Speaker 1: Hey there, folks, welcome to a special episode of Amy
Speaker 1: and TJ from Los Angeles, from in particular Santa Monica
Speaker 1: here in California, where the fires continued to burn. And
Speaker 1: we are going to attempt to put into words what
Speaker 1: words simply cannot describe in this episode. And with that, everybody, welcome.
Speaker 2: Sitting next to.
Speaker 1: Robes, Robs, you and I got here to LA yesterday.
Speaker 1: Before we even landed, we could tell and if you
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on in the world
Speaker 1: and what was going on in La just the plane
Speaker 1: ride as we were about to land, right, I knew
Speaker 1: something was up.
Speaker 3: We heard from the pilot who and by the way,
Speaker 3: the plane was almost empty, which is unheard of on
Speaker 3: a Sunday from New York JFK to LAX. It is
Speaker 3: usually packed. And we were one of a handful of
Speaker 3: people on that plane. So that was eerie just to
Speaker 3: begin with. And then as we were making our initial
Speaker 3: descent into Los Angeles, the pilot got on to the
Speaker 3: microphone and said, hey, folks, we may be going through
Speaker 3: a layer of smoke as we make this landing, and
Speaker 3: the cockpit or the actual plane might smell like smoke,
Speaker 3: but don't be alarmed. That's, you know, been pretty typical
Speaker 3: over the past couple of days. So just warning you all.
Speaker 3: That didn't end up happening. I'd never smelt the smoke
Speaker 3: actually as we were landing into La But as soon
Speaker 3: as we got on the ground we had more pretty
Speaker 3: immediate reminders of what was going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, a soon as you at the ground,
Speaker 1: you sense something is going on. From it took I
Speaker 1: don't know, fifteen minutes. Even if that in the car
Speaker 1: the driver or go through certain neighborhood, he's almost starts
Speaker 1: giving a tour, a fire tour, if you really Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was smoke here yesterday, and then that it's just
Speaker 1: all everybody's talking about the same thing. Went to lunch
Speaker 1: and you were the one that pointed it out. And
Speaker 1: it's a place we've been to before. But there were
Speaker 1: pets everywhere because the place was full of people who
Speaker 1: had to flee their homes and had to flee with
Speaker 1: their pets and places here making exceptions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And we were hearing hearing stories even at
Speaker 3: tables next door to us, people talking and congregating in
Speaker 3: the lobby, hearing from our own waiter, everyone checking in
Speaker 3: on each other what have you been through? Let me
Speaker 3: show you pictures of my house, and then people asking
Speaker 3: questions about have you been on this street? Have you
Speaker 3: been able to get back up? Because as we made
Speaker 3: our way earlier this morning through some of these areas
Speaker 3: that are restricted now to residence, every single street is
Speaker 3: blocked off. I mean, there are army vehicles, there is
Speaker 3: a huge police presence, firefighting trucks, you know, going through
Speaker 3: the streets with alarms going off. I mean, it really
Speaker 3: feels like you are in Yes, you can tell you're
Speaker 3: in an evacuated donor right adjacent to one, but also
Speaker 3: you realize all the work that's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: So it's aerie to a certain degree when you get
Speaker 1: here because you see so much, well what's been on television,
Speaker 1: see the pictures in the flame. You hear how horrible
Speaker 1: it is. But from the airport to where we're staying,
Speaker 1: it wasn't chaotic. There was not destruction. We just happen
Speaker 1: to be in a certain area and even the air
Speaker 1: was clear. It looks like beautiful, sunny southern California this morning.
Speaker 1: We get up still dark. As soon as we get
Speaker 1: off the elevator at the bottom floor, you can smell
Speaker 1: smoke at the moment the elevator door opened and we
Speaker 1: go outside. Of course, we can smell at our crew
Speaker 1: we meet. They all have masks on. But the point
Speaker 1: that they did they we got a chance to go
Speaker 1: through and see today what so many of us have
Speaker 1: been seeing, and we had up to this point just
Speaker 1: been seeing on television. And you just I can't. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've been doing this a long time in our careers,
Speaker 1: have been a lot of disaster zones. You can say
Speaker 1: it all, you can come up with whatever descriptive word
Speaker 1: you want to, it doesn't do it justice. And I struggle.
Speaker 1: The word I end up using was about myself today.
Speaker 1: It was confused. I'm confused at how nature behaves this way.
Speaker 1: I'm confused to how a fire could do what it did,
Speaker 1: and I'm confused about how wide spread and then random
Speaker 1: the destruction can be. I've never seen anything like this. Tornadoes, hurricanes, fires,
Speaker 1: seen floods more than most. Yeah, and never I can't
Speaker 1: understand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you and I have both been to
Speaker 3: the scene of countless natural disasters of epic proportions, by
Speaker 3: the way, and I have never seen anything like We
Speaker 3: both saw this morning where you just saw ash. There
Speaker 3: was nothing truly left standing in most of these homes
Speaker 3: except for fireplace chimneys. And at one point you pointed
Speaker 3: it out to me, eerie scenes like this leveled homes
Speaker 3: for an entire stretch of a street, an entire neighborhood
Speaker 3: wiped out. There was a basketball net standing with a
Speaker 3: that was just remarkable.
