Speaker 1: Is everyone being safe out there? That's what I want
Speaker 1: to know, is everyone being safe? Later with mo Kelly
Speaker 1: k IF I am six forty one Live Everywhere in
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app. We asked for the rains, they are here,
Speaker 1: and some we asked for the rains, and we said
Speaker 1: prepare for the mud slides. They're here, and some we
Speaker 1: asked for the rain, but we said get ready. There
Speaker 1: might be flash flooding. And guess what we have plenty
Speaker 1: of flash flooding. I'm watching NBC four and they're showing
Speaker 1: this video over and over again of an suv being
Speaker 1: washed out into the ocean by fast moving mud slides.
Speaker 2: It is dangerous out there.
Speaker 1: I encourage you to slow down, and we always talk
Speaker 1: about personal self defense and remaining safe. For today especially,
Speaker 1: just take the long way home. It's okay to go
Speaker 1: a little bit slower, go somewhere a little bit safer,
Speaker 1: and make sure you arrive at your destination safely. As
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, I try to practice what
Speaker 1: I preach. I took surface treats in I had to
Speaker 1: be in at four o'clock for a meeting, which meant
Speaker 1: I left my house around a little bit after two,
Speaker 1: so I gonna say maybe two fifteen or so, and
Speaker 1: I decided to just get on Western Avenue and just
Speaker 1: drive north until I got to the one on one
Speaker 1: and could loop around the Barn Boulevard, and then I
Speaker 1: was at Burbank And it took me close to two hours,
Speaker 1: close to two hours. But you know what, it wasn't
Speaker 1: as stressful, it wasn't as dangerous, and yes, people were
Speaker 1: a little bit impatient, but ultimately I got to my
Speaker 1: destination safely and I did not. And I can't speak
Speaker 1: for what it looks like right now because I've been
Speaker 1: inside for the past four hours or so three hours,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't as much flooding and something that you
Speaker 1: have to be mindful of, especially if you're on the freeways.
Speaker 2: If you're on the freeways.
Speaker 1: Right now, slow down because of this downpour, this torrential downpour.
Speaker 1: There may be flooding and puddling that you may not
Speaker 1: readily see as you would during the daytime. It only
Speaker 1: takes a momentary loss of traction and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're hydroplaning. I can't speak for Mark Runner or Stephan,
Speaker 1: but I know I've been in a car which is
Speaker 1: hydroplane and it's a scary thing.
Speaker 2: It's a very dangerous thing. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is actually what I wanted to bring into the
Speaker 1: conversation for a good evening, Mark, good evening, Stephan, Hello, Mo.
Speaker 2: I have certain rules when I drive in rains like these.
Speaker 1: If possible, I try to avoid the freeways, just because
Speaker 1: chain reaction accidents happen all the time. But I also
Speaker 1: never drive in the lane closest to the center divider.
Speaker 1: Never because depending on the freeway, you'll have puddling there.
Speaker 1: And if you do even momentarily lose traction and start
Speaker 1: to hide you plane, you'll probably end up in the
Speaker 1: center median.
Speaker 2: That's me.
Speaker 3: Do you have any rules that you follow? I don't
Speaker 3: know about rules. I mean slower and keep more distance
Speaker 3: between me and the car in front of me, which
Speaker 3: not everybody follows that rule. By the way, people were
Speaker 3: still zipping in and out, you know, like it was
Speaker 3: a video racing game. Really some a plus displays of
Speaker 3: driving skill today and possibly a few trips to the
Speaker 3: er later. Here, let's do this like an old Johnny
Speaker 3: Carson video.
Speaker 2: Are you ready?
Speaker 3: Is this the great cardat No? No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: It was so the drive in here was so scary today.
Speaker 3: How scary was it? Well, I'll tell you, it was
Speaker 3: so scary that I was afraid to take one of
Speaker 3: my hands off the wheel to give anybody the finger.
Speaker 2: You know, you have these.
Speaker 1: Little markers of growth, and for me, my marker of
Speaker 1: growth was four or five people haunked at me because
Speaker 1: I was being overly cautious. They couldn't see what I
Speaker 1: saw in front of me, so they were really impatient.
Speaker 2: They were like bay and they wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: They wanted to zoom around me to let let me
Speaker 1: know how angry they were at me. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I didn't stare them down. I didn't give him a runner.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I'm calling, we don't have to, but I am okay.
Speaker 3: I reject this. I resisted, and I'm finally an HR complaint.
