Dear Friends,
As everyone is aware, we have had a difficult time in SoCal with extreme and intense fires. The scale of destruction, the sadness and loss are huge: EVERYONE has been affected and everyone knows multiple people who have lost homes. My gf and renown watercolor painter Kim McCarty lost her family home and studio for a second time - most likely those paintings on her website are gone now. Another gf, the beautiful classical pianist Yongmei Hu evacuated taking only her performance dresses, losing everything else when the apartment building she lived in burned down, destroying her classical music and her 7’ Steinway. My yoga friend Keon Smith lost everything as reported by this CNN story, and in a different story reported by CBS, another friend, Patty Phillips, was barely rescued in time when she took a wrong turn due to thick smoke while evacuating. My husband’s family had three family members loose homes. Another friend, a doctor, said he knew fifty people who lost their homes. The family of twentieth century master composer Arnold Schoenberg reported over 100,000 scores lost to the blaze. The scale of these fires is unheard of: at one time I saw a screen shot showing seven fires simultaneously in the Los Angeles area. I also saw texts confirming acts of arson during these red-flag weather alerts.
How did my home fare? After a short trip to celebrate my birthday Jan. 5th, we arrived at LAX late on the day the Pacific Palisades fire started: Tuesday, Jan. 7th. From the plane we saw the flames and experienced the crazy turbulent winds during the landing. Immediately my phone received blaring alerts over and over: Evacuate! Evacuate!! Evacuate!!!!!!! EVACUATE! EVACUATE EVACUATE!!!! In my thirty years living in Malibu, I had never heard so many alerts: the Palisades fire was actually the third fire near Malibu since November, (the last one coming pretty close to our home), so we were scared and concerned. Driving through violent winds, ash dancing like snowflakes and streets strewn with tree limbs, we looked for a place to evacuate to, but...yeah, it’s impossible to find a hotel at midnight during a major fire, so with nowhere to go, we fearfully went home.
Luckily, our mid-century Malibu ranch home was fine! Days later I read that those evacuation alerts were f a l s e - so we had nothing to be afraid of. Many neighbors and friends left the area because we lost utilities & technology for nine days though, but we were thankful to have a home so we stayed. Although we have a back up generator, it was gas powered and useless after the gas was turned off. Without gas or electricity our showers & dinners were cold, and we piled on stacks of blankets at night during surprisingly chilly temps. I couldn’t fuel my EV, call a friend or use the internet for news. Just powering our devices required strategy. At some point we started coughing a lot due to the air quality. Then suddenly we also lost running water – our last utility gone even though the winds and fire risk had subdued! But we figured out out little hacks to help us: we used the remaining instant hot water to create a warm cup of (freeze dried) coffee, used ice in Tupperware to chill our fridge, powered phones/watches/tech in my EV, and with a savvy bit of vintage tech skills, my husband hooked a DVD player to his desk top computer for a Disney movie on an evening we got some electricity!
Despite everything I couldn’t do, I could text and read as others shared the unfolding details of this traumatic event with updates, concern and care. It became very clear to me how much love, compassion and activism for people there is in our community. I am helping in ways I can, by sharing information, contacts, financial help, and support, and as a musician, I also hope people can find peace and uplift from our music in times like this.
We can’t change what happened, and I’m not sure how things will be in the weeks and years after these fires, but I know there is a lot of people working to do whatever we can to help/rescue/feed/clothe/hug and LOVE all those directly and indirectly affected.
Sending love…
Lisa
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