An L.A. county employee who allegedly had “a long history of sleeping on the job” was in charge of emergency workers sending evacuation alerts during critical moments of the Eaton Fire, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with the county. The complaint was filed late last year by Nick Vaquero, an associate director in the county’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) since 2023. The county’s Chief Executive Office confirmed to LAist that it received the complaint. Vaquero reiterated the details of his written whistleblower complaint in interviews with LAist. He said he was speaking out now because he believes OEM’s leadership decisions about staffing during the emergency were shortsighted, and he was upset that his oral complaints to his bosses and to the team working on a major after-action report released in September were ignored. He filed his written whistleblower complaint in October. For more, we turn to Erin Stone, LAist climate and environment reporter who has been covering the aftermath of the L.A. fires with a focus on the shortcomings of emergency response.
With files from LAist. You can read Erin’s full piece here. AirTalk reached out to the Office of Emergency Management for comment, and was provided the following statement:
“Steve Lieberman had no responsibility for receiving or issuing evacuation alerts and warnings. Emergency alerts and warnings are issued based on decisions made by Unified Command in the field and relayed directly to the Office...
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