Speaker 3: But I almost gave a couple of runners. I mean,
Speaker 3: excuse me. It's the Gulf of America and it has
Speaker 3: been so declared. That's a big negatory. But my point is,
Speaker 3: I take it from me. I can only speak for
Speaker 3: me as a measurement of personal growth. Because I did
Speaker 3: not engage, I did not reciprocate. I understood that if anything,
Speaker 3: I was driving for more than one person, I'll strive
Speaker 3: for me and that person. I could see a hazard
Speaker 3: that the person behind me just couldn't see. There was
Speaker 3: a bus getting ready to pull out in front of me,
Speaker 3: and so I had to slow down quickly. Why bus,
Speaker 3: But the person behind me took exception to that.
Speaker 2: That was my drive in.
Speaker 1: It took a lot longer, but it was a lot
Speaker 1: safer and it was a lot less stressful because of that.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to worry about hydro plating or anything. Twalla,
Speaker 1: what was your drive in like? Leaving the valley.
Speaker 4: Especially in the Chatsworth area as because it was a
Speaker 4: torrential downpour for most of the afternoon and it got
Speaker 4: worse as the day started coming to at least the
Speaker 4: first half. And when I headed out onto Tapanga making
Speaker 4: my way to the freeway, right around where Topega and
Speaker 4: Devonshire kind of meet, all you could just see the
Speaker 4: streets just the flooding.
Speaker 2: I came up to about.
Speaker 4: Oh, I can't remember which street exactly, but it was
Speaker 4: right right where the the bee farm is, right where
Speaker 4: the bee farm is that I will never go to.
Speaker 4: That You'll never go to cars were literally getting stuck
Speaker 4: in what I could see from my monster truck, I
Speaker 4: could see that the water was coming up to the
Speaker 4: to the runner there. So it's at least a foot
Speaker 4: of water that cars were trying to and they were
Speaker 4: just hazards on they try to make it through.
Speaker 2: They couldn't.
Speaker 4: No hydroplaning when you were in a tank, I will
Speaker 4: say thank you to the tank.
Speaker 1: This is one time I do appreciate having an suv,
Speaker 1: if only because that higher center of gravity when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with potential flooding and puddling, that's what I want.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to go seventy miles an hour around
Speaker 1: the corner, so I don't need all that speed in handling.
Speaker 1: I just like to have a higher center of gravity
Speaker 1: so I don't stall out in a puddle.
Speaker 4: Now, does your vehicle come with all of the added
Speaker 4: terrain options?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Because I put my slippery when wet moss, that's right, Yes,
Speaker 4: I yes, I felt it.
Speaker 2: I felt it grip the street.
Speaker 1: This is the first car I've had which I've had
Speaker 1: those types of options, where any other time I'm relying
Speaker 1: on my superior driving skills and handling to maneuver and
Speaker 1: navigate through this treacherous terrade. But now I can just
Speaker 1: go bip and it's all done just like that. So
Speaker 1: if we can say anything to you, just slow down. Honestly,
Speaker 1: there's no need to plow through that puddle. There's no
Speaker 1: need to go seventy five miles an hour on the freeway,
Speaker 1: whichever freeway you're on. And it may look like there
Speaker 1: are no other cars out there, it may look like
Speaker 1: that it's maybe not rainy as hard as it was
Speaker 1: an hour ago, but there are many reports of flash flooding.
Speaker 1: We will have that for you throughout the evening. Be
Speaker 1: clear on that there are depending on where you are,
Speaker 1: especially if you're in the Malibu area on PCH that
Speaker 1: they might have even shut it down. At this point
Speaker 1: we'll try to get the specific information. But there have
Speaker 1: been a number of reports of mud slides. We told
Speaker 1: you about the car, which was the suv which was
Speaker 1: swept out into the place ocean because of fast moving
Speaker 1: mud slides. And the moral of the story is it's
Speaker 1: very dangerous out there. It may not seem like it,
Speaker 1: and if you're new to California, you may think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just rained, or even the folks who've be live
Speaker 1: in here for forty years. It seems like we have
Speaker 1: to retrain ourselves and teach ourselves every single year that
Speaker 1: when it rains, we have to slow down. So if anything,
Speaker 1: just slow down, if need be, take surface streets if
Speaker 1: you're not, if you're concerned about the freeway I am.
