hydrant

“Just to locate fire hydrants when the water system is failing — everything is dangerous out there,” Johnson said.

Firefighters had arrived; but without fire hydrants around his property, they were left with his garden hose.

In those moments I feel so far from home — my original home, on the East Coast in the inner city, where my closest natural respite was a patch of grass beside a fire hydrant.

“We were inside of a structure fire and starting to make good headway when the hydrants went dry,” he said.

Over the last year, Los Angeles has seen a surge of thefts of copper, brass and other metals from street lights, tombstones, fire hydrants and transit rail lines, among other places.