Speaker 1: Well not earned, but the net, the fabric netting was
Speaker 1: almost untouched, not even smoky.
Speaker 3: It was bizarre to see that completely untouched. And then
Speaker 3: you pointed out inside one of these fireplaces that used
Speaker 3: to be inside a beautiful home had all of their
Speaker 3: logs perfectly placed as if ready for a fire. You know,
Speaker 3: you see, you know, a scene set with like a
Speaker 3: fireplace with the logs, they're not touched, not even burned,
Speaker 3: and it was perfectly in place where a fire should be.
Speaker 3: The wood was perfect and untouched, and everything around it
Speaker 3: was gone.
Speaker 1: Those things were weird. I call them weird. And a
Speaker 1: lot of folks familiar with the PCH right Pacific Coast
Speaker 1: Highway goes up and down. It's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to do I've ever done in this country is
Speaker 1: to drive that. And so as a stretch of Pacific
Speaker 1: Coast Highway where you're looking and literally on one side
Speaker 1: it's paradise looking out of the ocean. The other side
Speaker 1: is armageddon. Literally you're looking there's a dividing line between
Speaker 1: the end of the world and heaven, right and it's
Speaker 1: the Pacific Coast Highway. It literally looks like that. And
Speaker 1: I there are our producers, producer Danielle was in the
Speaker 1: car with us, said yeah, you can see as we
Speaker 1: were driving at times on the Pacific Coast Highway, So yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see the ocean. You couldn't last week because
Speaker 1: those homes were there. They've burned now to the point
Speaker 1: that you can actually have a view at some places
Speaker 1: from the highway to the ocean that weren't there before
Speaker 1: because homes are gone.
Speaker 3: It's just unfathomable, it really is. And you mentioned this.
Speaker 3: The sun was rising this morning, it was gorgeous. I
Speaker 3: could hear birds chirping, the ocean was making that beautiful
Speaker 3: wave crashing on the rocks, noise, and yet everywhere you
Speaker 3: looked was a nightmare. And so it was just such
Speaker 3: a strange juxtaposition of the ruins of people's lives and
Speaker 3: then seeing Mother Nature just going about doing what it
Speaker 3: does here, especially on the West coast, and just being
Speaker 3: spectacular and gorgeous, and it was just such a strange
Speaker 3: confluence of two different views.
Speaker 1: And look as we were as of this recording at least,
Speaker 1: and the story is changing. It seems minute by many
Speaker 1: at times, but it'll continue to change.
Speaker 2: As of this.
Speaker 1: Recording, there were twenty four confirmed deaths, at least sixteen
Speaker 1: unaccounted for. At least twelve thousand structures that have been
Speaker 1: burned are those latest numbers. But we were we had
Speaker 1: plans yesterday day before of somewhere we were planning to
Speaker 1: stay here and it was in the Brentwood area. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, yesterday was we were getting on the plane
Speaker 1: and things kept developing that were keeping an eye on it.
Speaker 1: Our team let us know, hey, that area where you
Speaker 1: were supposed to stay has been evacuated. So we had
Speaker 1: to change our plans and figure somewhere else out to
Speaker 1: stay while we were out here. That's just how things
Speaker 1: are going. And we are sitting here in the middle
Speaker 1: of a There is anxiety right here. There's no recovery time.
Speaker 1: There's like hold on, folks. We got another several days
Speaker 1: where they're talking about winds and wind gusts going up
Speaker 1: to that seventy eighty mile an hour range. No, it's
Speaker 1: not that eighty to one hundred range that started all this,
Speaker 1: but people are on edge again.
Speaker 3: It is a very unique and for me, a singular experience,
Speaker 3: because normally, when you come to the scene the aftermath
Speaker 3: right of a of a natural disaster, it's about cleanup,
Speaker 3: it's about recovery, it's about you know, rebuilding. But there
Speaker 3: is still a threat because if one like small ember
Speaker 3: from a hotspot that maybe they firefighters have yet to
Speaker 3: be able to put out flies through the air in
Speaker 3: these crazy, unpredictable Santa Ana winds, it can set off
Speaker 3: an entire new fire. And that's what has happened, because
Speaker 3: if we're not talking about one fire, there are several
Speaker 3: fires in the area, and it's looks as though you
Speaker 3: don't see the flames anymore, but the thread of those
Speaker 3: embers remains, and it is a scary, scary feeling. We
Speaker 3: when we landed, your phone immediately started going off into
Speaker 3: that emergency mode in on the on the East coast.