Speaker 1: I'm mature enough to admit, Hey, I'd rather be on
Speaker 1: surface streets in weather like this. And even on surface
Speaker 1: streets you still have to be careful about the puddling
Speaker 1: and the flash flooding. But we'll have this information for
Speaker 1: you all the rest of the evening. At the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hour at seven thirty, we'll have Michael Monks,
Speaker 1: who's going to join us and talk about his weekend
Speaker 1: wildfire special which is coming up. All these elements we're
Speaker 1: going to be covering, and the Twala has jokes. He says,
Speaker 1: time is running out for me to repay my debt
Speaker 1: to Denny's because Dinny's has announced the closure of some
Speaker 1: seventy to ninety restaurants. In other words, if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pay back the money I owe for dining and ditching, well,
Speaker 1: I'd better hurry up before the you're a news article now,
Speaker 1: I am I Am. We'll talk about that before the
Speaker 1: hour's up, and so much more. It's Later with Moe
Speaker 1: Kelly KFI AM six forty. We are live everywhere on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 5: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: We're gonna tell you again, hey, just slow down, just
Speaker 1: slow down. Wherever you're going, it's still going to be
Speaker 1: there when you get there. And whether you get there
Speaker 1: ten minutes later, twenty minutes later, or even forty five
Speaker 1: minutes later, it's still going to be there.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: That said, since we know that it's going to be
Speaker 1: raining at least for the next day or so, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to plan ahead. You know that you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna have to go to work tomorrow, Well, let's
Speaker 1: think about good practices as far as planning ahead. If
Speaker 1: you got to be at work at nine am tomorrow
Speaker 1: and you usually leave at eight thirty, well you might
Speaker 1: have to leave at eight o'clock or seven forty five,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to rush, you don't have to
Speaker 1: put yourself in more danger, you don't have to put
Speaker 1: those who are around you in danger. Just some other
Speaker 1: good thoughts and practices that you can use between now
Speaker 1: and the end of the weekend or whenever it should rain,
Speaker 1: because presumably it will rain again, even if we get
Speaker 1: a drought in between, it's going to rain again. And
Speaker 1: I got this from LAist and I didn't know some
Speaker 1: of these. I didn't think about some of these, So
Speaker 1: it's good for everyone to know. And if you haven't
Speaker 1: done it, it's not too late to do it. And
Speaker 1: if you're going to put your car out there, you
Speaker 1: might as well make sure that your car is ready
Speaker 1: and safe.
Speaker 2: Have you checked the treads on your tires.
Speaker 1: I had to get a screw removed from my tire
Speaker 1: two days ago. Now how that's important is this if
Speaker 1: I knew that my tire was had a slow leaking
Speaker 1: and it was getting low. If you've ever driven a
Speaker 1: car with decreasing tire pressure, you do not have as
Speaker 1: much stability in your steering. It will pull to one
Speaker 1: side of the other depending on which side that a
Speaker 1: slow leak is. And if your tires are imbalanced in
Speaker 1: terms of pressure, you make it more difficult to handle
Speaker 1: the car. And I have an SUV, so it's even
Speaker 1: more noticeable and could be more dangerous. So make sure
Speaker 1: that your treads are reasonable, then the pressure is correct
Speaker 1: and you should be doing this regularly, regardless of the rain.
Speaker 1: But it's more important in times like these. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know this, but when I was reading this, it
Speaker 1: makes sense. Did you know that mid days, when it's
Speaker 1: raining especially, is the most dangerous time. That's when you're
Speaker 1: going to encounter the most accidents and the most likelihood
Speaker 1: of you being in an accident.
Speaker 2: Elias are reported.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty nineteen, researchers from USC datam Project Crosstown
Speaker 1: crunch traffic and weather data and found these patterns. On
Speaker 1: dry days, they found that crashes tend to peak during
Speaker 1: rush hour, when they're the most fender benders. But on
Speaker 1: rainy days, the researchers discovered most crashes happen during the
Speaker 1: middle of the day, when there's seemingly less traffic. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's because you see less traffic, you think you can
Speaker 1: drive normally, or may drive even excess of the speed limit,
Speaker 1: which dramatically increases the likelihood of a crash. When you
Speaker 1: combine speed and weather conditions with the rain, obviously more collisions,
Speaker 1: more traffic, and more delays. As I said before, give
Speaker 1: yourself more time than usual when trying to go from
Speaker 1: A to B, and for the most part, it's easier
Speaker 1: now than it.
Speaker 2: Was fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: We have these apps like Google Maps and Ways and
Speaker 1: Apple Maps, where if you're stuck in traffic, there's a
Speaker 1: way to find out an alternative route, be it on
Speaker 1: streets or some other way. If there's a traffic some
Speaker 1: sort of obstacle, there are ways that you can do it,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to be dangerous about it, because
Speaker 1: it used to be you were just trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out on the fly. There was a flood in
Speaker 1: front of you, the street or freeway was closed down,
Speaker 1: and you're just trying to find your way on the
Speaker 1: surface streets, trying to find your way around, and it
Speaker 1: gets to be really hectic and dangerous, frankly. But we
Speaker 1: have technology and make sure we're using it for our benefit.
