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West Altadena residents Anthony Mitchell Sr. and his son Justin Mitchell were stuck at home when the Eaton Fire erupted Jan. 7. Both had disabilities, and to evacuate, they needed help. Mitchell Sr. and family members called 911 multiple times as the fire spread. But first responders didn't make it in time to evacuate the father and son. Seven months after the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, guest host Jill Replogle looks back with LAist climate and environment reporter Erin Stone. They discuss the timeline of the 911 calls and how emergency planning continues to leave people with disabilities behind in Los Angeles.

Despite three 911 calls, how did two men with disabilities die in their home during the Eaton Fire?

West Altadena residents Anthony Mitchell Sr. and his son Justin Mitchell were stuck at home when the Eaton Fire erupted Jan. 7. Both had disabilities, and to evacuate, they needed help. Mitchell Sr. and family members called 911 multiple times as the fire spread. But first responders didn't make it in time to evacuate the father and son. Seven months after the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, guest host Jill Replogle looks back with LAist climate and environment reporter Erin Stone. They discuss the timeline of the 911 calls and how emergency planning continues to leave people with disabilities behind in Los Angeles.

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By the time Anthony Mitchell Sr. called 911 for the first time at 6:03 a.m. on Jan. 8, sparks were flying into his west Altadena backyard.

“There’s two disabled people in the house,” he told the dispatcher, who then asked for his exact address.

The Eaton Fire erupted about 12 hours earlier, and driven by extreme Santa Ana winds, it was burning a path through neighborhoods of 100-year-old homes and tight-knit, multigenerational communities.

“Sparks are flying in my backyard right now,” Anthony Mitchell Sr. told the dispatcher, his voice calm.

“And is the backyard on fire or just sparked?” the dispatcher replied.

“It's sparks right now, but it's getting close,” he said.

“All right. We'll give them that information. They should be there as soon as possible,” the dispatcher told him.

“OK. Thank you, 'cause I'm scared with me and my son being disabled,” Anthony Mitchell Sr. replied.

“OK, they're on their way,” the dispatcher said.

The Eaton Fire’s toll

At least 30 people died in January’s unprecedented fires — most of them older and many with disabilities.

Hajime White stands outside her father's home in Altadena.

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Courtesy Hajime White

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LAist recently obtained 911 calls from Anthony Mitchell Sr., who had a disability and lived with his disabled son in the 100 block of Terrace Street. The calls — released by the L.A. County Fire Department nearly five months after LAist requested them — shed light on why and how inadequate emergency planning, training and coordination leaves people with disabilities behind when disaster strikes.

The calls are being published with the permission of the Mitchell family.

Anthony Mitchell Sr. was no stranger to fire. The 68-year-old had lived in Altadena and Pasadena for most of his life, and he’d always give his family updates about the weather.

“He would call and let me know whether it was fire. He’d let me know if it was raining,” said daughter Hajime White, who lives in Arkansas.

But flames never got far enough down the mountains to threaten the home where Anthony Mitchell Sr. lived with his two adult sons, Justin and Jordan, who was the primary caretaker for his brother and father.

Justin Mitchell, 35, had cerebral palsy and was paraplegic, and required two or three people to help him get out of bed. Anthony Mitchell Sr. used a wheelchair, walker or cane after losing a leg to diabetes.

On the night of Jan. 7, Jordan Mitchell was in the hospital after a fall.

“Frankly, that’s my worst nightmare, that I wouldn’t be around them and something would happen and someone would get hurt,” Jordan Mitchell told KCAL News a week after the fire.

When the Eaton Fire started about 6:20 that evening, Anthony Mitchell Sr. initially wasn’t concerned. But in just a few hours, winds that gusted up to 80 mph spread embers deep into west Altadena.

Evacuation orders for west Altadena came about eight hours after the alerts for people living east of Lake Avenue, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times. Evacuation warnings were never sent before that order.

But before those orders came at 3:25 a.m. Jan. 8, Anthony Mitchell Sr. — and many others west of Lake Avenue — feared the situation was getting out of control.

Anthony Mitchell Sr. called son Anthony Mitchell Jr., who lives in Bakersfield, at about 11 p.m. Jan. 7 to say that he’d called other family members to help get him and Justin Mitchell out. Anthony Mitchell Jr. told LAist that law enforcement stopped those family members from entering the area.

The second 911 call

At 6:14 a.m. Jan. 8, 11 minutes after he first called 911, Anthony Mitchell Sr. called again.

“ My house is on fire,” he says, repeating his address, his tone still calm. “Two disabled people in the house.”

“I can hear crackling now. I can see the flames,” Anthony Mitchell Sr. tells the dispatcher.

“OK. And you're in the residence right now?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes, we are,” he replies. “Myself and my disabled son. We're both disabled.”

As the dispatcher typed notes, Anthony Mitchell Sr. softly says, “Hurry, please.”

After confirming the address again, the dispatcher says, “OK, sir, we'll get out there as soon as we can.”

Gaps in disaster support for people with disabilities

Experts LAist spoke with said the Mitchells’ case highlights long-running challenges and stalled efforts to improve support for people with disabilities during disasters. Still, they emphasized that even the best planning can’t save everyone.

“ No matter how strong the emergency plan is, chances of help arriving quickly in a major catastrophic event are not good,” said June Isaacson Kailes, a Los Angeles-based disability policy consultant.

It’s why early notification to people with disabilities is key, she said. And in the Eaton Fire, those alerts came too late for west Altadena, which is where all but one of the 18 deaths in the fire occurred.

People with disabilities require more time to evacuate. They may have specialized medical equipment, and they frequently need to be taken somewhere that can support their needs — designated evacuation shelters, such as a high school gym or a community center, sometimes cannot.

And once disaster strikes, 911 lines quickly get overwhelmed.

Governments need to be honest about, and better communicate these gaps, Isaacson Kailes said.

“ I know the politicians don't like that because they say, well, people will lose confidence,” Isaacson Kailes said. “Well, that's right, but maybe they'll be more realistic in what they can expect.”

Creating a separate emergency number specifically for people with disabilities to call, and training 911 dispatchers to direct disabled callers to specific resources, are some solutions, said Dawn Skaggs,  chief program officer at the World Institute on Disability, which assisted families in need alongside the San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center during the Eaton Fire.

“Right now, there is basically no training,” Skaggs said.

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department oversees evacuations during disasters here, according to the county’s evacuation and transportation emergency plan. The county Fire Department is tasked with handling medical evacuations in partnership with other departments, according to that document.

The agencies coordinate with transit and paratransit agencies that have vehicles, can assist with mass evacuations and can carry people who require medical equipment.

Bus drivers with the city of Pasadena, for example, rushed in to help evacuate senior living facilities during the Eaton Fire.

Residents of an Altadena senior center are evacuated as the Eaton Fire approaches on Jan. 7.

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Ethan Swope

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Associated Press

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In unincorporated Altadena, LA Metro is the liaison for mass evacuations, according to the county’s plan.

Although Metro did deploy vehicles, they were not used.

“Due to the very large embers blowing and creating unsafe conditions for the drivers, we were not able to reach the exact area requested and had to stage at a safe distance,” said Maya Pogoda, a spokesperson for the agency, in an email to LAist.

Buses are generally used for evacuating multifamily buildings and nursing homes, not individuals at their homes, experts told LAist.

That’s where paratransit agencies, such as AccessLA, can come in. AccessLA is the county’s main paratransit agency and has a fleet of more than 1,800 vehicles that can transport three to four people with wheelchairs and other medical equipment. All of their drivers are trained in emergency response.

“We can’t do mass evacuations,  but we have a niche that can transport disabled people with wheelchairs and walkers, service animals,” said Mike Greenwood, the agency’s chief operating officer.

Greenwood said AccessLA was ready to respond to the fires by 4 a.m. Jan. 8. But despite Greenwood personally checking in with the county’s lead response agencies, AccessLA was not called to assist, by the county or the city, he said.

“I was a little surprised,” Greenwood said.

He said AccessLA drivers have been called in by the city of L.A. to help evacuate people in past fires, including the 2017 Woolsey Fire.

“ I would hope that we're gonna have a seat in the county [emergency operation center] at some point in time so that we can help the disabled community and better be able to evacuate those people down the road,” Greenwood said.

The county’s office of emergency management declined to answer why AccessLA wasn’t called.

“Multiple after-action reviews currently underway are taking a comprehensive approach to these topics; we await completion and release of the final report before commenting,” the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center Center wrote in a statement to LAist.

Businesses along Lake Avenue were destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena. Warnings for residents west of Lake came much later than those for people east of the Altadena and Pasadena thoroughfare.

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Zoe Meyers

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AFP via Getty Images

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A third 911 call

A few minutes after Anthony Mitchell Sr. got off the phone with 911 the second time, he called his daughter in Arkansas. He told White that he’d called twice to be evacuated. He quickly had to get off the phone, telling her he could see the fire in the yard.

At 6:35 a.m., another family member calls 911.

“The backyard's on fire, and they've called twice and nobody's coming and getting them out,” she says, her voice urgent.

“Do you know about how long ago they called?” the dispatcher asks.

“He said he called a few minutes ago, I mean, about 15 minutes ago. And he said he called twice, and they said they were on their way, but nobody's here,” she replies.

“Yeah, we have a lot of calls in that area,” the dispatcher says. “Let me just make sure we have the call.”

“They can't get out of the house,” she says, desperation in her voice.

“Yeah, I understand,” the dispatcher says, confirming they did receive the earlier 911 call and that crews had been notified.

She again emphasized the deteriorating conditions.

“Embers everywhere, and the backyard’s on fire,” she says.

“Got it. We'll notify them of that information,” the dispatcher replies.

LAist reviewed radio traffic from that night and found dispatchers discussing the Mitchells’ address after the third 911 call.

At 6:38 a.m., a dispatcher shared the address to deployed crews, saying the Mitchells were “unable to get out, sees flames nearby.”

Help arrived too late.

The Mitchells' home after the Eaton Fire.

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Courtesy Hajime White

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At about 8:30 a.m., Anthony Mitchell Jr. got a call from his brother Jordan. When first responders arrived, Jordan Mitchell told his brother, the house had burned down.

His father and brother were inside, dead.

The cause of death was smoke inhalation and burns, the L.A. County medical examiner later determined.

The L.A. County fire and sheriff’s departments declined to answer detailed questions from LAist about the incident, saying they were waiting for the official after-action report and investigations to be completed.

What could help? 

The county’s office of emergency management also declined to answer specific questions from LAist about its general plans for evacuating people with disabilities from their homes during disasters.

Its publicly available emergency plan details no specifics about evacuating and supporting people with disabilities. Its mass transportation plan, approved in 2017, includes specific transit and paratransit agencies that can assist with evacuating people with disabilities, but not much detail beyond that.

Isaacson Kailes said that’s a systemic problem in emergency planning.

“ The plans say they may use them, they will consider, they could. But they're not specific about they will, and here's the plan, and here's the response time,  and here are the contact people, and here's what we can expect in terms of resources,” Isaacson Kailes said. “There needs to be a very specific plan.”

Emergency plans also tend to take a triage approach, Skaggs said. That means that instead of centering people with disabilities in disaster response, they may be treated as an afterthought in the desperate effort to save as many lives as possible.

“We recognized very early that disability rights were something that were frequently set aside during emergencies and disasters and considered in many ways as a fabulous thing to have, but not necessary,” Skaggs said. “That could not be more wrong.  You are inadvertently, systematically eliminating them from the plans.”

While detailed plans are a necessary foundation, they’re no silver bullet and should never offer a false sense of security, Skaggs and Isaacson Kailes emphasized.

“ How do we communicate with people that even when there is a plan, the first thing you have to do is to have your own backup plan?” Isaacson Kailes said. “Even if it means a neighbor has to literally throw you in the backseat of a car without your wheelchair, without your mobility devices, just to save your life. And I think that's a stark reality that people don't think about.”

L.A. County has taken steps to improve its emergency response for people with disabilities, but some say efforts have stalled or gone backwards in recent years.

The county previously had an Access and Functional Needs Advisory Committee, which brought together members of the disabled community, disability experts, agencies, officials and other stakeholders to develop better plans for assisting vulnerable communities during disasters.

That committee was in the process of developing a more detailed evacuation plan for people with disabilities, but it was never finished, Greenwood said. The committee was dissolved in 2020 after a consent decree ended.

In a 2023 review of L.A. county’s emergency planning, the state urged the county to, among other things, reestablish the committee and create specific procedures for evacuating people with disabilities.

Its recommendations were not fulfilled.

“When a fire occurred, the lack of these protocols potentially contributed to the loss of life, which can be described as ‘negligent,’” Isaacson Kailes wrote in an email to LAist.

A family mourns and seeks answers

Experts emphasized there’s no way to know if things could have been different for the Mitchells even with a comprehensive plan in place.

The family, meanwhile, feels the system failed them.

“My dad was let down,” Anthony Mitchell Jr. told LAist. “I feel that whole area was let down, that side of Altadena.”

His sister agreed.

“ I'm absolutely just angry and mad and just upset,” White said.

Six months after the fire, their grief has not subsided either.

“ I wish my father was here,” Anthony Mitchell Jr. said. “My daughter has waited since she was in elementary for my dad to show up at graduation like he did all his grandkids out here. She was broken-hearted.”

Anthony Mitchell Jr. lived with his dad in Altadena from the age of 13 until he joined the Marines out of high school. He recalled fond memories of Christmas.

“It'd be a smorgasbord Christmas breakfast,  and it'd be a smorgasbord at Christmas dinner,” Anthony Mitchell Jr. said. “Collard greens, corn bread, roasted duck, roasted beef, just all types of food. And I remember my dad, man, he would be cooking. My stepmom would be cooking. Everybody would be cooking at their respective houses and come together for this big potluck at the end.”

White said she’ll miss her father’s regular calls, his sage advice and his sense of humor.

“He loved to keep you laughing. He always had good advice,” White said. “Any time I called my dad, he was there. He would say, ‘What you got for me, baby?’ For my birthday, he would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in a Cookie Monster voice, which I'm definitely going to miss.”

A brochure the Mitchells family put together for the funeral of the family patriarch and Justin.

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Courtesy Hajime White

)

For the funeral, the family put together a brochure to celebrate the family’s patriarch and Justin Mitchell.

“We celebrate Uncle’s legacy — the man who could flip a steak like a pro, drop a joke like a comedian and make any room feel like home,” the brochure reads. “We celebrate Justin’s joy — the way he made life lighter, the way he brought warmth to every moment.”

Anthony Mitchell Sr.’s children hope their father and brother’s deaths will at least lead to concrete change in the case of future disasters.

They said they want to see better efforts to employ other ways of notifying people about emergencies, such as sirens; they want officials to prioritize plans to evacuate older people and those with disabilities; and they want to see funding to support the families of disaster victims.

“What I would like to mainly see change is that everyone is treated with respect,” White said, “everyone is not left behind.”

LAist watchdog correspondent Jordan Rynning contributed to this report.

Just last week California’s secretary of state officially certified that nearly two-thirds of Californians voted to pass Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily gerrymander the state’s congressional maps in favor of Democrats.

Nevertheless, Republicans and the Trump administration are hopeful a federal district court panel meeting in Los Angeles this week will intervene to bar the state from using the new maps next year.

California Republicans, who sued Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber the day after the election, are staking their challenge on the argument that California’s primary mapmaker illegally used race as a factor in drawing district lines, giving Latino and Hispanic voters outsize influence at the expense of other racial and ethnic groups, including white voters.

This, the Republicans argue, means the maps amount to an illegal racial gerrymander and a violation of the 14th and 15th amendments. Although Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act allows for race-conscious redistricting, they add, case law and judicial precedent have set a strict standard that requires a minority group to prove they have been systematically outvoted by a majority that consistently votes together to deny the minority their chosen candidate.

But the Prop. 50 opponents’ odds look slim, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority recently blessed Texas’ new maps, overturning a lower court’s finding that Republicans there had engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“It is indisputable that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” wrote conservative Justice Samuel Alito in a concurring opinion supported by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

And then there’s the looming possibility that the Supreme Court, in a separate case, could outlaw entirely the use of race in the redistricting process, which could render California’s new maps — as well as the previous ones drawn by the independent citizens commission — unconstitutional. That would also give Republicans a major advantage in Southern states, where several districts drawn to increase Black Americans’ voting power currently are represented by Democrats.

Despite the long odds, the ailing California GOP has run out of other options for resistance. The passage of Prop. 50 is likely to mark the beginning of the end for several of California’s Republican House members, who have been forced to decide whether to run in their current, now less favorable Republican districts, switch to new seats or drop out entirely.

One of them, Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents parts of San Diego County, even considered relocating to Texas and running for a Dallas-area seat that would be more friendly to Republicans, but the president reportedly refused to endorse him for the already contested Texas seat, so he decided to stay.

The legal challenge claims the Prop. 50 maps cause “stigmatic and representational injury” by placing certain candidates, such as Republican Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno, who is Polynesian, into districts drawn with a specific racial or ethnic minority group in mind.

Case is in Los Angeles court this week

The challengers, who include Tangipa, the California Republican Party, several Republican voters and the Trump White House, are asking a three-judge panel for the Central District of California to grant a preliminary injunction on the maps before Dec. 19, the date when candidates can start collecting signatures to get their names on the 2026 primary ballot. A preliminary injunction would temporarily prevent the maps from being used in an election.

On Monday in court, the Republican challengers presented their case, arguing that since supporters of Prop. 50 publicly touted that the maps increased representation for Latino voters, state lawmakers and consultant Paul Mitchell, who was hired to draw the maps, took race into account. Therefore, they must justify how their new districts meet the standard for permissible racial gerrymanders, attorneys argued.

“It is legal to race-based redistrict under the Voter Rights Act. Section 2 protects it. But it also gives you guidelines,” Tangipa told CalMatters in an interview after testifying in court on Monday in Los Angeles. “In Sacramento, they did not follow those guidelines.”

Tangipa asserted that even though Democratic lawmakers intended primarily to increase their party’s ranks based on political ideology, “They used race to justify that end goal.”

The plaintiffs sought to have Mitchell testify, but the court denied a request to force him to take the stand to explain whether he intentionally tried to increase the voting power of specific racial and ethnic groups. Since Mitchell lives more than 100 miles away from the court, he was out of the reach of a subpoena. Still, the judges questioned his blanket use of “legislative privilege” to resist producing documents the plaintiffs requested.

At one point, as a redistricting expert testified, the plaintiffs focused on a line from Democratic former Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire’s public statement after the Legislature passed the package of bills paving the way for the Nov. 4 special election.

“The new map makes no changes to historic Black districts in Oakland and the Los Angeles area, and retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters to elect their candidates of choice,” McGuire’s statement said.

McGuire announced last month that he will challenge Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa in one of the newly configured Prop. 50 seats.

But proponents of the new maps argue they intended purely to create a partisan advantage for Democrats, and any increase in voting power for certain ethnic or racial groups was incidental.

Ultimately, 'it was endorsed by the voters'

Also complicating the GOP’s challenge is that California voters overwhelmingly approved the maps.

“Even if we assume that the Legislature improperly considered race, ultimately it went into effect because it was endorsed by the voters,” Emily Rong Zhang, an assistant professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, previously told CalMatters. “They would have to show that the voters had the intent to create districts that disproportionately favor the voting power of a racial group over another.”

One unknown is how the Supreme Court will rule on a case that questions whether it’s constitutional to even consider race as a factor when redistricting.

The justices are weighing in another ongoing case, Louisiana v. Callais, whether to strike down a part of the federal Voting Rights Act that requires the creation of districts in which racial and ethnic minorities have a chance to elect their preferred candidate. If the ruling is retroactive, a decision to strike it down could invalidate both California’s old and new maps.

Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, other states have jumped into the redistricting effort or are contemplating entering the fray. In addition to Texas and California, four other states have already implemented new congressional maps, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia, Maryland and Florida have also taken some steps toward redistricting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

FIFA said on Tuesday it plans to sell $60 tickets for each of the 104 games of the 2026 World Cup — an announcement that comes after an outcry over prices for the tournament that will be held next summer across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

"Fans of the national teams that have qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026 will benefit from a dedicated ticket pricing tier, which has been designed to make following their teams on football's greatest stage more affordable," FIFA said in a statement.

But these tickets — called "supporter entry tier tickets" by FIFA — will be available only to supporters of qualified teams and are limited in quantity.

Only 10% of the total number of tickets provided to each qualified team would be available at $60 per game, including the final. Given that each team gets 8% of the available tickets per game, the effective number of tickets available at that price would be only 0.8% of the stadium capacity for that game, or 1.6% for both teams combined.

But the actual number of $60 tickets could vary. Each country would determine which of its fans qualify for the cheaper tickets. In the statement, FIFA requested that countries "ensure that these tickets are specifically allocated to loyal fans who are closely connected to their national teams."

Some fans had called prices 'a betrayal'

FIFA's announcement comes after many fans reacted with outrage at the prices for the World Cup next year, which range from $140 for a handful of initial-round games to as much as $2,735 for the U.S. opening match against Paraguay that will be held in Los Angeles next year.

Prices for knockout rounds surge even more, with FIFA charging charging $4,185 for the cheapest ticket for the final that will be held in July next year in New Jersey — and $8,680 for the most expensive seats.

That's much higher than previous World Cups. For example, the most expensive ticket for the 2022 final at the last tournament held in Qatar was about $1,600.

Unlike previous World Cups, FIFA has yet to publish a list of prices, instead adjusting them across different sales windows without an announcement. Fans found out about the price changes after FIFA opened its latest lottery window last week, which allows fans to apply for tickets until Jan. 13.

And many fans were upset. The Football Supporters Europe, a group that represent fans across the region, called ticket prices "a betrayal to the most dedicated fans." On Tuesday, the group said on X it welcomes FIFA's latest announcement, but added it was not enough.

"Based on the allocations publicly available, this would mean that at best a few hundred fans per match and team would be lucky enough to take advantage of the 60 USD prices, while the vast majority would still have to pay extortionate prices, way higher than at any tournament before," Football Supporters Europe said.

Demand appears high, however

FIFA has defended its pricing policy, saying it's adapting to prices in the North American market. It has also consistently responded by saying it's a non-profit organization that steers the majority of its revenues from the World Cup "to fuel the growth of men's, women's and youth football throughout the 211 FIFA Member Associations."

Despite the outrage over its prices, FIFA is seeing strong demand for next year's World Cup. On Tuesday, FIFA added it had already received 20 million ticket requests during this current sales window, with weeks still to go before the lottery window closes.

But for supporters, following a team throughout the tournament could be prohibitively expensive in 2026 — and not only because of high ticket prices.

The cost of travel across the three countries has also surged, including hotel prices, making it likely that next year's tournament will be among the most expensive World Cups ever staged for fans.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Huntington Beach appears to be running out of options in its effort to stave off state housing mandates after a recent California Supreme Court decision.

California requires cities to plan and zone for housing to meet the needs of the population at all income levels. In the most recent planning cycle, Huntington Beach was told it had to plan for 13,368 new homes.

The city balked, and the state sued Huntington Beach in 2023 for failing to comply.

The city’s argument, in a nutshell

The city has argued it doesn’t have to comply because it’s a charter city, which gives it more autonomy in some areas of governance than non-charter cities.

Huntington Beach also has said that planning for such a large number of units would force it to violate state environmental laws. A state appeals court in a September ruling didn’t buy either argument.

What’s next?

A San Diego court now must determine penalties against Huntington Beach, even as the city has vowed to keep fighting the housing mandate. An appeals court has ordered the lower court to give the city 120 days to approve a housing plan.

Other remedies the court will consider include:

• Suspending the city’s ability to approve building permits — essentially bringing all development in the city to a halt; or, on the opposite end of the spectrum,

• Forcing Huntington Beach to approve any and all applications to build homes — in other words, completely removing the city’s discretion to plan for development. 

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 16.

More animals are being run over on Los Angeles streets than ever before, and the lingering effects of the pandemic may be partly to blame.  

Through November of this year, the city’s MyLA311 service has fielded 31,093 requests for “dead animal removal,” an increase of more than a thousand from the same time last year. It marks a 37% increase from five years prior, and is the fifth straight year of increases.  

Fraser Shilling of the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis, studies the impact of transportation on animal populations. While one of the drivers of the increase is the continual loss of habitat from urban development, Shilling says the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are also playing a role. The protracted lockdown sparked a boom in pet adoptions, which he says has now transformed into an increase in animals being let go by their owners.  

“Basically, pandemic pets are being abandoned,” Shilling said. “Before they get picked up by animal control, they’re out on the street getting hit.” 

Cats made up nearly a third of animals picked up last year, according to the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation. Dogs accounted for 17%. Raccoons and opossums were the third- and fourth-most common. The vast majority of pickup requests are for animals that have been struck by vehicles. Others include requests to collect pets that have died at their owner’s home.

Want to know the number of requests in your neighborhood? Sign up for the Crosstown Neighborhood Newsletter and get stats about crime, traffic, housing and more for where you live.

Overstuffed animal shelters

Los Angeles has a massive feral cat population, estimated to be close to one million.

In 2020, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Citywide Cat Program aimed at trapping and spaying or neutering stray cats to prevent unwanted litters. But the program’s progress is facing constraints due to local funding challenges, as well as a nationwide veterinarian shortage. 

In August, the City Council unanimously approved a motion increasing the dollar amount pet owners are reimbursed by the city for spaying and neutering their pets, for an estimated cost of $9 million. A proposal from the city administrative officer recommended giving the higher reimbursement rates to shelter-based programs like the Citywide Cat Program, which would have cost an estimated $21 million over three years. That plan was not adopted.  

At the same time, the city’s shelters are overflowing with intakes. Through October of this year, Los Angeles Animal Service shelters took in 36,330 cats and dogs, per the department’s Woof Stat reports, a 6% increase from the same time last year and a 46% increase from the entire year of 2020. Its dog shelter program currently is operating at 123% capacity.  

San Pedro, Los Angeles’ southernmost neighborhood, had the highest number of dead animal removal requests in the city this year, with 922 as of Nov. 30, a 15% increase over the same period in 2024. 

As of Dec. 9, the animal shelter in San Pedro also had the highest dog occupancy rate of any of the six shelters in the city at 159% capacity. 

“Like many shelters across the country, LA Animal Services continues to experience overcrowding and operates at overcapacity, despite the department’s ongoing efforts to promote spaying and neutering, encourage pet adoptions and fostering, and working with rescues to help place animals,” Animal Services said in a statement. 

Where the city meets the wild 

The highest rates of wild animal collisions occur in dense urban areas surrounded by natural vegetation. Van Nuys and Northridge — ringed by the Santa Susana, Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains — were the neighborhoods with the second- and third-most dead animal reports. While cats were still the most common animals being picked up in Northridge zip codes, according to data from the Department of Sanitation, the region had numbers of opossums, squirrels, coyotes and deer that were higher than the citywide average 

Requests for removals in 2024, the most recent year for which the animal breakdown is available, included 366 coyotes, 191 chickens, 27 turtles and four turkeys. 

The number of dead deer last year was 63, around half of what it was in 2020. While that sounds like an improvement, it actually indicates a dire trend.  

“The population of deer in California is going down by 10% a year, and the population killed by traffic is about 8% or 9% per year, suggesting that the decline in deer in California is directly tied to roadkill,” said Shilling of the Road Ecology Center.  

Habitat loss from urban development is typically accompanied by an increase in traffic, according to the Road Ecology Center’s annual roadkill report. The city has been fast-tracking new development under Mayor Karen Bass’s directive focused on affordable housing, and over 5,600 units have been approved in the San Fernando Valley since 2023, according to the city planning website.  

The best solution to curb wildlife roadkill, Shilling said, is for people to drive more slowly. The second best is fencing along major roads and highways that have become hotspots. He said wildlife crossings — like the slated Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills — are ineffective at stopping roadkill unless accompanied by deliberate fencing.  

How we did it: We examined more than eight years of reports from the city’s MyLA311 service data. In addition, we broke down the requests by neighborhood. We also analyzed data from the Department of Sanitation and the city’s Animal Services Department. Have questions about our data or want to ask a question? Write to us as askus@xtown.la.