
Now, those responders who helped him in the immediate aftermath are being given a special role at Monday’s inauguration, featured as the first group to walk in the Inauguration Day parade following a contingent from the U.S. Army.
The group, consisting of Pennsylvania State and local Police, County Sheriffs, Emergency Services Unit/SWAT Team, Fire/Rescue, EMS, 911 Radio Dispatch, Hospital personnel, will march together to honor the memory of their fellow Butler County resident and community First Responder, the late Corey Comperatore.
Comperatore, a 10-year U.S. Army Reserve veteran and Past Fire Chief of the Buffalo Township, was killed during the assassination attempt while shielding his family from the gunfire.
On July 13, 2024, Butler County response teams initially treated over 250 heat-stricken spectators ahead of an open field rally at Butler Farm Show Grounds.
Later that day, several first responders heroically leaped into action after gunshots struck then-candidate Trump, and Trump supporters Corey Comperatore, David Dutch and James Copenhagen, and treated these and their other patients, while still in the line of fire.
The Butler County parade formation will be led by the Pennsylvania State Police Honor Guard.
“We are forever changed by the devastating loss of our fellow first responder Corey Comperatore. We remember past Fire Chief Comperatore today and forever, as we honor others, including President Trump, David Dutch and James Copenhaver who survived this murderous attack,” Butler County First Responders said in a statement.
“We hope all Americans will pause today to remember the bravery and sacrifice of their own first responders and police, the expertise of their 911 dispatchers, and the skill of their local hospital emergency and medical staff and emergency management agencies.”
Trump returned to the site in October, suggesting he had “an obligation” to do so.
“This field is now a monument to the valor of our first responders, to the resilience of our fellow citizens, and to the sacrifice of a loving and devoted father, a really great man,” Trump said during his return rally.
“All who have visited this hallowed place will remember what happened here, and they will know of the character and courage that so many incredible American patriots have shown and know, and they know it at a level never seen before,” he said.
The special honor for the Butler first responders comes after, during his first inaugural in 2017, Trump’s parade also highlighted police and military personnel with a representative from every branch of the military joining him.
However, Trump’s second inaugural parade could look different as officials warn of a heightened general security threat — on top of increased security for him personally in the wake of the two assassination attempts on his life during the campaign.
“Threat actors with election-related grievances likely view the Inauguration as their last opportunity to influence the election results through violence. The motives of some recent assailants are not entirely coherent or remain unknown, highlighting the difficulty in predicting lone offender violence,” officials warned in a joint threat assessment obtained by ABC News.
The decision on whether to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and for how long, has usually been left up to the discretion of the incoming president along with input from the Secret Service.
In 2017, Trump, along with his wife Melania and youngest son Barron, got out of their motorcade and walked a short distance during two different moments of the parade: near what was then the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue and then again from the Treasury Department into the White House.
(LOS ANGELES) — A flurry of separate lawsuits were filed Monday against Southern California Edison, a utility company in California, by homeowners and renters who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire. The four lawsuits each allege the company failed to de-energize all of its electrical equipment despite red flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service.
“The property damage and economic losses caused by the Eaton Fire is the result of the ongoing custom and practice of Defendant of consciously disregarding the safety of the public and not following statutes, regulations, standards, and rules regarding the safe operation, use and maintenance of their overhead electric facilities,” said a complaint filed by Evangeline Iglesias, who said she worked a decadeslong career with FedEx in order to buy a single-family home that was destroyed in the fire.
On Monday, the CEO of the parent company of SCE told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that investigations are underway to determine if any of their equipment contributed to either the Eaton or Hurst fires’ ignitions.
“You can’t rule out anything ever until you can get your eyes on the equipment,” Pedro Pizarro, the president and CEO of Edison International, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “Typically, when there’s a spark created by equipment, we will see the electrical anomaly — we haven’t seen that.”
“That said, we have not been able to get close to the equipment,” he continued. “As soon as we can get close to it, we’ll inspect and be transparent with the public.”
Officials have repeatedly said they are still investigating the cause of the Eaton and Hurst fires, as well as the other several wildfires that cropped up in January.
The four lawsuits allege that the company failed to de-energize all of its electrical equipment on Jan. 7 despite “repeated and clear warnings” by the National Weather Service of wind gusts as high as 100 mph, and an extreme risk of fire, according to one of the lawsuits.
“Despite knowing of an extreme fire risk, Defendants deliberately prioritized profits over safety. This recklessness and conscious disregard for human safety was a substantial factor in bringing about the Eaton Fire,” said a complaint filed by a group of renters, including Michael Kreiner, who was forced to evacuate.
