Ted Soqui/Sipa USA via AP
California Gov. Gavin Newsom holds a press conference about the fire that damaged the I-10 freeway, November 13, 2023, in Los Angeles.
You may have heard of the butterfly effect: the idea that some infinitesimally obscure event in one part of the world (a butterfly flapping its wings) could have a monumental effect elsewhere (a change in air pressure that creates a tornado or hurricane). In the online world, we illustrate this with the domino meme, where a tiny domino knocks over a bigger and bigger one until an object a few feet tall is in line to topple.
In the case of the massive fire around the East Los Angeles interchange of the Interstate 10 freeway this past weekend, the domino meme would be labeled this way:
- Hand sanitizer needs spike during the COVID pandemic.
- Nonpharmaceutical interventions gradually wane.
- A state program from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) allows companies to store materials under state highways.
- A “bad actor” didn’t pay Caltrans rent on storage space for months, owed the state over $130,000, and subleased it to several tenants, including someone who stored a lot of excess hand sanitizer.
- Hand sanitizer has plenty of alcohol in it.
- When what state officials have confidently determined as an arson occurred in that spot, the hand sanitizer (and a bunch of wood pallets) fueled the flames.
- The fire caused structural damage to a spot where several Southern California freeways come together.
The next few weeks will determine whether the biggest domino to fall at the end of this run is “Gavin Newsom loses the 2028 presidential primary to Josh Shapiro over a contrast in their responses to an infrastructure emergency.”
I use this part of what we in Los Angeles call “the 10” quite often. In one sense, the disaster is similar to the I-95 fire in northeast Philadelphia earlier this year, which knocked out a part of the highway connecting Center City with a major population center (and key swing region in the state), Bucks County. Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, was hailed for bringing that disaster to a quick end.
To the east of the L.A. fire location, commuters live both within the city limits (like the heavily Latino neighborhoods of Boyle Heights and El Sereno) and without (the heavily Asian and Latino cities of the San Gabriel Valley). Because the 5 and the 101 also connect here, areas impacted include the San Fernando Valley and Pasadena area to the north, as well as southern L.A. and Orange County to the south. And many will be diverted to nearby freeways like the 110, along with surface streets in and around downtown. About 300,000 commuter vehicles pass across this part of the 10 every day.
A potentially bigger issue is that this is a trucking thoroughfare that connects the vast warehouses of the Inland Empire to the millions of people throughout Los Angeles and points west.
Generally speaking, on weekdays the commute runs east to west, and it was already a bear, with housing scarcity locally pushing people further and further east, as much as 60 miles into San Bernardino County. I have literally given up while driving west toward this part of downtown on weekday mornings, and waited it out at a coffee shop. So while this closure of the 10, between the East L.A. interchange and Alameda Street, is only a mile long, it is extremely central to traffic flow in the region.
On Sunday, I was one of the many who were detoured, forced to take three other freeways to find my way home. Being a weekend, it was not that painful. On Monday, some alternative routes were said to be bumper-to-bumper, though things worked better than feared. (This is usually the case in L.A.; locals called a planned closure of the 405 in 2011 Carmageddon, and the 1984 Olympics were expected to be a nightmare, but neither delivered a traffic meltdown.) But rain is in the forecast for several days later this week. And an extended closure would be a slog.
City and regional officials are asking downtown employers to allow working from home, and asking other commuters to use mass transit. There are actually numerous feeder lines into downtown so this is quite possible, though separating Angelenos from their cars can be a struggle.
It is unfair to compare this heavily trafficked stretch of the 10 to the segment of I-95 in Philly just because both suffered a fire. More than 100 columns holding up the 10 suffered damage in last weekend’s blaze, according to Newsom, with about 10 percent of them damaged “quite severely.” (Newsom did say that the deck of the freeway appeared “much stronger than was originally assessed,” but was quick to add that damage to the 10 was “substantially greater” than I-95’s.)
But politically speaking, the clock is undeniably ticking. In June, Shapiro managed to beat expectations. The initial assessment in Philadelphia was that I-95 would be closed for months, maybe through Thanksgiving. But Shapiro mobilized union construction workers and enabled a novel use of recycled glass to get the highway up and running in less than two weeks. It was a triumph that spoke to the Biden administration’s determination to build in America again, to accomplish great feats of infrastructure for the first time in years, if not decades.
That set a precedent that Newsom is now going to need to live up to. There is no current timetable for reopening the 10. While most of the site has been cleared of hazardous materials and federal emergency funds have been made available, engineers have not yet determined whether they could simply retrofit the existing structure, or be forced to demolish and rebuild it. The message to residents has been to strap in for a long winter of east-west driving either way.
That’s not going to fly for Newsom for several reasons. He is not a newcomer in a purple state his first year on the job; in fact, he’s termed out in 2026. But Newsom has national aspirations, which is the worst-kept secret in America. If the 10 closure lingers and construction falls behind, public anger will build. Shapiro came in well ahead of schedule, was completely transparent (he even set up a webcam to track progress), and thrived under pressure. That will inevitably be used as a measuring stick for Newsom.
Newsom’s popularity recently sank to an all-time low in California, an across-the-board drop that has an unclear origin. Perhaps his cosplaying as a national spokesperson for the Democratic Party rather than attending to the state’s needs or his vetoes of a number of popular bills played a role. But now he has a crisis in his backyard that could either push the public toward or away, depending on the outcome. High-minded speeches about the values of Democrats now take a back seat to whether Newsom can act. The former has been more of his comfort zone.
More than this, California has taken a lot of heat for being ungovernable: unable to build enough housing or other critical infrastructure, unable to lift enough residents from poverty and homelessness, and unable to prevent an exodus to other states due to cost of living. I’ve occasionally defended the state from the naysayers, pointing to various legislative accomplishments. But this is the kind of event that can set narratives in stone. Either California proves itself able to solve a major problem, or the “ungovernable” label will stick, perhaps even enough that Democrats see their grip on a one-party state loosen.
When the 1994 Northridge earthquake knocked out two bridges and collapsed sections of the 10 near Culver City, Caltrans worked around the clock and it was fixed in less than three months, which was 74 days ahead of schedule. Today’s emergency doesn’t seem quite as bad as all that. But in a second-by-second media culture, with knives out for Newsom and the state as a whole, the 10 probably has to be reopened significantly faster than that to qualify as a success, fairly or unfairly.
Otherwise, that butterfly may flap its wings on Gavin Newsom.
