Residents are already on edge as more fires break out in the Los Angeles area, traumatizing millions who feel the fires are not over after four days.

Then Thursday afternoon came another shock in the form of a text message.

The message was mistakenly sent to every cell phone in the county, which has a population of about 10 million, warning them that the fire was approaching and they should prepare to evacuate.

Rebecca Alvarez-Pettit was on a video work call when her phone suddenly started ringing.

“An evacuation warning has been issued for your area,” the text message said.

The sound echoed around her as each of her colleagues received the same shocking information.

“I watched it in real time as a huge panic,” she said.

She and her colleagues began researching and trying to see if they were in imminent danger.

She said they were immediately relieved by the corrected alert telling them to ignore the warning, but that was quickly replaced by newfound anger.

“We were all on pins and needles, sitting anxiously on our phones, glued to the TV, radio on, trying to learn as much as we could because there wasn’t a good system in place,” said Ms. Alvarez. — Pettit, who lives in Los Angeles west.

“And then this. Like—you’ve got to be kidding me.”

The death toll from wildfires continues to rise, with at least 10 people known to have died, and the death toll may rise.

For many, anxiety about saving lives and property has turned into frustration over dealing with fires.

Officials have acknowledged complaints including dry hydrants hampering firefighting efforts and questions about preparedness and investment in fire prevention.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass returned to the city from a pre-planned trip to Africa to find the city on fire. On Thursday, she faced intense questions about the region’s preparedness, her leadership during the crisis and water problems that firefighters had failed to resolve.

“Am I frustrated about this? Absolutely,” Mayor Bass said in response to a question about the water issues and whether the region was well prepared. She noted that this was an “unprecedented event.”

Like other officials, she stressed that Tuesday’s fire was able to spread because of strong winds — the same winds that prevented planes from dropping water or retardant on the fires. She said city water systems and community fire hydrants were not built to fight thousands of acres of fires.

She noted that the unfolding of the incident would be reviewed to examine how officials and agencies handled it.

“When lives are saved and homes are saved, we absolutely evaluate to see what worked and what didn’t and correct or hold any agencies, departments and individuals accountable,” she said.

“My focus right now is life and family.”

The evolving disaster has turned into a need to understand why this happened and how it escalated into the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.

As one of five fires burning in Los Angeles County approached Larry Vilskas’ home on Tuesday, he grabbed the only tool he had available — a garden hose.

He and his neighbors quickly cleared away embers from the Eaton Fire that fell on their homes and set their grass ablaze.

Then the hose dries.

He watched as his neighbor’s home in Altadena was set on fire. Then there was a loud noise – a nearby house was on fire and it sounded like it had exploded. He must leave.

As he drove away, he saw fire destroying his garage.

“If we had water pressure, we could fight it,” Mr. Velescas said, standing in front of the charred remains of his home.

He remembers seeing firefighters sitting in trucks that night, unable to help as the neighborhood burned.

“I remember my anger. It was like ‘do something’ but they couldn’t – there was no water pressure,” he said. “This is really infuriating. How could this happen?”

Some experts say water shortages are due to unprecedented demand rather than mismanagement.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Water Resources Institute, told the BBC: “The problem is that the scope of the disaster is so large that thousands of firefighters and hundreds of fire trucks are Use water.”

“Ultimately there’s only a finite amount of water that can flow through the pipe at one time.”

Other neighbors also said the state was not ready, despite frequent and devastating fires.

Hipolito Cisneros, who was surveying the ruins of his now-destroyed home, said the area’s public facilities have needed upgrades for years.

“We’ve lived here 26 years and we’ve never seen it tested,” he said of the fire hydrant at the end of his block that failed to pump water when it was needed most.

On the street, Fernando Gonzalez helped his brother sift through the rubble of his home of 15 years.

He noted that his own home in Santa Clarita, about 45 minutes outside Los Angeles County, was also threatened by another wildfire.

“We are on high alert all the time,” he said. “You know, it’s all around us.”