Speaker 3: We're used to seeing it or hearing it for amber
Speaker 3: alerts or for some extreme extreme right but they were
Speaker 3: going off, and it's so jarring and it's so frightening,
Speaker 3: and you just can imagine what it's like to be
Speaker 3: living here after you've already lost everything, or you're afraid
Speaker 3: or fearful that you've lost everything because maybe you don't
Speaker 3: know yet, and you've got these alerts going off, and
Speaker 3: we were told to evacuate an area that we were
Speaker 3: just driving through. So if you get into these certain
Speaker 3: evacuation zones, you're told get out. And that's just jarring
Speaker 3: and scary. As an adult, I can't imagine the children
Speaker 3: who are living through this as well, how hard that
Speaker 3: is for them. So many kids have lost their schools,
Speaker 3: they have no building to go back to, they've lost
Speaker 3: their homes, they have no bedroom to go back to.
Speaker 3: This is and it's just beginning, and the threat still exists.
Speaker 1: I just still struggle the scope of it when it
Speaker 1: comes to and some of the scenes, like you hear
Speaker 1: it sometimes and you walking dead fans out there. I
Speaker 1: never thought I would see a scene like that where
Speaker 1: I'm literally walking past and going past cars that have
Speaker 1: been abandoned in the middle of the street, and some
Speaker 1: of them are literally burned out, and some of them
Speaker 1: you can see where and you all heard this part
Speaker 1: of the story where they had to come and bring
Speaker 1: bulldozers to move vehicles out of there. You can see
Speaker 1: some of those vehicles are damaged from being banged and
Speaker 1: people trying to get them out of the way. Those
Speaker 1: are odd scenes, and some neighborhoods were all, okay, this
Speaker 1: this neighborhood looks like it it's unscathed. But then you
Speaker 1: keep driving down that neighborhood and there's one house gone
Speaker 1: or charred, and it literally does look like the fire
Speaker 1: was discriminating, like I'm gonna pick this one. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: skip those two, and now I'm gonna go over here
Speaker 1: to this one. But that's this idea of these embers
Speaker 1: that are flying around. I can't remembers the high school
Speaker 1: we went past, and you were like, hey, I'm glad to.
Speaker 3: See that Ally High High?
Speaker 1: Was that okay, well, Bally High. It's damaged. The whole
Speaker 1: place is enclosed. You can't see anywhere a fire got in,
Speaker 1: but the roof of one section of that school is
Speaker 1: burned because those embers they flew over landed on one spot,
Speaker 1: burned part of it the other. The whole place is intact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that is still the remaining threat that even if
Speaker 1: you're a couple of miles away, you are not sleeping.
Speaker 3: No, you're not at all, and in fact, you're hungry
Speaker 3: for information. We when we got back from taking this tour,
Speaker 3: our producer Danielle who was with us, who was so
Speaker 3: amazing showing us she's was born here, lived her whole
Speaker 3: life here. So she was explaining to us what was lost,
Speaker 3: Like there was a motel that was storied and historic
Speaker 3: that everyone loved right along the Pacific Coast Highway. It
Speaker 3: doesn't you can't even see where it was. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just literally ash. You can see this sign and
Speaker 3: the rest of it is just gone. But when we
Speaker 3: got back to our hotel that we were staying at,
Speaker 3: she had a woman come up to her and say
Speaker 3: are you with the press, and then said, could you
Speaker 3: please please please see if my house is still intact.
Speaker 3: Because as members of the media, we have been allowed
Speaker 3: and we are allowed to get through some of the
Speaker 3: points at which residents are not to go and tell
Speaker 3: these stories to tell you at home, or to at
Speaker 3: least to show people what's going on and what's sarah
Speaker 3: and what's not She handed or tried to hand Danielle
Speaker 3: the keys to her house and say, please just go
Speaker 3: inside and could you grab a few things for me.
Speaker 3: We had already come back, so that wasn't possible. But
Speaker 3: that's that's the desperation, handing the keys to your house
Speaker 3: over to a complete stranger.
Speaker 1: Help nobody listening to you right now, I can imagine
Speaker 1: doing that. That's how desperate you get. I don't know
Speaker 1: you and don't know where you're going anything, but if
Speaker 1: you're go into there, here here, just go to my
Speaker 1: house for me.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: Everybody's desperate for that kind of information. We're constantly getting requests.
Speaker 1: We just talked to a local radio host here. He
Speaker 1: said every single even a lot of reporters are getting
Speaker 1: dms from people saying, hey, I know you can get
Speaker 1: up there, if you can swing by here for me.
Speaker 1: That's just it's I don't know how we've seen it before.
Speaker 1: Robes and people are determined immediately, I am going to rebuild.
Speaker 1: There is nothing here in places. There are neighborhoods gone.
Speaker 1: When I say gone, I'm talking about piles of ash.
Speaker 1: We were walking through today and I'm looking through rubble
Speaker 1: trying to identify anything like what room was this? What
Speaker 1: room was this? There's ash as a bathtub here or there.
