Spencer Pratt Drops Video Showing Palisades Reservoir Still Bone Dry

Pacific Palisades resident and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt released new drone footage this week showing the Santa Ynez Reservoir remains bone dry — nearly 20 months after the January 2025 Palisades Fire that destroyed his family’s home and thousands of others. 

The 117-million-gallon reservoir sat empty during the fire after the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power drained it in early 2024 to repair a tear in its floating cover. Hydrants also ran dry as firefighters battled the blaze. 

Pratt’s latest video, posted Wednesday, shows the vast concrete basin still empty in the middle of another fire season. “The reservoir that Karen Bass drained before the Palisades Fire is STILL empty, 20 months later, because of a torn tarp,” Pratt wrote. 

“You cannot be allowed to maintain any position in public office if you do this. Not sure if I’ve ever seen such egregious incompetence in all my life.” 

The reservoir that Karen Bass drained before the Palisades Fire is STILL empty, 20 months later, because of a torn tarp. You cannot be allowed to maintain any position in public office if you do this. Not sure if I've ever seen such egregious incompetence in all my life. https://t.co/h9Ddsyd1BT pic.twitter.com/Al8jZFSWaC

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) September 16, 2026

The footage captures the enormous empty bowl in the Santa Ynez Canyon, with portions of the liner visible, dirt tracks across the floor, and surrounding hills still showing the scars of the 2025 fire. Pratt has repeatedly and correctly argued the reservoir was built as a fire-protection asset, not merely a drinking-water tank, and that helicopters could have made rapid water drops instead of flying miles away. Karen Bass incorrectly maintains the reservoir was historically only used for drinking water. 

The empty reservoir is not the only fire-related controversy hanging over Mayor Karen Bass. 

In the weeks after the Palisades Fire, her office told reporters there were “no responsive records” for text messages she sent and received while she was in Ghana and traveling home on January 7–8, 2025—the first critical hours of the disaster. A city lawyer said her phone had been set to auto-delete texts after 30 days for at least two years, even though Los Angeles Administrative Code generally requires most records to be kept for two years. 

The California Globe reported at the time that the denial of public-records requests fueled anger because those messages could have confirmed or contradicted Bass’s account of how she led from 7,000 miles away. Of note, Bass left on a diplomatic trip despite wind and fire-risk warnings. 

After weeks of pressure, the mayor’s office said it recovered some deleted messages with “specialized technology” and released about 125 texts, while withholding or redacting others. The Los Angeles Times then sued the city, arguing officials had unlawfully deleted and withheld public records. The city called the texts “ephemeral” and not required to be retained. Bass later said she turned the auto-delete setting off. 

Pratt has framed both the still-empty reservoir and the vanished texts as part of the same leadership failure, delayed infrastructure, missing water, and missing records. 

In a longer video posted days earlier, Pratt laid out the timeline. He reminded viewers that LADWP and Bass’s administration drained the reservoir during fire season, leaving hydrants dry at the peak of the Palisades Fire. Firefighters, he said, were forced to watch homes burn. 

Just when you thought she couldn’t get any dumber…she goes and does something like this. pic.twitter.com/rfMouf7DOs

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) September 10, 2026

“Right now, we’re in the middle of fire season, and our reservoirs are still empty,” Pratt said. “They drained the Santa Ynez Reservoir again because the tarp that they repaired had to be replaced entirely. And since we’re moving at Karen speed, we’ve been without water for another year, with no end in sight.”

He also highlighted what he called a “rubber hose” workaround: a six-mile flexible hose run through brush to keep some pressure in the system while the reservoir stays offline. Pratt called the arrangement reckless in a high-fire area. 

The empty reservoir became one of the defining images of the Palisades Fire. Three smaller one-million-gallon tanks in the area ran dry within hours. Pratt, whose Pacific Palisades home was among the more than 6,800 structures lost, sued the city and LADWP, alleging negligence over water supply and infrastructure. Other residents and even Mayor Bass’s brother filed related claims. 

LADWP says the latest project, a full liner and floating-cover replacement, had its new liner and cover installation completed as of September 14. The utility states refilling is expected to begin later this month, with a return to service by December 2026. 

Officials also list backup measures including a heli-hydrant at the site, staged water tankers, and open-air reservoirs elsewhere for aerial firefighting. Pratt is unimpressed. 

He compared the multi-year delay over a cover to historic construction feats: the Coliseum in 16 months, the Empire State Building in 13. 

“You have people defending Karen Bass taking over two years to fix a damn tarp,” he posted. 

The Palisades Fire killed 12 people and exposed deeper problems Pratt and this outlet has catalogued: delayed brush clearance, hydrant failures, slow rebuilding, questions about recovery funds, and official communications that vanished on a 30-day timer. Pratt argues the same leadership that left the reservoir empty for a torn tarp, and whose fire-response texts auto-deleted, should not be trusted with another term or another fire season. 

As of this week, the drone footage still shows dirt, not water.