“In my decades of experience handling wildfire litigation, the Eaton Fire is among the most devastating and heart-wrenching cases I’ve seen,” said Patrick McNicholas, the attorney who represents Kreiner and other renters. “This goes beyond a failure of responsibility — it is gross negligence in an area highly vulnerable to wildfires, especially with well-documented weather alerts and high wind risks.”
One of the lawsuits filed on behalf of multiple families who lost their homes, alleges the Eaton Fire was caused when SCE’s energized transmission and electrical equipment created an “electrical arcing event which sent a shower of spars and molten metal down to the ground into a receptive fuel bed.”
The complaints also allege SCE failed to properly inspect and maintain their electric facilities.
“These Defendants failed to properly inspect and maintain their electric facilities in order to cut costs, with the full knowledge that any incident was likely to result in a wildfire that would burn and destroy real and personal property, displace homeowners from their homes and disrupt businesses in the fire area,” said a complaint filed by Jeremy Gursey, who lost his home in Altadena.
According to Gursey’s complaint, SCE’s electrical transmission system “was in a dangerous condition, posing a significant risk of electrical failure, fire and property damage to surrounding property and communities.” “Had SCE acted responsibly, the Eaton Fire could have been prevented,” the complaint says.
In a statement, a spokesperson for SCE told ABC News, “Our hearts remain with our communities during the devastating fires in Southern California, and we remain committed to supporting them through this difficult time. SCE crews, contractors and mutual assistance partners are dedicated to safely restoring power to our customers. SCE understands that a lawsuit related to the Eaton fire has been filed but has not yet been served with a complaint. SCE will review the complaint when it is received. The cause of the fire continues to be under investigation.”
When asked, the spokesperson acknowledged more than one lawsuit had been filed against SCE.
Some of the complaints include public statements from residents and photos that allegedly show fire emerging from the base of power transmission towers owned and operated by SCE.
The Gursey complaint includes satellite photos from Google Earth that allegedly confirm the origin area of the fire where SCE’s overheard circuit lines traverse Eaton Canyon.
In a press release by SCE included in the complaint, the utility company confirmed that the Eaton Fire began in SCE’s service area.
The four lawsuits seek compensatory damages for the plaintiffs and punitive damages.
“The conduct alleged against Defendants in this complaint was despicable and subjected Plaintiffs to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard of their safety and rights, constituting oppression, for which Defendant must be punished by punitive and exemplary damages in an amount according to proof,” the Gursey complaint says. More than 7,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed in the Eaton Fire, which has consumed more than 14,000 acres, according to Cal Fire, and killed at least 16 people, according to the LA County medical examiner.
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Nearly a full week has passed since Alex Shekarchian and Moogega Cooper hastily packed a few belongings and fled from the second natural disaster to upturn their lives in three months.
In October, the couple survived Hurricane Milton, which slammed the Florida coast. Now, they are among thousands of residents to lose their homes in the unprecedented firestorm continuing to burn across Los Angeles County.
“We’ve seen weather events get more and more extreme. That Category 5 [hurricane] was unprecedented,” Cooper told ABC News of experiencing back-to-back natural disasters on both coasts. “This firestorm was unprecedented.”
Shekarchian recalled driving home last Tuesday evening and seeing a “lightning strike of fire” in the hills near their home in Altadena. He said that when he got to his house, there was no electricity and he found Cooper sitting inside next to candles “like the candles we had from when we survived Hurricane Milton.”
Fueled by hurricane-strength winds, the Eaton Fire ravaged the communities of Altadena and Pasadena, destroying at least 7,000 structures, including homes and businesses, officials said. As of Monday, the fire was 33% contained after consuming more than 14,000 acres.
The Eaton Fire is one of several blazes to break during Tuesday and Wednesday’s Santa Ana windstorm, which struck during a severe drought, authorities said. At one point, seven wildfires were burning all at once across a 45-square-mile area of Los Angeles County.
The Palisades Fire in the oceanside community of Pacific Palisades remains the largest of the fires. The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,000 homes and scorched nearly 24,000 acres. The inferno was 14% contained Monday as firefighters braced for a new Santa Ana wind event forecast to buffet the area through Wednesday.
At least 24 fire-related deaths occurred in the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Offices confirmed. Nearly two dozen people remain unaccounted for, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff. Many of those who died in the fires were elderly or disabled, officials said.
A third major fire, the Hurst Fire near Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley, was stopped by firefighters at 799 acres and was 95% contained on Monday.
Planning to rebuild
Cooper said the blaze that destroyed her home swarmed her neighborhood with incredible speed.