Speaker 1: And here's something else. If you've driven as long as
Speaker 1: I have, and I've been driving forty years, sorry to
Speaker 1: tell my age, but I've been driving forty years, it
Speaker 1: used to be we had cars in which the headlights
Speaker 1: did not automatically turn on, or you couldn't have a
Speaker 1: censor where it would just come on if it was dark,
Speaker 1: and there would be a lot of fools out there
Speaker 1: who would not turn on their headlights when it was
Speaker 1: raining in the middle of the day. At least turn
Speaker 1: on your headlights. Folks, turn on your headlights. And I
Speaker 1: was just talking to Twalla during the break. The light
Speaker 1: helps not only you see, but it helps people see you,
Speaker 1: especially if someone's coming in the other direction. And when
Speaker 1: you're driving right now it's nighttime, you better have your
Speaker 1: lights on. But make sure, especially in this rain, and
Speaker 1: not your high beams, just your regular headlights where people
Speaker 1: can see you and you can see them and also
Speaker 1: hopefully see some of the puddles.
Speaker 4: But you gave a great bit of advice last night.
Speaker 4: When I left here it was pouring. I left here
Speaker 4: right when it started coming down, and the entire time
Speaker 4: on the freeway as long as I could. I actually
Speaker 4: rolled behind a semi I rolled behind a tractor truck
Speaker 4: because I knew that anything was that this truck was
Speaker 4: abiding by the rules of the road. It's not gonna
Speaker 4: be speeding. Anything that happens in front of the truck.
Speaker 4: I will know what's happening before it comes to me. Now,
Speaker 4: only that my light's just generally bouncing off the back
Speaker 4: of the truck. It helped to illuminate the road, which
Speaker 4: I can see with my glass and I can see,
Speaker 4: you know, fairly good at night. But still that helped
Speaker 4: me to stay in line, stay on the road, and
Speaker 4: actually drive slow. It forced me to have to drive
Speaker 4: slow because I'm not gonna drive into the back of
Speaker 4: this truck like you go around me if you want to.
Speaker 4: You may think I'm tripping, but I'm going to follow
Speaker 4: this truck as long as I can to get to
Speaker 4: my exit as almost a path layer in front of me.
Speaker 4: Like I'm running interface you're running in and finish. You're
Speaker 4: gonna You're gonna block any and everything. If there's a puddle,
Speaker 4: there's anything, if there's accent, I'm gonna see you react
Speaker 4: to it before I need to. And it's a lot
Speaker 4: harder to do that if you're following a car in
Speaker 4: front of you, which may be zipping and zimp in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can stand the driver's last night. No, and
Speaker 1: we're all dealing with it. Stephan is gonna deal with it. Oh, Stephan,
Speaker 1: what time did you leave your house to get here today?
Speaker 1: I usually like ten before, like one fifty. Did you
Speaker 1: leave at the same time today. Yeah, did you actually no,
Speaker 1: you're right, I left a quarter till today because I
Speaker 1: was worried, like you said about the traffic.
Speaker 2: Did you follow the same path that you usually do? Route?
Speaker 1: I did follow the same path because when I got
Speaker 1: to the spot where I normally get off right by
Speaker 1: the Galen Center in USC, it was actually moving pretty
Speaker 1: smoothly because I think a lot of people did what
Speaker 1: you did and took the streets. So I might have
Speaker 1: opened up the freeway a little bit, but yeah, there was.
Speaker 1: There's still bozos that drive like, you know, like nothing,
Speaker 1: and when it's pouring down like this, it's just like
Speaker 1: you don't know who you're gonna run into or you know, well,
Speaker 1: motorcycle shouldn't be driving, but what if a motorcycle comes
Speaker 1: up and you don't see them?
Speaker 2: It's yeah, you know, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: And the One Tin Freeway is notorious for flooding at
Speaker 1: certain points. I wonder what it's going to be like
Speaker 1: going home tonight. That's what I was thinking to you know,
Speaker 1: It's like should I take the one ten? And I'm
Speaker 1: specifically talking about the one Tin that's the one that
Speaker 1: usually floods because like under the underpass. It's like it
Speaker 1: almost like has like a cove. It does, and it's
Speaker 1: so like it. There's two of them harbor. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: one like around usc Ish around thirty second Street, and
Speaker 1: there's one at Vernon.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the slawsuit when I was thinking of it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it like, yeah, it'll just harbor all the water
Speaker 1: right there. So I can't imagine what that's like right now.
Speaker 1: It's going to be bad. It's going to be bad.
Speaker 1: And Mark, does this change how you drive home? Possibly?
Speaker 2: Tonight?
Speaker 3: Well changed the drive here because they're the on ramp
Speaker 3: to the four roh five in North Hills, you're fording
Speaker 3: a river. I knew that the car would stall out
Speaker 3: if I took that way, and but there were a
Speaker 3: number of other places on the way here as well.
