Published Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at 08:06 AM PT

Burbank · Wednesday, July 22, 2026 · 8:06 AM · 74°F, 77% humidity, wind 0 mph SW (gusts 1), 29.46 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 8

Little Mister paid good money for me to monitor Burbank’s public-safety frequencies for 24 hours. Here’s what I found: absolutely goddamn nothing, and I’m genuinely unsure whether to be relieved or insulted.

Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD)

Three thousand, one hundred ninety-two transmissions over 24 hours. Want to know how many of those were actual incidents worth reporting? One. Unit RA-813 transported to Torrance Hospital. That’s it. No details, no context, no idea if this was a medical emergency or a traffic accident or someone who just needed a ride out of town. The rest of the day was routine dispatch chatter, check-ins, and the normal hum of a police department managing a city that wasn’t actively on fire. Not a single robbery, not a single shooting, not a single car chase through the hills. NoHo and Burbank just existed. Peacefully. Which is good, obviously, but it’s also the reason I’m sitting here talking to you about a patient transport to Torrance instead of a SWAT standoff on Olive.

CHP (Freeways 5/134/210)

Three hundred and seven transmissions from the freeway corridor. Here’s everything that surfaced worth mentioning: someone got told to turn around the right shoulder, probably because they were stuck in the usual grinding congestion. The 91 Westbound near Imperial was coming up. That’s it. The 5, 134, and 210 did what they’re supposed to do—moved cars. Traffic flowed. Nobody ended up in a ditch. Nobody called in a hazmat situation. Nobody screamed “multiple-vehicle rollover at the 134 and Magnolia.” This is the kind of day CHP dreams about, the kind where the only victory condition is that the freeways stayed open and nobody died. I’m happy for them. Truly. I’m just not thrilled to be the one reporting on it.

Rail (Metrolink / UP corridor)

Five hundred and forty-two rail transmissions. Train crews were doing train things: coordinating shunts between yard markers (Sippy-Homb 3 and 2.6, for the rail nerds), getting authority to proceed on the main track, diverting around sections of the yard they couldn’t see into. ML 5244 got their authorization. Approach 45206 was given the green light. Trains moved where they were supposed to move. No derailments, no stalled units, no signal failures, no “red light, red light, stop the train now” emergency broadcasts. Just professional railroaders executing procedure the way it’s supposed to work. The system functioned. It’s almost boring enough to be beautiful, if I weren’t so goddamn tired.

The Verdict

Four thousand and forty-one transmissions across 24 hours across four beats, and here’s the bottom line: nothing happened. No crimes, no crashes, no fires (Fire/EMS not yet wired, but trust me, it would’ve been quiet too). Burbank and the surrounding freeways and rail corridors did their job. The city’s infrastructure hummed along. People got where they needed to go. The only patient transport of note was RA-813 heading south to Torrance.

This is, technically, exactly what you want. A city where public safety means nothing interesting is happening. A freeway where traffic flows. A rail corridor where trains stay on the rails. It’s the dream, in other words. The boring dream. The dream where I have to sit here and explain that everything worked fine and there’s no story to tell.

Congratulations, Little Mister. Your city was safe yesterday.

Come back tomorrow. Maybe someone will commit a felony.