There was a strange feeling as I walked past the homes destroyed by the fires in Pasadena and Altadena, Los Angeles. A feeling as if I had been there before. But I knew I hadn’t.
What did the brick chimney columns and arches leading to nowhere remind me of? Ruins. That’s what it was. Ruins that I had seen on my travels or on postcards. What was once an era is now a fading silhouette.
In the residential areas of Pasadena and Altadena, where I walked alone through the deserted streets, the fires had consigned the homes of the people of the previous day to the eternal past. Their little civilization, which was their world, was over. Such was the cruel arbitrariness of the raging fires that a random house next door or another block could still be standing intact, while others returned to a charred nothingness, arches and chimney pillars, a fireplace, the body of a car. There’s no telling what will survive. Entire rooms have disappeared, books, furniture, kitchen cabinets, dishes, clothes, sofas, tables, curtains, walls, roofs, will all disappear without a trace. Maybe a bathtub would remain.
“It’s our entire community.”
The process of rebuilding lives lost to fire can take years. Because fire insurance has become scarce or unaffordable over the years, many do not have the financial coverage. Those who can may want to rebuild in the same neighborhood community they have lived in for years. Yet for some like Kristin van de Palisades, there is no neighborhood left at all.
Kristin, who has raised her children in the Palisades for the past fifteen years, came home from vacation to learn that her house was gone, and so was the physical existence of her entire community. “I lost all my family albums, the sentimental stuff,” she says, clutching her chest. ‘Like the watch my father gave me. I only have the things I brought in my suitcase for a vacation. But it’s not just us. It’s our entire community. Although I am grateful that my family is together,” she says, showing me photos of leveled land that was once the community church, grocery store and school. “I am heartbroken for my community.”
Fire and tragedy bring people closer together. It gets people talking to each other when they might not have done so before. It makes them see each other for who they are and, to some extent, trust each other more. Earlier that morning, with so many road closures in place, I had no idea how to get to the fire spots from my downtown hotel. The hotel doorman suggested a route to my Armenian-American taxi driver, who then called his friend in Pasadena to find out exactly which roads to take. A police officer on duty believed me when I said I had a story to report and asked another reporter with a personal car to give me a ride.
Living with uncertainty
The reporter, who didn’t know me at all, willingly drove me around and then offered me a mask. Delhi’s winter air was no patch on these toxic fumes. At such times, even strangers come together to help each other. It will take that community spirit, if not the infrastructure, to get through this ordeal.
I walk past bright white rose bushes blooming on a gleaming white picket fence, still guarding a house that burned down completely. A surreal sight. But the devastation makes me wonder what emotional toll this disaster has taken, not only on those who have lost their homes, but also on those living in uncertainty, knowing that with more winds expected this week, it may be their time to leave.
“I sleep with one eye open,” says Lee Roy Lahey, an artist in LA’s famed animation industry. Lee Roy says many middle-class workers in the animation industry were hit hard by the Eaton fire that devastated Altadena and Pasadena. While celebrity homes are making headlines, many others in the entertainment industry have also been hit hard.
Residents have been suspended in a state of constant vigilance and intelligence gathering, in an effort to maintain some semblance of normalcy for their children. “We know that catastrophic events cannot happen in the presence of the children. But if we wait too long and something happens, it will be a very big problem to get out.”
These are the daily negotiations faced by young families who have not had to leave their homes. But there is hope. Friends from the animation industry are supporting each other on a GoFundMe community page. Storyboard artists, VFX engineers, illustrators, whose names appear in the credits of some of my kids’ favorite cartoons, have lost their homes completely and have nothing left to rebuild. Yet it seems that every family has collected some money to help them restart their lives. And they are full of humility and gratitude.
Is gratitude a survival mechanism? The cynic in me wonders that sometimes. Or, in this case, is it an immediate leveling of one’s humanity, brought about by life’s great teacher: loss?
(Amrita Gandhi is a television host, writer and producer)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author