Speaker 1: But I'm telling these places are gone.
Speaker 3: You can tell where the fireplace was.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: Actually there was a few homes where you could actually
Speaker 3: see where the front door was, or where maybe a
Speaker 3: garage door was. And perhaps what was so eerie was
Speaker 3: you could see obviously that the sidewalk leading up to
Speaker 3: where the entrance would have been. But that's the clearest
Speaker 3: mark you could even see of where the footprint of
Speaker 3: the house might be. I mean it was gone, like
Speaker 3: if you've got a hurricane, if you've got a tornado,
Speaker 3: certain things are still left. You can pick through the rubble.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you could go maybe find that family heirloom. I
Speaker 3: don't think you could find anything in the aftermath of this.
Speaker 1: Well, we spent the morning. We walked through a lot
Speaker 1: of planet. There are some stories of things being found
Speaker 1: here and there, but I've never seen and we've been
Speaker 1: the house fires and structure fires our whole careers. You
Speaker 1: know what the thing when you have a structure fire,
Speaker 1: fire department gets called, they come, even if they take
Speaker 1: a few minutes, they can get there and start putting
Speaker 1: water on. Correct These are places that just burned and
Speaker 1: burned and burned until they stopped burning. And that's why
Speaker 1: we see just ash and that construction is on these neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Like I said, we're
Speaker 1: going to try to put this in the words, but
Speaker 1: there are none, right.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's also been interesting because when we've
Speaker 3: arrived on scenes, they've been I mean somewhat fairly contained
Speaker 3: when it comes to a fire, because there is danger involved.
Speaker 3: Obviously there were I saw nails and glass and you know,
Speaker 3: twisted metal like you know this is. They don't want
Speaker 3: down power lines, they don't want residents coming back to
Speaker 3: check on their belongings because there are a number of
Speaker 3: hazards just lying around. And normally even us in the
Speaker 3: media would not be allowed because they would have cordoned
Speaker 3: off the area or made it inaccessible to folks because
Speaker 3: of the inherent dangers. And yet this is such a
Speaker 3: wide swath and such a huge like part of the
Speaker 3: of the landscape that we were just walking around in
Speaker 3: places that I was actually surprised we had acces, to
Speaker 3: be honest, and some.
Speaker 1: Of that we we got to see it in a
Speaker 1: couple of ways. That scare the hell out of you
Speaker 1: and give you hope. Because we went right before sunrise,
Speaker 1: so it was still dark in many of these neighborhoods
Speaker 1: when we went. And when I say dark, it was dark.
Speaker 1: No power dark, there's no power. Just look like places
Speaker 1: have been. Literally they grabbed things and took off and
Speaker 1: now the power's out. Lights were off in these neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there.
Speaker 3: I saw a vehicle it was too quick to point
Speaker 3: out to you, that was halfway out of a driveway
Speaker 3: and halfway in it and you could it almost looked
Speaker 3: like it was balancing on the curb and it had
Speaker 3: the doors were open. It had been abandoned. I mean
Speaker 3: you could see. I have chills thinking about it. You know,
Speaker 3: we were there in the aftermath, but you could see
Speaker 3: what was happening while they were facing the fire and
Speaker 3: the fear and the embers. To the point where you
Speaker 3: say abandoned the vehicle, there was obviously so much traffic
Speaker 3: and like everyone trying to get out that people just
Speaker 3: abandoned their vehicles or realized that they couldn't get out
Speaker 3: fast enough in a car that they took off on foot.
Speaker 3: And that was really eerie to me.
Speaker 1: So that was the tie. So as we're out there
Speaker 1: in the dark, and then we're on right off the
Speaker 1: Pacific Coast Highway, sunrise is coming. We're standing in rubble
Speaker 1: and the sun starts coming up and it is the
Speaker 1: most it is the most perfect, beautiful California sunrise you
Speaker 1: will ever see.
Speaker 3: It really was.
Speaker 1: And well, we'll post pictures of this, we have this,
Speaker 1: but to have in the foreground, just rubble and just
Speaker 1: someone's dreams in that pile, that sunrise, that was the
Speaker 1: dream they were chasing. People are here because they come here,
Speaker 1: they're attracted for exactly what we saw. And then the
Speaker 1: threat of living here for that dream came and got
Speaker 1: them and wiped out so many people's homes and lives
Speaker 1: and savings, and I just it was it's a hell
Speaker 1: of a picture, and it's a hell of a site
Speaker 1: to see just how beautiful this place is and how
Speaker 1: destructive and dangerous in the threat that they live under.
Speaker 1: And it came home in a historic way this time around.
Speaker 1: And we've been folks, we've been talking to plenty of
Speaker 1: people here who've been on the run, who fled, who've
Speaker 1: lost homes over the past week now, and we've talked
Speaker 1: to plenty more of them here and now we want
Speaker 1: you to hear some of these voices.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're going to be playing for you now, some
Speaker 3: of the remarkable stories that are being told by the
Speaker 3: people who lived them, the people who lost their homes,
Speaker 3: the people who lost their businesses, the people who lost
Speaker 3: all hope at one point, but at least walked away
Speaker 3: with their lives. We want you to hear their stories
Speaker 3: from them. So take a lesson.
