Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass faced new scrutiny Wednesday after new details emerged about her trip to Ghana and the exact timing of her return to the United States, raising further questions about whether she will return to the United States soon. . fence fire break out.
Bass traveled to Ghana on January 4 to attend the inauguration of the country's new president, one day after the National Weather Service issued a fire weather warning for Los Angeles. She landed on January 5, and later that day the weather service issued a red flag warning.
On January 6, the warning was upgraded multiple times, and by late afternoon, conditions in Los Angeles became "particularly dangerous." That night, Bass posted her first statement about the fire on X, sharing information that was out of date hours earlier.
Garner's inauguration ceremony will begin at approximately 10 a.m. local time on January 7 and approximately 2 a.m. Pacific time in Los Angeles. A few hours after the fire ended, at 10:30 a.m. in Los Angeles, the Palisades Fire broke out.
According to the Los Angeles Times, social media photos showed Bass posing for photos at a reception hosted by the U.S. ambassador to Ghana around 12 noon Los Angeles time, an hour and a half after the fire broke out.
A spokesman for the mayor told the Los Angeles Times that Bass and the U.S. delegation stopped at a reception on the way to the airport, but said they would return to the United States on a military plane at 1 p.m. Los Angeles time on January 1. . 7.
Data provided by flight tracking website FlightRadar shows that the plane took off just after 1 pm Pacific time on January 8 and landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Bass then traveled to Dulles International Airport, where he boarded a flight to Los Angeles International Airport. When the mayor arrived in Los Angeles around 11 a.m. on January 8, approximately 1,000 buildings had burned and more than 70,000 people were under evacuation orders.
At a news conference last week, Bass said she took the "quickest route" back to Los Angeles and that she coordinated with officials "hourly" by phone on both military and commercial flights.
When CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti asked her on Tuesday if she was satisfied with the city's response, she said: "Well, you know, everything can be better, there's no question about it of."
"In retrospect, would you have traveled overseas?" Vigliotti asked. “You know, what I’m going to focus on today is that we—” Bass began, before Vigliotti prompted her to answer the question. "No," she replied.
This is the timetable for travel to Bath wildfire warn: