After flames leveled nearly 500 homes in Bel-Air and Brentwood in 1961, Los Angeles had a reckoning over firefighting.

By 1964, city leaders had added 13 fire stations, mapped out fire hydrants, purchased helicopters and dispatched more crews to the Santa Monica Mountains. To accommodate growth in Pacific Palisades, they built a reservoir in Santa Ynez Canyon, as well as a pumping station “to increase fire protection,” as the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s then-chief water engineer, Gerald W. Jones, told The Times in 1972.

Some Palisades residents had initially fought having a reservoir so close, fearing a repeat of the 1963 Baldwin Hills disaster when a reservoir failed, killing five people and destroying about 280 homes.

In a photo published in 1970, Department of Water and Power engineers Gerald W. Jones and William J. Simon watch as the Santa Inez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades is filled.

(George R. Fry)

In the decades since, the Santa Ynez Reservoir became a source of comfort.

“I used to say all the time, ‘Boy, I know one thing that will never happen is our place will burn down,’” said Peggy Holter, who in 1978 purchased a townhouse in Palisades Highlands, just a stone’s throw from the reservoir. “It was the one thing I was never worried about.”

But on Jan. 7, the reservoir that had long been a lifeline was empty when Palisades residents needed it most, as a wildfire spread rapidly amid dangerously high winds.

“I think if the reservoir had been there and they were sucking out of it, I’m sure that our building would have been saved,” said Holter, who lived in a 36-unit condo complex. Holter’s townhouse and others in the complex survived the first night of the fire but later burned down after water pressure in the area diminished. “There’s nothing left.”

That the 117-million-gallon reservoir was off line for repairs sparked outrage against the DWP and its leadership, prompting at least two lawsuits and spurring Gov. Gavin Newsom to order an investigation. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has also promised a complete assessment of the city’s response to the wildfire, which has destroyed at least 6,380 structures and killed at least 11 people.

The reservoir remains empty, and DWP’s chief of water operations told The Times that the repairs will not be done until April or May.

The episode has drawn an urgent question from residents and city leaders: Why was the reservoir empty for nearly a year?

The saga traces back to January 2024, when a DWP property manager spotted a tear in the reservoir’s floating cover after a series of rainstorms, according to internal emails reviewed by The Times.

For decades the reservoir sat uncovered, until the city in 2012 installed a large floating membrane to comply with federal regulations. The cover is meant to prevent animals and debris from contaminating the water and to limit algae and bacteria.

When a property manager saw the tear again two days later, it seemed to have grown larger, according to the emails.

At the time, the reservoir held about 56 million gallons of water — less than half its capacity.

DWP policy calls for minor repairs to the cover to be addressed “within 48 hours of discovery,” according to a maintenance manual for the reservoir. Major repairs, however, require “specialized skills” and are contracted out, the manual indicates.

It’s unclear how the DWP initially assessed the tear, but in either case, the manual reflects urgency: “Make repairs ASAP as directed by the engineer.”

By late January, the DWP was developing a plan for repairs and had a target date for bringing the reservoir back, by April 2024, before “higher demands” in the late spring and summer, the emails indicate.

The Santa Ynez Reservoir in the Palisades Highlands as seen on Jan. 7 just before 1 p.m.

(David Hansen)

There was one hitch: Emptying the reservoir was time-consuming, and sending that much water down a drain and creek after back-to-back rains risked significant erosion, according to emails. Instead, DWP officials wanted to keep the reservoir running, despite the tear, letting residents use 20 million gallons before draining the rest.

State officials appear to have balked at that plan, according to the emails.

An engineer with the state water quality office said his team was “not supportive” of allowing the Santa Ynez Reservoir to go back in service in late January 2024, according to an email by a DWP regulatory affairs official summarizing the call.

“Their decision is apparently not based on the sampling results provided earlier today, which demonstrated that samples collected yesterday did not contain bacteria,” the DWP official wrote.

Around that time, DWP began draining the water from the reservoir, a process that can take up to two months. In April, the utility issued an invitation for bids to repair the cover, with the cost put at $89,000.

Only one company, Layfield Group — which had installed the cover in 2012 — turned in a bid, and the contract was finalized Nov. 21 for about $130,000.

For the months when the reservoir was empty, its absence barely drew notice. Residents still had water to shower or fill their pools — the city’s wider water system supplied enough to the area — and helicopters could land at the reservoir’s helipad to refill from a hookup linked to the water system.

The DWP has not detailed the timeline but said in a statement that the repairs were “subject to the city charter’s competitive bidding process which requires time. ”

On Tuesday, DWP Chief Executive Janisse Quiñones was scheduled to publicly address the utility’s response to wildfires at a meeting of the L.A. City Council’s Energy and Environment Committee.

But Quiñones’ presentation was apparently blocked by City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto.

“Given the multiple lawsuits filed against the L.A. Department Water and Power in light of the Palisades wildfires, the city attorney insisted for [Quiñones] to not join us today,” Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, chair of the committee, said Tuesday afternoon.

Nazarian said that Quiñones would be available instead to field questions from council members on Wednesday at a closed-door meeting focused on one of the lawsuits filed over the Palisades fire.

A spokesperson for Feldstein Soto did not respond to requests for comment.

More residents of the upper Palisades are contemplating litigation, according to multiple interviews, although it’s unclear whether the reservoir would have made a meaningful difference in firefighters’ ability to combat the flames. Water systems experts said that with extreme Santa Ana winds that prevented the use of planes and helicopters, the Palisades fire was impossible to control, and municipal water systems aren’t equipped for such blazes.

Palisades residents, meanwhile, are taking stock of the long and costly rebuilding process.

Hunter Simon, who lived with his family about 2,000 feet away from the reservoir, believes his home would not have burned down if the reservoir had been filled. In previous fires, he benefited from the proximity, with helicopters inadvertently dropping water on his property, even if the flames weren’t close by.

“You never evacuate really thinking that you’re saying goodbye to something,” said Simon.

Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.