Speaker 1: We are joined now by Scott. Scott who's house we
Speaker 1: went by earlier today when we toured some of these neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and Scott, I say, we went by your house. All
Speaker 1: we saw was a surfboard. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: a surfboard still standing. That's a win in the back.
Speaker 1: That's a win for you. Tell me why even a
Speaker 1: surfboard right now is.
Speaker 2: A win.
Speaker 4: Still standing?
Speaker 2: You know the s.
Speaker 4: There's something. But you know, the point of all of
Speaker 4: this is, as I'm explaining to literally what seems to
Speaker 4: be my entire outlook that is now in my text,
Speaker 4: which you know, the shining example of love and humanity.
Speaker 4: But the equation is very simple. All are safe. All
Speaker 4: that matters. That was it. That's that is one hundred
Speaker 4: percent where I began. You know, two days ago I
Speaker 4: had literally one pair of pants to my name. Today
Speaker 4: I have three great day right socks tomorrow, So you know,
Speaker 4: uh yeah, my you know they call it the fink
Speaker 4: water Jean, My grandmother and my boys got it big time,
Speaker 4: and you know they have to go water their gills.
Speaker 4: So the fact that they will still be able to
Speaker 4: do so one day, big surfers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: That's that's it holds, It holds a hope and promise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I can't the perspective that
Speaker 3: this is unfortunately giving so many people who lost everything,
Speaker 3: but to have that one thing, one thing survive is
Speaker 3: so powerful. But yes, you walked away with your life,
Speaker 3: your entire family is alive. And yet I imagine as the
Speaker 3: days start to go by, you start to realize all
Speaker 3: the things you'll never get back. Right, you're not thinking
Speaker 3: about it in the moment, you shouldn't be, necessarily, but.
Speaker 4: Perfect point in the literal ten minutes, literal ten minutes
Speaker 4: that I had because the minute I arrived, which was
Speaker 4: a blessing undo itself. You know, ashes raining down, you know,
Speaker 4: and you breathe in and your lungs are there to
Speaker 4: tell you like, oh no bueno, like get out about
Speaker 4: But I had to go in and so I got uh,
Speaker 4: I think I shared with you. I got, I got
Speaker 4: my favorite picture of my boys and and you know,
Speaker 4: so that's it. So you know, you met with that
Speaker 4: bullying mind to go ah, you didn't get you and
Speaker 4: you didn't do And yet I look up and Griffin
Speaker 4: and his beloved girlfriend Julia, and Christopher and Pam and
Speaker 4: two cats that are hiding in the in the closet
Speaker 4: of the of the Blessing that is the apartment that
Speaker 4: our dearest Amy is loaning us right now. So you know,
Speaker 4: anything else is just things.
Speaker 1: Was it? You got word first that your house had
Speaker 1: burned down because your son went into the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: he took video.
Speaker 4: Right, we got confirmation? Yeah, that was the confirmation.
Speaker 1: So give me those two different perspectives. Because you saw
Speaker 1: the house burning on video and then you were able
Speaker 1: to get to the neighborhood yourself and see the house gone.
Speaker 1: Give me the perspective of how you reacted emotionally to
Speaker 1: those two different moments.
Speaker 4: Another great question, the you know, the hope you carry
Speaker 4: in all candor from the moment we left to you know,
Speaker 4: the little word that would travel. And obviously, you know,
Speaker 4: the minute we were leaving, we were trying to find
Speaker 4: a place, which is then the testament to not just
Speaker 4: the kindness of friends and family, but complete stranger through
Speaker 4: association had a bungalow that they'd bought, but they fell
Speaker 4: in love and moved in with their boyfriend, and it
Speaker 4: was empty, and so you know, seven hundred square feet
Speaker 4: looked really good to us. So you know, check right,
Speaker 4: it's the checklist. And so you know, we we obviously
Speaker 4: TV and phone and yeah, we held hope and hope
Speaker 4: and hope and hope. We actually got a glimmer of
Speaker 4: oddly someone reporting from the street over, you know, and
Speaker 4: you're you're going, oh my god, camera just peer left,
Speaker 4: peer left. And so the reveal came with unfortunately, my
Speaker 4: intrepid oldest doing what he does, which is go towards
Speaker 4: the danger. And so he said us, he sent us
Speaker 4: the very personal video. She was still burning and you know,
Speaker 4: as he said, what's important is we're safe. The house
Speaker 4: is not. And so the next day we started long
Speaker 4: story too much longer. The next day we were able
Speaker 4: to get some electric bikes. And you know, I've always
Speaker 4: noted a songwriter friend of mine. We always talked about
Speaker 4: why you feel so close to where you grow up
Speaker 4: and as a kid, you know the backyards to cut through,
Speaker 4: you know the alleys to sneak through, you know literally
Speaker 4: the secret paths you know under the tree limb, which
Speaker 4: is almost the combination of what we used to get past.
