It’s been a month since wildfires broke out in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, destroying thousands of homes and claiming the lives of nearly 30 people.
LISTEN TO THE SPECIAL:
While the fires are fully contained, residents are still processing the devastation. And the path to recovery is only just beginning.
On Friday, February 7, KNX News presented "The Southern California Fire Disaster: One Month Later." The one-hour special featured the voices of victims and survivors, their experiences, and what they need going forward.
"The Southern California Fire Disaster: One Month Later." Guests, their loved ones, and our hosts.KNX News
Panelists included:
Aldra Allison, who has lived in Altadena since 1997, raising two children in a home that’s now gone. She works in affordable housing development for various Southern California cities, most recently Pasadena.
"I attend First AME Church. 54 members of our church lost their home ... My neighbor, she works at JPL, and 200 people at JPL lost their home."
“The Altadena community is older. So when you factor that in, you know, many of the people are just basically saying we're too old to rebuild. My husband and I even had that conversation, you know, we could easily move somewhere else, but I had a conversation with my son and he, you know, we basically had a family discussion saying, ‘Well, I was hoping that you would rebuild, that someday I would inherit the house, and that someday I would pass that house on to my granddaughter Olivia.’ So for us it's just not a home, it's generational wealth.”
Alexandra Von Tiergarten, District President for a consulting firm with two teenagers who were born and raised in their Palisades home. She’s committed to rebuilding, but has concerns about the debris removal process and insurance payouts.
"I'm lucky to be insured, but none of us are insured for this catastrophe, so I took a look at the relocation and I divided it by 36 months and I knew I couldn't afford to live in the place that I've lived for 18 years. I couldn't afford the west side of L.A. So we're now in the car four to five hours a day just to get to school and for me to get to work."
"I have teenage children, so now if it takes three years to rebuild, they're getting close to - one of them will be in college, one of them will be getting close to college, so we've lost these crucial years of being able to walk to your friends' homes, being able to walk to the Village, all these things that we cherished about the neighborhood."
Chad Lowe, a longtime Palisades resident who worries that lofty expectations about a speedy rebuilding won’t be met, especially for neighbors who lost significant equity when their homes burned down.
“Obviously there's all those levels, the five different stages of grief that you go through, and anger is certainly one of them, and I am starting to feel some anger, and I'm trying not to act on that anger or give into that anger … We need to just pause on a lot of the kind of judgment that's coming out, pause on some of the questions about what rebuilding will look like and what it won't look like, and allow us time to heal, to grieve, to come to terms with this, acknowledge this, but also find out what were the causes? How could we have prevented this? And I'm of the mind that we could have prevented it.”
James Cummings, an investor, philanthropic advisor, and climate activist who completed a “ground up” remodel of his family’s Palisades home just 10 years ago.
“What about the people that work in Gelson's and the other markets? And what about the people whether they are, I hate using this word, whether they're citizens of the United States or not that have been taking care of the community in the Palisades, that helped build our house that take care of our garden, that take care of the physicians and attorneys, that may be in town but don't live there?”
“The idea of putting the toxic waste from the Palisades onto the beach at Will Rogers State Beach, and how much of that, where is that leaching going to go? What’s that going to do to the fish, to the fauna and flora around here? How long will that stay?”
Zenobia Millet, an entrepreneur who had lived in her Altadena home for nearly 45 years. She’s not in a rush to rebuild, expecting that doing it properly will take patience.
“I said my house is gone. That was all I could really say, but once I saw it, I'm like, okay, next season, and here this will be my opportunity to now put my footprint on what had come through my husband's family for me to pass on to my kids.”
Monique Carlo, a property manager who inherited what was originally her grandmother’s home in Altadena. She’s unsure if she can envision a future in her now-unrecognizable neighborhood.
“One minute I'm fine, you know, and I have to, for the sake of me and my children, I have to continue on. But there's those moments where I am just, like, I feel frozen. I feel like almost frozen in time to even believe that we're already a month in.”
“I'm underinsured. This past June, I was dropped by my previous carrier and I was searching high and low until I contacted a broker that told me about the California FAIR plan. And I'm fortunate to at least have coverage, but it is absolutely not enough.”
You can listen to "The Southern California Fire Disaster: One Month Later” LIVE at audacy.com/knxnews and on the Audacy app.
Check out our other special “The Southern California Fire Disaster: What Now?”.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
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