Glendale officials praise emergency response as crews continue cleanup after windstorm and red-flag evacuations

Glendale city leaders on Tuesday credited city staff and regional partners for actions that protected residents during a severe windstorm and related fire threats in early January, while outlining a multi-week cleanup and recovery effort.

The emergency operations center activated Jan. 7 and the city opened an evacuation center as winds and red-flag conditions prompted evacuation orders for Glen Oaks Canyon and Chevy Chase Canyon, City Manager (Mr.) Galanian said. Glendale Water & Power crews restored service to more than 33,000 customers, public safety personnel handled thousands of calls and city crews logged hundreds of responses as teams cleared debris and made repairs.

The city manager said crews restored service to “nearly all” customers and that the Emergency Information Center logged about 3,461 calls during the evacuation period. Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Brooks told the council that Glendale kept all fire stations fully staffed while also sending engines and personnel to support fires in neighboring jurisdictions. “Evacuation warnings and orders are issued out of an abundance of caution,” Brooks said, adding that decisions consider wind patterns, fire behavior and the potential for ember cast impacts.

Why it matters: Council members said the event exposed both strengths and operational gaps — especially multilingual outreach, outage communications and debris-removal timelines — and asked staff for follow-up on lessons learned and potential resource needs as cleanup proceeds.

What the council heard and directed: Mayor Asad thanked staff and volunteers and urged the council to review after-action reports. The city reported 554 downed trees and limbs citywide; public works said crews had cleared 309 and estimated a citywide sweep would require roughly six weeks (staff said 6–8 weeks is the schedule). Public Works Director Hernandez told the council crews have completed six of 12 maintenance districts and are moving systematically through remaining areas.

Council members pressed for clearer timelines, faster brush and debris removal in some neighborhoods, and better two-way outage communications from GWP after several residents reported incorrect or repeated restoration notices. Several council members also asked staff to identify whether extra contractor support or matching funds could shorten the cleanup from the six- to eight-week estimate.

The city also reported other operational tallies from the event: fire responded to roughly 3,431 emergency incidents during the period; the EIC saw more than 3,461 calls; staff counted more than 700 distinct incidents citywide; and the city’s website had an exceptional surge in traffic (staff reported more than 144,000 visits during the event window). Communications staff said the emergency splash page and Everbridge notifications were translated into Armenian, Spanish and Korean during the response.

Public guidance and next steps: Staff reiterated public guidance — report fallen trees, limbs or hazardous wires using the MyGlendale app or the city numbers for tree/limb (548-3950) and power outages (855-550-4497). The council asked staff to provide a memo within weeks summarizing costs, resource requests and recommended changes to outage notification practices and multilingual outreach. The council also agreed to consider any FEMA-eligible and other state/federal funding as staff completes damage inventories and grant applications.

Ending: Council members closed the item praising first responders and volunteers and asked staff to return with a short memo on lessons learned and options to accelerate cleanup where feasible.