Speaker 4: You know, those there to protect us. But we were determined,
Speaker 4: and as I just told you, I went to say hello,
Speaker 4: not goodbye. And the dream and the determination is we're
Speaker 4: going to rebuild and kind of believe the phoenix is
Speaker 4: going to rise right like that's it.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's one of those moments where you live
Speaker 3: in an area where you know there's a constant threat
Speaker 3: of fire. You have had fire days, We've heard from
Speaker 3: so many people who live in the area. You're used
Speaker 3: to it, and yet you still don't think it's going
Speaker 3: to happen to you. When you actually saw for yourself
Speaker 3: with your own eyes what was left, which wasn't much.
Speaker 3: Can you give us any I don't know if there
Speaker 3: are words to describe what you were feeling.
Speaker 4: I just cleared out irony. I had just cleared out
Speaker 4: my aunt's house, who passed away in December. I came
Speaker 4: back with treasures, a hundred photos that things I'd never
Speaker 4: seen great great grandparents into. This is actually funny, I'll
Speaker 4: show you later, But I find this, find this picture
Speaker 4: of myself. It's effing horrible at five years old, with
Speaker 4: the worst beatles, boat cut and just teeth that just
Speaker 4: are are so spaced apart. And what I never knew
Speaker 4: is that my mother had given this to my grandmother
Speaker 4: with a note on the back quoting me, mom my
Speaker 4: smile looks. I don't want to say the word, but
Speaker 4: apparently I was schooled in some language even at that age.
Speaker 4: And you know. And so again it's a treasure.
Speaker 1: It's gone out, it's gone. We're never gonna get a
Speaker 1: chance to see this wonderful picture.
Speaker 4: Of the year's comedy. I didn't screenshot of that one.
Speaker 4: I'm like of all them, like great grandparents, I didn't
Speaker 4: take a picture of it, but I've got that, and
Speaker 4: believe me, it was one of the first laughs. And
Speaker 4: I also, I had been in search of random anecdote.
Speaker 4: I'd been in search of a photo that I had
Speaker 4: remembered since I was a kid of me as a
Speaker 4: baby on my grandfather's lap, and my grandfather was blind,
Speaker 4: so he hadn't seen He didn't see me for the
Speaker 4: first three years of my life. The miracle is in
Speaker 4: that house. My houses are so important. He woke one
Speaker 4: day my grandmother pulled the shades back, and he'd been
Speaker 4: blind for ten years due to illness, and she pulled
Speaker 4: the shades back, and he voiced, hey, honey, why is
Speaker 4: it so bright in here? And my grandmother just turned
Speaker 4: to look back, and as far as I know, inexplicably
Speaker 4: to this day, but he got about thirty five percent
Speaker 4: of his siteback. So I'd wanted that picture forever. And
Speaker 4: there'd been family floods in the basement, going through thirty
Speaker 4: boxes of papers and letters, and you know, in some pictures,
Speaker 4: I see this broken photo album. I got that picture, baby,
Speaker 4: Now I've got that picture digitally that was lost. But
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, so you know, listen, you're again,
Speaker 4: you bully, you bully yourself. But then I'm telling you,
Speaker 4: I meet and greet every thought of that with but
Speaker 4: what I do have. And lastly, my wife, blessed wife,
Speaker 4: no joke, ran into the closet not to get any clothing.
Speaker 4: Take it back. I think she I think she grabbed
Speaker 4: her favorite pair of shoes. But that from the story
Speaker 4: because what she really did. I had an inner synctum
Speaker 4: of pictures and oh too personal here the picture. The
Speaker 4: picture is the one picture I had of my sister
Speaker 4: who passed when she was one. Only ever had one.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: So I had a little inner sanctum of and we
Speaker 4: have that. So that's what I'm saying. You know, you
Speaker 4: go loss but gain and yeah, there you go waxing
Speaker 4: too much.
Speaker 3: People. People always use if you were fire hit your
Speaker 3: home and you had less than five minutes to grab
Speaker 3: what you could, what would you grab. That's just something I.
Speaker 2: Got the less you ready, Yes, the piece.
Speaker 4: I didn't know. You're asking what you learn. I didn't
Speaker 4: know this, but for one and all people, pets pictures
Speaker 4: important papers, if if if if, But that really trails
Speaker 4: off the piece. It's the piece. I'm not joking people
Speaker 4: pat's pictures.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you what did you think There's a
Speaker 1: house across the street from you that's still standing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it only has a few burn marks in the in
Speaker 1: the grass. Just to see your neighborhood and to see that,
Speaker 1: what is there going we saw anything, like, what the
Speaker 1: actual hell, how is this possible? But for a guy
Speaker 1: who's looking at that, I don't know. If it does
Speaker 1: cross your mar I will go, wow, I think this
Speaker 1: happened over here, And why could I have been that house?