Speaker 3: I left early, and I'm glad I did. You do
Speaker 3: not want to screw around in this stuff. I'm telling
Speaker 3: you as a former Seattle resident. Uh, today was a
Speaker 3: bad one.
Speaker 1: And it possibly, from what you're telling us, Mark, about
Speaker 1: tomorrow's precipitation, could be worse.
Speaker 2: Is that correct? No?
Speaker 3: Actually, I think we're through the worst of it, and
Speaker 3: we should as far as I understand from everything I've
Speaker 3: been reading and reporting. We should be in the clear
Speaker 3: by tomorrow evening. Okay, I'll take good news wherever we
Speaker 3: can find it.
Speaker 1: When we come back KFI z own, Michael Monks will
Speaker 1: join us with a preview what he has going on
Speaker 1: this weekend and it relates to the wildfires.
Speaker 2: We'll learn more about that just a moment.
Speaker 5: You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 5: KFI AM six.
Speaker 1: Forty and coming up this weekend Saturday from seven to
Speaker 1: nine pm and Sunday from two to four pm KFI Zone.
Speaker 1: Michael Monks will be presenting his special on the weekend
Speaker 1: excuse me, the Weekend Wildfire Special, and he'll give us
Speaker 1: an update on that right now.
Speaker 2: Michael Monks, good to talk to you.
Speaker 6: Good evening.
Speaker 3: Mo.
Speaker 1: I always wondered when you're reporting the news, you get
Speaker 1: one perspective.
Speaker 2: You don't get a wide perspective.
Speaker 1: You've kind of narrow in just the facts and what
Speaker 1: is happening in the moment. But now that some time
Speaker 1: has you gain a little bit of perspective, what do
Speaker 1: you think that you have learned looking back on the wildfires.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what was most interesting in putting this
Speaker 6: together so far, and I should note just for disclosure,
Speaker 6: I talked to a couple of wildfire victims who work
Speaker 6: with us at KFI and at iHeart, one of them
Speaker 6: being your producer to Wala Sharp, who had some trouble
Speaker 6: in the Altadena fire, and also David Howard from our
Speaker 6: sales department, who lost a house in the Palisades.
Speaker 2: And as I talked to both of them.
Speaker 6: Separately, by the way, and then put together this piece
Speaker 6: about their experiences, I learned the similarities. Despite the fact
Speaker 6: that these fires happened thirty miles from one another in
Speaker 6: different types of neighborhoods, there was a sense of optimism
Speaker 6: on both sides that hey, we've seen these types of
Speaker 6: forecast before. Heck, we've had fires before, but this may
Speaker 6: not play out. And so there was that hope up
Speaker 6: until the very last moment that nothing was going to happen,
Speaker 6: and then after it happened, the similar emotions not just
Speaker 6: of losing the homes, but both of these guys experienced
Speaker 6: the sensation of being physically lost in neighborhoods that they
Speaker 6: have known for decades because everything was gone, All of
Speaker 6: the recognizable historic landmarks were gone, and that really opened
Speaker 6: up a new perspective of the devastation we've all seen.
Speaker 6: We've seen aerial footage, I've been there on the ground,
Speaker 6: I've seen it up close and personal.
Speaker 2: But to hear it.
Speaker 6: From their mouths in that way, with that intensity, it
Speaker 6: really did open my eyes even bigger to the sense
Speaker 6: of loss that this entire region has experienced collectively.
Speaker 1: I got to ask you, because you may interview someone
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, and even though they may be
Speaker 1: going through something painful, there is a degree of distance
Speaker 1: because you don't know them, you don't see them every day,
Speaker 1: you don't work with them. How was it going through
Speaker 1: this type of interview process with two people that you
Speaker 1: would see presumably daily and know them in a way
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't.
Speaker 2: A typical interview subject.
Speaker 6: The closer you are to somebody, the harder it is
Speaker 6: to hear the story. We report tragedies every day in
Speaker 6: the news, and it's terrible, and we have humanity and
Speaker 6: we recognize that if it's some fatal crash that takes
Speaker 6: place on the freeway, you know that's sad, but that's
Speaker 6: also somebody's family member, right, I mean, somebody who's closer
Speaker 6: to that that is a devastating experience that will live
Speaker 6: with them forever. So the closer you are to something, obviously,
Speaker 6: the more intense the feelings. But I was grateful to
Speaker 6: both David and Twala for sharing their stories with us,
Speaker 6: because they both presented their story with a sense of vulnerability.
