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There was a strange feeling when I walked past the homes taken by the fires at Pasadena and Altadena in Los Angeles. A feeling like 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 is what it was. Ruins that I’d seen on my travels or in postcards. What was once an era is now a fading silhouette.
In the residential areas of Pasadena and Altadena, where I walked alone, on the deserted streets, the fires had consigned what were people’s homes, as of the previous day, to the forever past. Their little civilisation, which was their world, was done. Such was the cruel arbitrariness of the raging fires that a random home next door or next block could still be standing intact while others return to a charred nothingness, arches and chimney pillars, a fireplace, the shell of a car. There’s no saying what survives. Entire rooms vanished, books, furniture, kitchen cabinets, dishes, clothing, sofas, tables, curtains, walls, roofs, will all be gone without a trace. Maybe, a bathtub would remain.
‘It’s Our Entire Community’
The process of rebuilding lives lost to a fire can take years. With fire insurance becoming scarce or prohibitive over the years, many don’t have the financial cover. Those who can may want to rebuild in the same neighbourhood community they have lived in for years. Yet, for some like Kristin from the Palisades, there is no neighbourhood left at all.
Kristin, who spent the last 15 years raising her children in the Palisades, came home from vacation to learn that her home was gone, and so was the brick-and-mortar existence of her entire community. “I lost all my family albums, the sentimental things,” she says, clutching her chest. “Like the watch my father gave me. I only have the stuff I took with me in my suitcase for a holiday. But it is not just us. It is our entire community. Though I am thankful my family is together,” she says, showing me pictures of levelled land that was once the community church, the grocery store, the school. “I am heartbroken for my community.”
Fire and tragedy bring people closer together. It makes people talk to each other when they might not have earlier. It makes them see each other for who they are and, to a degree, trust each other more. Earlier that morning, with so many road closures, I had no idea how to go about reaching the sites of the fires from my downtown hotel. The hotel doorman suggested a route to my Armenian American taxi driver, who then called his friend in Pasadena to see 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 and then offered me a mask. Delhi’s winter air was not a patch on these toxic fumes. At times like these, even strangers come together to help each other. It will take that spirit of community, if not its infrastructure, to get through this travail.
I walk past bright white rose bushes blooming on a gleaming white picket fence, still guarding a house that is entirely burnt down. A surreal sight. But the devastation leads me to wonder about the emotional toll this disaster has taken not just on those who have lost their homes, but also on those who are living with uncertainty, knowing that with more winds expected this week, it might be their time to leave.
“I sleep with one eye open,” says Lee Roy Lahey, an artist in LA’s famous animation industry. Lee Roy says that many middle-class workers in animation have been badly affected by the Eaton fire that razed Altadena and Pasadena. While celebrity homes make news, many others in the entertainment industry have been also hit badly.
Residents have been suspended in a state of constant vigilance and intelligence gathering, trying to preserve some semblance of normalcy for their children. “We know that there cannot be any catastrophising in front of the kids. Yet, if we wait too long and something happens, trying to get out will be a really big problem.”
These are the daily negotiations that young families who have not had to leave their homes, face. But there is hope. A community GoFundMe page has friends from the animation industry supporting each other. Storyboard artists, VFX engineers, illustrators, whose names are on the credits of some of my children’s favourite cartoons, have lost their homes entirely and have nothing left to rebuild. Yet, each family appears to have gathered some funds to help them restart their lives. And they are full of humility and gratitude.
Is gratitude a survival mechanism? The cynic in me sometimes wonders. Or is it, in this case, an instant levelling-up of one’s humanity brought forth by life’s great teacher: loss?
(Amrita Gandhi is a television host, writer and producer)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
