Newly Recovered Texts Were Recovered After Sharp Criticism Over Deletions
As wildfires swept through Los Angeles in early January, Mayor Karen Bass was thousands of miles away in Ghana, attending a presidential inauguration as part of a U.S. delegation. What followed was a frantic, high-stakes effort to lead from across the Atlantic Ocean as Bass raced to return home while coordinating with staff and emergency responders.
This wasn’t the first time that Bass was out of town during a major emergency in Los Angeles. On April 30, she was also in Washington, D.C., as Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) Task Force on Homelessness when armed and masked men attacked the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at UCLA. She had to return the next day.
Mayor Bass originally said that her texts had been auto-deleted after thirty days, but faced with another round of criticism, they were recovered from her device through “special software,” and multiple news outlets received the texts after requesting access to them.
However, an unknown number of texts were redacted and thus not included in the release. LA Times journalist Julia Wick told Fox LA that journalists could not view any of the texts between Mayor Bass and acting Mayor Marqueece Harris-Dawson, which seems odd.
David Joy with the First Amendment Coalition expressed the obvious concern: “They may have dodged a bullet in the sense that those texts were still recoverable, but the mayor should not have been auto-deleting texts in the first place, ” as ABC 7 Eyewitness News quoted.
Los Angeles City Administrative Code states that such messages should be retained for two years.
On Jan. 7, just before 11:00 a.m. Pacific time, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, Celine Cordero, sent an urgent message from L.A. to Bass, who was still in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. Cordero relayed that Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley had reported two major fires actively burning across the city.
“She will call you mayor,” Cordero wrote in a group chat that included Bass and top aides. By then, heavy winds had already sparked a fast-moving blaze in Pacific Palisades, with smoke thickening over parched ridgelines and flames threatening homes. Cordero noted that 100 acres were expected to burn in the next 20 minutes, and evacuations were likely.
At the time, Bass was attending a diplomatic event hosted by the U.S. embassy. Bass was photographed wearing a red dress and smiling, but her staff claims she spent much of the evening on calls in a private room. As the cocktail party ended, the danger to the city was growing.
By late afternoon L.A. time, the Palisades fire had reached 200 acres.
At 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Cordero announced via text, “We will be expanding the evac zone all the way to the Santa Monica city limits and all the way to the top of Mandeville Canyon.”
Bass prepared to leave Ghana that evening, boarding a military flight with fellow Biden administration delegates and an LAPD officer assigned to her security detail.
“If you see a strange number, it’s ME!” she texted. She emphasized her desire to speak with city officials and directed her team to convene a virtual meeting with department heads.
Despite technical glitches, Bass joined a general managers’ call midflight. Her executive assistant later texted that they had managed to stream CNN for her so she could monitor live coverage of the unfolding emergency.
Federal leaders began reaching out as the fires intensified. U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both from California, offered assistance. Bass thanked them from the air, noting that federal disaster relief would be essential given the scale of the destruction and the insurance challenges faced by many homeowners in the fire zone.
In the meantime, updates from Los Angeles grew increasingly grim. Cordero reported that the aircraft had been grounded due to high winds and low visibility. At 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Cordero announced via text, “We will be expanding the evac zone all the way to the Santa Monica city limits and all the way to the top of Mandeville Canyon.” Multiple people were reported injured. Gusts in the Palisades exceeded 70 mph.
By early morning on Jan. 8, the mayor had landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and transferred to a commercial United flight bound for Los Angeles.
Bass texted LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to ask about school closures and expressed dismay over damage to Palisades High School.
Bass landed at LAX around 11:24 a.m. after nearly 24 hours in transit. Moments after deplaning, a Sky News reporter confronted her about her absence. Bass remained silent, staring ahead grimly as the reporter asked if she owed Angelenos an apology. Mayor Bass insists to this day that she was never properly informed of the danger, despite many news outlets, including this one, publishing the dire warnings days before the red flag warning took effect. Bass fired LAFD Chief Crowley, holding her to blame for not communicating the danger to her.