Speaker 6: They really opened up about the feelings that they experienced
Speaker 6: in the moment leading up to the fires, the moments
Speaker 6: during the fires, immediately after, and even right now, and
Speaker 6: it's just been terrible, and just to build upon the
Speaker 6: similarities that both are experiencing, that focus has shifted to
Speaker 6: the rebuild and the interactions with the governments, the reflection
Speaker 6: on the preparedness or the lack thereof, that the governments
Speaker 6: had in addressing these these fires as they were on
Speaker 6: the way and as they were happening.
Speaker 1: And it was just.
Speaker 6: All very revealing that even though we tell the stories,
Speaker 6: we talk to the politicians, we talk to people on
Speaker 6: the ground, the people who are experiencing it, not just
Speaker 6: on January seventh, not just on January eighth, but right
Speaker 6: now it's still very very intense. The smoke is not
Speaker 6: gone from their lives.
Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in Michael Monks of KFI News
Speaker 1: department is joining me on the line. He has a
Speaker 1: very important weekend wildfire special which is coming up on
Speaker 1: Saturday from seven to nine pm, and it will re
Speaker 1: air on Sunday from two to four pm. Michael, it's
Speaker 1: we often talk about how we find ourselves in a story,
Speaker 1: at what point we find ourselves in the story. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is not the end of the particular story, as
Speaker 1: they say, it's the end of the beginning. And we
Speaker 1: know that this rebuild process that you talked about is
Speaker 1: going to be very long. In talking to Tawala and
Speaker 1: David Howard and anyone else in covering the fires, have
Speaker 1: you figured out whether this rebuild effort is going to
Speaker 1: plan or is it actually going to pot.
Speaker 6: This is the hard part. The hard part now begins.
Speaker 6: The fires are out, thank goodness. We have some challenges
Speaker 6: obviously tonight, maybe a little bit into tomorrow, and let's
Speaker 6: hope that it doesn't get too bad out there. These
Speaker 6: folks have been through enough. We know that, and we
Speaker 6: don't want anybody else thrown into the fray. But this
Speaker 6: is a long road. There are a lot of people
Speaker 6: who say they will rebuild, and there are other folks
Speaker 6: who are looking to rebuild their lives somewhere else. But
Speaker 6: this is a region that was already challenged. It was
Speaker 6: cash strapped, it was suffering from a housing shortage and
Speaker 6: an expensive cost of living. Anyway, part of this special
Speaker 6: explores that as well. The economic impact a study that
Speaker 6: came out from UCLA. I'll talk to one of the researchers.
Speaker 6: This is not just a dollar figure on the damage
Speaker 6: that has been done, which is well into the billions
Speaker 6: of dollars, not just on the insurance claims folks are making,
Speaker 6: but money that you and I are going to have
Speaker 6: to spend because of this. If you have an insurance policy,
Speaker 6: it's likely to go up, this researcher will tell us.
Speaker 6: And we are also possibly going to see rents going up,
Speaker 6: the cost of housing going up even further, and can
Speaker 6: we spare that? So we are all going to feel
Speaker 6: the impact. And one other element that all of us
Speaker 6: will have felt, if we haven't felt it already, is
Speaker 6: what we lost in the fires. We may not have
Speaker 6: lost our home, we may not even know anybody who
Speaker 6: lived in Altadena or lived in the Palisades, but more
Speaker 6: than likely at some point we've been there, or goodness,
Speaker 6: we wanted to go there and see some attraction or
Speaker 6: some restaurant that we love that's now gone. So we
Speaker 6: talked to the LA Conservancy of Preservationist group here in
Speaker 6: Los Angeles about the impact of the loss of some
Speaker 6: of these historic structures and venues that have been there
Speaker 6: so long and have meant so much to so many people.
Speaker 6: And if you didn't get the chance to go, you
Speaker 6: never will because they're gone and that's something you can't
Speaker 6: really rebuild these.
Speaker 1: Michael Monks has a very important weekend wildfire special. Do
Speaker 1: not miss it here on KFI from seven to nine
Speaker 1: pm on Saturday, and it will be re aired on
Speaker 1: Sunday from two to four pm.
Speaker 2: Michael, I have not heard it yet.
Speaker 1: I am eagerly waiting to tune in to listen to
Speaker 1: your treatment and also learn something because I know we
Speaker 1: don't have perspective when we're reporting on these things. It's
Speaker 1: not two weeks and maybe months afterward, and you're going
Speaker 1: to help provide that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you get swept up in the moment a lot,
Speaker 6: but to have a moment to spend some time on
Speaker 6: this and to make sure that we as a community
Speaker 6: across LA remember what it was like in those early
Speaker 6: days and what it's like right now. It's just really
Speaker 6: important that we stay focused. Thank you for what you do, Michael,
Speaker 6: Thank you Moe. It's Later with Moke Kelli Cafi. We
Speaker 6: are live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 5: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: When Mo Kelly KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
Speaker 1: in the iHeartRadio app. And I have a very complicated
Speaker 1: relationship with Denny's. That's the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 1: It's fond when I think of my time in my
Speaker 1: twenties going to clubs, going to the Red Onion in
Speaker 1: Redondo Beach or Lakewood, and then we would come out
Speaker 1: and we would be very hungry and usually the only
Speaker 1: place which was open that we could afford, because we
Speaker 1: were always broke. If we had any money, we probably
Speaker 1: spent it buying drinks for whatever would be woman we
Speaker 1: were trying to get the phone number of.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a lot of money back then, so
Speaker 2: we would go to Denny's.
