New look at emergency plans

After a three-month stretch in which three major wildfires and the deadliest Metrolink crash in history rocked the San Fernando Valley, the mayor on Thursday announced a plan that would help agencies communicate during disasters. Brandon Lowrey in the Daily News.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's emergency management initiative largely firms up strategies that officials have been using for more than a year - most recently put into practice over the past weekend in the Sayre Fire in Sylmar.

This marks Los Angeles' first emergency-management overhaul since 1988, said James Featherstone, general manager of the city's Emergency Management Department.