“I actually didn’t realize I was going to lose my home until we saw the news of the fire spreading far beyond where mentally I was prepared for them even to go,” Cooper told ABC News.
Even after evacuating, Cooper said she believed they would find their home still intact only to learn she and Shekarchian suffered a complete loss.
The couple said that unlike a lot of homeowners, they have home insurance to rebuild and have already decided to do so.
“I think of it as not necessarily losing a physical structure, but we lost a home, we temporarily lost that sense of community,” Cooper said. “And that’s why I want to rebuild.”
Shekarchian added, “It was an easy decision when we knew that we wanted to be part of that rebuild with restaurants we lost, the stores we lost.”
On top of everything, Shekarchian said he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer just days before the fires struck.
Shekarchian, an entertainment lawyer, said the movie “Wicked” is helping him get through the horror, which he said was choreographed by one of his clients, Christopher Scott.
“We’re just dancing through life kind of,” Shekarchian said of how he and Cooper are trying to maintain a positive attitude. “Dancing through cancer, dancing through homelessness.”
‘It was a nightmare’
Jeffrey and Cheryl Ku also of Altadena told ABC News they believe they were among the first people to see the Eaton Fire ignite at the base of an electrical transmission tower in the hills near their home at 6:19 p.m. on Tuesday.
“My husband had come home from work, and he ran in the house and just started screaming, ‘There’s a fire on the hill. We need to get out,'” Cheryl Ku said. “I ran out back, saw the fire at the poles and I immediately called 911.”
A Ring doorbell camera on their home captured the scary moments after the couple spotted the fire charging into their neighborhood. The Ring video recorded Jeffrey frantically hosing down the exterior of his home while constantly trying to keep an eye on flames advancing toward him.
“It was a nightmare,” Jeffrey Ku said. “And I think the worst part was every time I checked on the fire, it got worse.”
The couple said their home was left standing.
Neighbors of the couple told ABC News they also saw the Eaton Fire apparently ignite near the transmission tower and rapidly explode.
“There was no other fire, no flames anywhere around,” said neighbor Pedro Rojas, who recorded video of the flames near the transmission tower at 6:24 p.m. on Tuesday. “Because it was so dark that if there were flames in any other places we would have noticed it.”
Fire officials trying to determine the cause of the Eaton Fire and the other blazes told ABC News they were aware of the videos showing flames near the transmission tower at the onset of the firestorm.
The Southern California Edison company issued a statement to ABC News, saying that while the Eaton Fire started in its service area, a preliminary analysis shows “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start of the fire.” The utility company also said no fire agency has suggested its equipment caused the Eaton Fire to ignite.
But Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, told ABC News on Monday that the company cannot yet rule out the possibility that its energy infrastructure played a role in sparking the wildfires.
‘My guardian angel’
After losing their Altadena home of 25 years in the Eaton Fire, Ivan and Robyn Migel said the only thing to survive was a ceramic angel they had in their garden.
“That was my guardian angel in my garden,” Robyn Migel told ABC News.
She said that while her stove, refrigerator and furniture “vaporized” along with their house, the angel survived without even cracking.
“It was just marked by smoke from the flames. I thought that was a beautiful sign,” Robyn Migel said.
Ivan Migel said that when he saw the angel amid the rubble, he burst into tears.
“It also just gave me hope to move forward and to rebuild from this experience,” Ivan Migel said.
The Migels said their daughter was injured while evacuating their home when an ember fell from the sky and hit her in the face.
Robyn Migel said she now regrets not grabbing more family heirlooms and photos in the half-hour they were given to evacuate.
“I’ve just had to let go of that sadness of what we didn’t do in those moments because my family and my pets got out safely and that was the most important,” Robyn Migel said.
Learning his home and business were lost
Mike Geller of Pacific Palisades told ABC News that he not only lost his home, but also the jewelry store his family has owned in Palisades Village for almost three generations.
Now at age 48, Geller said he has to start over.
“Thank God I was able to retrieve my birth certificate. But every possession my children have accumulated … gone, decimated,” Geller said. “I’m in shock. I’m not even sure how I’m talking to you. I’m absolutely in shock. I’m just going through the motions. It hasn’t really set in yet.”
Geller said he has filed a personal insurance claim, but doesn’t know when it will be processed. He said he and many of his neighbors, especially older residents who bought their homes decades ago for $50,000 to $75,000, will not have the means to rebuild.
“Those people will not be able to come back. And if they do and they have insurance, will they rebuild?” Geller said. “Look, if I’m 75, 80 years old, you know, how much time do I have?”
Geller said he and his wife are considering not rebuilding.
“It’s about quality of life,” he said. “If it takes me three years to rebuild, how much time do I actually have left at that point?”