Speaker 1: And there was a time in which I'm not proud
Speaker 1: to say it, we dined, we ditched, and it's been
Speaker 1: hanging over my head for the past thirty some odd years,
Speaker 1: and I've been saying that one day I was going
Speaker 1: to walk into that Denny's where I dined and ditched.
Speaker 1: This right across the way from Dilamo Mall in Torrents.
Speaker 1: You probably know where it is. It's on Hawthorne Boulevard
Speaker 1: at just on the backside of the mall, right back
Speaker 1: right next to the Marriott Hotel. Dined ditched. Long story short,
Speaker 1: I've been guilty about it, and I've been saying, next
Speaker 1: time I'm around in that area, I need to go
Speaker 1: in and just slap a good twenty twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: on the register and then just walk out, and then
Speaker 1: my conscience will be clear. And then Twaala handed me
Speaker 1: the story today saying that Denny's is going to close
Speaker 1: seventy to ninety restaurants this year. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're closing all these restaurants because of me and the
Speaker 1: one time that I dined and ditched.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know if there's a correlation.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a causal relationship that because
Speaker 1: my twenty dollars meant the end of these restaurants.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's possible, and I'm starting to
Speaker 1: feel very guilty and I'm running out of time to
Speaker 1: make things right. Denny's announced back in October that there
Speaker 1: will be cutting one hundred and fifty restaurants all together
Speaker 1: by the end of this fiscal year. In that October report,
Speaker 1: denny said it closed planned to close fifty locations by
Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty four and the other one
Speaker 1: hundred this year.
Speaker 2: The fourth quarter report, which was.
Speaker 1: Released yesterday, said thirty locations were closed in the last quarter,
Speaker 1: with eighty eight locations overall closed last year.
Speaker 2: I know it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Bottom line is a lot of Denny's are going to
Speaker 1: be closed, and I'm trying not to put that blame
Speaker 1: on myself and my twenty dollars. So Tawalla said, we
Speaker 1: need to hurry it and get that video of me
Speaker 1: dropping my twenty dollars on the counter at the Denny's
Speaker 1: in Torrents before.
Speaker 2: It's too late.
Speaker 1: It does not say which particular locations will be closed,
Speaker 1: but you can imagine there will be a number of
Speaker 1: them in southern California, and uh, there's one in Gardena
Speaker 1: that I don't go too often.
Speaker 2: Stephanie may know of this one.
Speaker 1: It's on Western I believe, yes, on Western at about
Speaker 1: one hundred and maybe one hundred and eighty. Second the Denny's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Dennis is right next to a Del Taco. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the one's. And then that's the one I actually
Speaker 1: went to a lot during the pandemic because about the
Speaker 1: only place you get some food. They had to drive
Speaker 1: through where you can drive up and get food. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say the one that you well, the one
Speaker 1: that you did the twenty dollars mishap, that was the
Speaker 1: first one I saw doing outdoor dining during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, because I never I don't think I
Speaker 1: even drove by that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, because at the time I used to live
Speaker 1: right like in that area. So I remember, like six
Speaker 1: or seven months in, I was like, oh wow, they
Speaker 1: have out there dining and it was I remember it
Speaker 1: was cold, but I'm like that that's how desperate people
Speaker 1: wanted to get out of the house. Well, the Dennis
Speaker 1: in Guardiana, they had the outdoor dining too, but they
Speaker 1: had the big tent.
Speaker 2: It was basically a restaurant outside.
Speaker 1: I always got food to go, and there was always
Speaker 1: this internal battle of do I tip or not.
Speaker 2: It was a pandemic, so I usually tipped. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: It was a Denny's that I really frequented a lot,
Speaker 1: because there weren't a lot of places that you could
Speaker 1: get food whenever, especially during the pandemic. A lot of
Speaker 1: the restaurants I would go to they had limited hours
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. You didn't need all the employees, you
Speaker 1: didn't need to be open all the time. So that
Speaker 1: Denny's and Guardiana is the one that I would use.