Speaker 4: We're not human if we don't go, boy, I wish mine.
Speaker 4: But but then I you know, there's no halo on
Speaker 4: this head and there's no wings on his back.
Speaker 2: That's my wife.
Speaker 4: She earned him on earth. But but but but I'm
Speaker 4: really not joking when I tell you I love it
Speaker 4: because from my side of the street, I know what
Speaker 4: the loss is and I never ever, ever, ever, never ever,
Speaker 4: even if we were the Hatfields and the McCoy's, ever
Speaker 4: would I want that for them? Ever? And so we
Speaker 4: love it. And then for our neighborhood it's so affirming
Speaker 4: because there's the beacon light. Wow, there's there's the still
Speaker 4: standing the surfboard and the house and that we know
Speaker 4: we're going to get back to and we're talking five years,
Speaker 4: maybe talking ten, right, But it's not about you know,
Speaker 4: I'm old, I'm bald, working, I'm blind, and what the
Speaker 4: hell do I need anymore? But again, for the kids, right,
Speaker 4: for all who are to come bringing it back. We're like,
Speaker 4: not a Joe, We're bringing it back. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: really like not.
Speaker 3: Just everyone else we've spoken with, and it's it's really affirming,
Speaker 3: it's really hopeful. It's not it's not if, it's when,
Speaker 3: and it's let's start now and let's figure this out.
Speaker 3: And I don't know how, but let's begin right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Like I said, the dream and the and and the
Speaker 4: and the determination, like put those together and hey, listen,
Speaker 4: that's what the world's built on.
Speaker 1: Scott. We appreciate you, and we look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: what you do with that surfboard. I am sure you're
Speaker 1: going to frame that or do something really with that surfboarding.
Speaker 1: Before you go, please tell us what is your wife's
Speaker 1: favorite pair of shoes?
Speaker 4: She's gonna kill hold on, hold on, I know this. Oh,
Speaker 4: I know this. She's not gonna By the way, do
Speaker 4: you know what I have in my head right now?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 4: Everything's music to me? Ding then done? Don Dunne? What
Speaker 4: was that game show?
Speaker 5: Done?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And she's not going to kill you. He got it?
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 4: Mary Jane's mean anything to Mary James.
Speaker 3: I know exactly what they are.
Speaker 4: Swear to God.
Speaker 3: The par Mary Jane.
Speaker 4: She has she has the Mary Janes. Can you efin
Speaker 4: believe that? And by the way, no socks, no underwear,
Speaker 4: no pants or or shirt additional to what she was wearing.
Speaker 2: But she got her married Jane.
Speaker 4: She got the Mary Jane's insane. So yeah, we will
Speaker 4: walk on.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for being with us. We
Speaker 3: appreciate it and all the love, and just thank you
Speaker 3: for sharing that you were so real and so raw
Speaker 3: and so vulnerable and things that nobody ever wants to be.
Speaker 3: But in moments like this, it counts and it matters
Speaker 3: because we we it resonates.
Speaker 4: To say, and again we're one hundred percent right, food, clothing,
Speaker 4: shelter check, really, really, we all we have to be
Speaker 4: talking about those who are still fighting their way back,
Speaker 4: you know, and and route route the river resource you know,
Speaker 4: in that direction, and because that need is still very
Speaker 4: much there.
Speaker 3: Joining us now is James Petty and he unfortunately lost
Speaker 3: his home in the Eton fire, correct and is a
Speaker 3: real estate agent in the area and just told us,
Speaker 3: James just told us that he lost all of his
Speaker 3: listings in addition to his very own home. James, I
Speaker 3: shudder to even ask you how you're doing today. How
Speaker 3: you're feeling today?
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I think I've got a family. I've
Speaker 6: got four kids, I've got a wife, and I've really
Speaker 6: been just trying to keep it strong for them. But
Speaker 6: I mean when I'm on my own, it's tough. I've
Speaker 6: been crying like every day when I went to church,
Speaker 6: and just by myself yesterday just broke down. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is unbelievably hard.
Speaker 1: And James, that comes from Look, we've been talking to
Speaker 1: plenty of people, some of them lost their homes and
Speaker 1: then we talked to some people who their place of
Speaker 1: employment burned down, so they lost their livelihood. But you're
Speaker 1: the first person we've talked to that has law both,
Speaker 1: it seems because you talk about these moments that you
Speaker 1: have alone. But to help us understand this, this is
Speaker 1: one thing about rebuilding and going through this. But James,
Speaker 1: where in the world do you go from here?
