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LOS ANGELES — A crisis response team reporting to LA Mayor Karen Bass – with hundreds of trained volunteers and a nearly million-dollar budget – languished on the sidelines for a week as the city endured its most devastating natural disaster ever, The Post has learned.
The embattled mayor’s apparent failure to quickly deploy these key support resources is the latest in a series of botched leadership decisions that has characterized her response to the Palisades Fire, which has killed nine people, wiped out thousands of homes and engulfed an area half the size of Brooklyn, New York.
The mayor’s office did not begin putting the volunteers to work helping fire victims until Tuesday — after The Post began asking questions about why its volunteers were idle.
“This team is more well funded than any in the country and is sitting on its hands, not responding at all,” one longtime volunteer told The Post.
“I’m stunned by this.”
Days after the fires broke out, volunteers were notified in an email from interim director Edward Alamo obtained by The Post that their services had not been requested.
In a follow-up email, the program manager, Ané Vecchione, reiterated to volunteers: “At this time, we are not deploying to shelters or community resource centers.”
Alamo and Vecchione both declined to comment.
Joseph Avalos, who served as director for the mayor’s Crisis Response Team (CRT) for 13 years until Bass fired him last May, told The Post he was “shocked” the team had not received a callout, typically a text, voice message and email to its 250 members.
“Then I got some phone calls from current CRT members that they’re still on standby and not involved yet. Quite honestly, I don’t understand why.”
Amid the fires, multiple volunteers continued to receive text notifications for deployment to smaller tragedies like traffic crashes — but nothing for fire victims.
Avalos said a large callout was necessary for major incidents to quickly identify who was available to swing into action and when.
LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart also said she was unaware of CRT being put into action by the mayor’s office.
The Los Angeles Mayor’s Crisis Response Team was created in 1992 to work with victims of fires, crimes and other incidents, according to the CRT website.
The group has previously responded to major tragedies like the 2023 Monterey Park mass shooting.
Its trained volunteers offer “immediate, on-scene, practical and emotional support to survivors,” according to the CRT website.
Team members are trained in everything from staffing evacuation centers to providing psychological first aid to survivors.
The Palisades and Eaton fires, which broke out Jan. 7, have resulted in at least 25 deaths and have damaged or destroyed more than 10,000 homes and businesses.
“The mayor’s crisis response team should be deployed in this incident because of the multiple fatalities that they have,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford.
“The mayor doesn’t have to wait for a request, she has all the authority to deploy them at their discretion,” noted Crawford, who left LAFD earlier this year and is now the emergency and crisis management coordinator for the US Capitol.
The volunteer organization operates out of the mayor’s office of public safety — and reported to LA Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian Williams.
However, Williams was placed on administrative leave in late December after the FBI raided his home over a bomb threat he allegedly made against city hall.
The CRT also has no permanent director, despite a job posting that went up last year.
One of Williams’ staffers, Christopher Anyakwo, denied that the organization has been sidelined, saying “the CRT is currently helping at the disaster recovery center.”
However, he did not address why emails were sent to volunteers saying the group was not being activated.
A Bass spokesperson said the team is working “right now” in the disaster recovery center — but did not specify when the volunteers were mobilized.
“We are grateful that they answered our call to serve,” the statement said.