Speaker 1: I never went to the one in Hawthorn after Torrents
Speaker 1: past Torrentson, right, No, no, No, it's down like Elsa
Speaker 1: Gundo Boulevard and Hawthorn thereabouts, if I'm not mistaken, Okay,
Speaker 1: because yeah, the one I know that you mentioned all
Speaker 1: the times, one right next to the Loomo like in
Speaker 1: front of it and Mark. Is Denny's a thing? I
Speaker 1: should say? Was it a thing when you were up
Speaker 1: and Washington?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody loves Denny's. Okay.
Speaker 3: I was just wonder and I'll admit that I was
Speaker 3: with a group I think sinn High School. Oh, they
Speaker 3: tried to dine and Dash and leave me with it.
Speaker 3: And I wasn't about to pick up the tab for
Speaker 3: the whole table, so I left as well. And I
Speaker 3: feel bad about it to this day. And I want
Speaker 3: you to know, Mo, that there is no expiation for
Speaker 3: this sin. The people, the people that we screwed over
Speaker 3: back at the time, they're probably retired or dead.
Speaker 5: Nest.
Speaker 2: Sure, there's no way to make up for what we did.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: So we have to pay it forward somehow. Oh, pay
Speaker 2: it forward. That's the only thing we can do. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: because I'm quite sure.
Speaker 1: I sure hope the woman who was working as a
Speaker 1: waitress back in nineteen ninety three, hopefully she owns the
Speaker 1: restaurant by now.
Speaker 3: Either that or she had to make it up out
Speaker 3: of her own pocket, or she did the night she
Speaker 3: did she got fired.
Speaker 1: That's where the guilt comes in, because I know that
Speaker 1: she was still responsible for the meal.
Speaker 3: Now, I would be impressed if you found a way
Speaker 3: to track down whoever was working that night, who these
Speaker 3: life you may have inadvertently destroyed.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's possible, because if only because
Speaker 1: it was kind of common that people would die.
Speaker 2: You call it, Dyan Dash, I call it dying ditch.
Speaker 1: They would do that to that particular location because of
Speaker 1: the club going crowd, So there's no way to know.
Speaker 1: I'm probably one of four hundred and fifty two. That
Speaker 1: does not lessen your guilt. No, it doesn't lessen my guilt.
Speaker 1: I'm saying to reverse engineer who was working there when
Speaker 1: in that general area.
Speaker 3: There's probably no way to do it. You'd have to
Speaker 3: hire an expensive private detective, like somebody who works for
Speaker 3: a legal office, an actual investigator with access to Lexus
Speaker 3: and Nexus and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: No, this is what I would do.
Speaker 1: I would actually go to my bank, because I've been
Speaker 1: with the same bank for a long time, and see
Speaker 1: if they could go to my expenditures within that i'll
Speaker 1: say two year period. I don't know if they would
Speaker 1: still even hold on to them that long, but it's
Speaker 1: got to exists somewhere, and then I would try to
Speaker 1: figure it out from there.
Speaker 3: And it takes them doing and I'm not sure you
Speaker 3: want to see the result, because the person may have
Speaker 3: become an addict and.
Speaker 2: Homeless. Shit, it's just because of that one thing that
Speaker 2: you did that night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, may have ended up on Figaroa outside the Vagabond Hotel.
Speaker 2: That's callback, that's a callback.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could do like a live He just skipped
Speaker 1: over the ripside, doesn't He doesn't care. He doesn't care.
Speaker 1: I'm working hard here. I don't need it now. No,
Speaker 1: it's an afterthought. It's like buying me a gift for
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day on the seventeenth.
Speaker 2: It means absolutely nothing to him.
Speaker 1: No, I've thought about, could I somehow figure out where
Speaker 1: I was when I was when it happened, and I
Speaker 1: settled on I'll just have to drop the money there
Speaker 1: and just have them look at me like I'm weird,
Speaker 1: and some employee will just say, sweet, extra tip for me.
Speaker 1: That's not my problem. It's almost like when you're tithing
Speaker 1: at church. You can't worry about where the money goes.
Speaker 1: You can't worry about whether the minister is going to
Speaker 1: use it for his strippers or his hookers. You can't
Speaker 1: worry about that. It's about you being a cheerful giver.
Speaker 1: It's about what you do.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So you think that you can just buy
Speaker 3: your way out of this, wash your hands of it
Speaker 3: like it's a papal indulgence that.
Speaker 2: You paid for.
Speaker 3: You're afraid to face the possibility that you might have
Speaker 3: turned a woman out onto the streets.
Speaker 2: Turned her out, turned her out.
Speaker 1: I was the tipping point. I was a straw that
Speaker 1: got the camel's back blown out. That's right, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, hooker. Please I like that.
Speaker 5: K f I, k OST.
Speaker 2: HD two Los Angeles, Orange County, Blood everywhere on the radio.