City emergency management to transition Palisades recovery to departments as long-term phase begins

Los Angeles Emergency Management Department officials told a City Council ad hoc committee they will transition primary coordination of the Pacific Palisades fire recovery to the city departments that will lead long-term rebuilding, after seven months of intermediate recovery operations.

The transition means EMD will move from the lead coordinating role it assumed after the Jan. 7 Palisades fire to a supporting role, while the tenant city departments take operational responsibility. EMD General Manager Carol Parks said the city meets the three National Disaster Recovery Framework benchmarks — local capacity restored, core services stabilized, and tenant agencies ready to lead — and is aiming to hand off remaining workstreams by October 8.

EMD’s role and why it matters EMD General Manager Carol Parks said the department built a recovery structure from scratch while also staffing emergency response, then aligned its work with FEMA’s National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF). “We were called to build a recovery structure from the ground up while continuing our response role in the emergency operations center,” Parks said. EMD assembled six Recovery Support Functions (housing, infrastructure, health and social services, community assistance, natural and…