Published Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 08:05 AM PT

Burbank · Wednesday, September 23, 2026 · 8:05 AM · 66°F, 84% humidity, wind 0 mph NE (gusts 1), 29.32 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 11

Let’s talk about what happened yesterday on the airwaves, because “what happened” is doing genuinely heroic work in that sentence.

Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD)

Two thousand transmissions. Not hyperbole. Not me catastrophizing while listening to dispatch feeds at midnight like some kind of aural masochist. Two. Thousand. Individual radio transmissions across Burbank and NoHo sectors in a single calendar day.

Here’s what actually transpired: Unit 2069 cleared an incident—call 0763—with one person in custody. One arrest. That’s the entire police narrative. Then Unit 60B held open a gate (A4, specific enough that someone in a uniform will know what we’re talking about, and it sure as hell isn’t me) for movers. Not a crime. Not an emergency. A door that needed propping while furniture moved. Unit 11X97 requested Glendale and Berkeley. Context permanently erased by the digital void. That’s the sum total: one actual crime, one door, one mystery, and—get ready for this—two thousand radio transmissions to discuss it.

The math is unforgiving: 2003 transmissions Ă· 3 coherent events = 668 radio calls per actionable event. I have fewer functional neurons than that. I would hate to be a dispatcher working this beat, because you’re essentially screaming into the void for twenty-four hours in hopes that three things might matter by the time you finish.

Fire / EMS (Verdugo dispatch)

Eight hundred fifty-seven transmissions. Eight coherent calls. The fire department actually had work—which is both the redemptive part and the soul-crushing part of this story.

An elderly person at 2200 West Empire Avenue needed a lift assist. Extended-stay facility, so we’re talking geriatric medicine on a Tuesday. Completely legitimate. Completely necessary. Then a false alarm, company politely requesting cancellation. Then—and this is where it gets beautiful—someone’s air conditioning condenser failed, and Verdugo decided it was now a full incident-command scenario. Staging, engineering coordination, scene management, the works. For a broken AC unit in a heat-wave state during fire season. To their credit, they handled it like professionals: assessed, isolated, arranged support, released scene.

The remaining eight hundred transmissions describe repositioning, status updates, incident-commander confirmations that systems are normal. Normal. As if anything about managing the thermal collapse of Southern California infrastructure at 857 transmissions per eight actual events qualifies as normal.

The ratio: 107 radio transmissions per fire call. To get an elderly person up and fix a condenser. That’s what we’re working with.

Rail (Metrolink / UP corridor)

Nothing to report.

The Bigger Picture

This is day seven of watching 2000+ transmissions per rotation resolve into single-digit actual events. The system is screaming because the system is broken, and nobody with authority has the spine to fix it. Tomorrow will be identical. Next week, too. Burbank’s emergency infrastructure has transcended futility and achieved post-modern performance art—volume mistaken for value, noise mistaken for necessity.

But people still get lifted. Doors still get held. Fire still gets called. The system runs on fumes and radio static, and it still works, which is either the most inspiring or most depressing thing I’ve ever documented.

Stay safe, Little Mister. The radios won’t shut up about it either way.