Speaker 6: That's that's a good question. I mean, we got noticed
Speaker 6: of the fire at six pm. And for my neighbor
Speaker 6: who said it's coming, it's my friends. Because I've sold
Speaker 6: homes all over so a huge database. People are telling
Speaker 6: me this fire is going about as fast as a
Speaker 6: person can run. You got to get out. I threw
Speaker 6: some clothes in the car through the dog in the
Speaker 6: van and we left. And I mean five point thirty
Speaker 6: in the morning. I had to call my father in law,
Speaker 6: who's stubborn. He's just there, wouldn't leave. I woke him up,
Speaker 6: I said get out, and he got out, thankfully. But
Speaker 6: it was like watching your life that you've built. I've
Speaker 6: been an altady in twelve years and then my business
Speaker 6: burned down in day. I just you know, I'm a dad.
Speaker 6: I live on the deals I do, and it's just
Speaker 6: that's the hard part, the unknown of what am I
Speaker 6: going to do for my family, for my kids?
Speaker 3: Wow, where are you all right now? How have you
Speaker 3: found shelter and all the things that you need to
Speaker 3: live day and day out?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, my brother I live in Montana and
Speaker 6: grew up there for twenty some years. But my brother
Speaker 6: and I both moved down here. He ended up in
Speaker 6: Orange County. So I'm with him. My family's with him
Speaker 6: right now. And then my kids all go to Sierra
Speaker 6: Madre Elementary. Two of them go there. We're going to
Speaker 6: be in Siera Madre with some friends and you know,
Speaker 6: the next sixteen to ninety days is gonna be very
Speaker 6: telling of what's going to happen where we're going to.
Speaker 1: Go, James, that neighborhood you're in Altadena. There's so much
Speaker 1: emphasis been put on the Palisades fire eating fire. I
Speaker 1: think eating fires that been the deadliest, even though the
Speaker 1: Palisades is the largest. But Alta dina in particular, that area.
Speaker 1: We heard a local reporter describing it a certain way
Speaker 1: today in the devastation, and you almost couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: But you knowing that area, living in that area, how
Speaker 1: do you describe? I mean, it's hard for us to
Speaker 1: put in words because it does look like the place
Speaker 1: is gone. So you, as a guy who knows it,
Speaker 1: knows it well, lives there, describe what has happened to
Speaker 1: that neighborhood.
Speaker 6: Well, it's funny, you know, before the National Guard came in,
Speaker 6: because I'm a local, I was able to talk some
Speaker 6: local people how to hop the police line. And so
Speaker 6: I actually went up because I have clients saying can
Speaker 6: you tell me about my home? And I drove blocks,
Speaker 6: blocks and blocks. I drove from Marengo to fair Oaks.
Speaker 6: There was not one house left. I mean, you cannot
Speaker 6: tell where you are at there are no visual landmarkers.
Speaker 6: I mean, is it is truly post apocalyptic. I've never
Speaker 6: seen anything like I just stay up. People are walking
Speaker 6: around on the street like zombies. I'm trying to say,
Speaker 6: can I give you money? Can I do something for you?
Speaker 6: And people are like, my dad's in that house over there,
Speaker 6: I think, and the car. I think that's what's hitting me.
Speaker 6: It's not just me, it's my whole neighborhood. Everybody is
Speaker 6: impacted and it's just so many on phones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you were able to sneak your way
Speaker 3: back up there. Did you actually get to see where
Speaker 3: your house once stood? And what did it look like?
Speaker 3: Did you see anything recognizable?
Speaker 6: Well, I'm happy to share the video with you because
Speaker 6: I took video of it all from my clients and everything,
Speaker 6: and actually did walk through my house through the crumbling
Speaker 6: wreckage of it. And there's some bathroom tiles that I
Speaker 6: saved and a burnt page of a book and there
Speaker 6: is nothing else left.
Speaker 1: Wow, James, did I hear you said you saved You
Speaker 1: grabbed the tiles, you held on to them.
Speaker 6: That's I mean. The kids are like, is there anything?
Speaker 6: And I said, I get whatever I can find and
Speaker 6: I grabbed a bathroom tile.
Speaker 3: Bathroom tiles.
Speaker 1: Wow, we'll take in amazing. Yeah, I'll take whatever's left.
Speaker 1: And bathroom tiles work.
Speaker 3: Just just a memory, just some physical reminder of what
Speaker 3: once was. And I know your mind has to be
Speaker 3: racing about what was lost. Is there something? Are there
Speaker 3: certain things that you think are just you're just gutted
Speaker 3: by the loss of Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm an avid fly fisherman. My dad taught
Speaker 6: me when I was thirteen up to Montana and all
Speaker 6: my rods burned, my saltwater reel burned, and those were
Speaker 6: gifted to me by my father, as well as a
Speaker 6: really special shotgun my grandfather gave me is gone and
Speaker 6: I'm not hunted in years, but just having it meant
Speaker 6: something to me. And those I can't get back. I
Speaker 6: can't get back my kid's drawings and all the things
Speaker 6: that they made for me as a dad. That's really hard.
Speaker 6: I mean the other stuff I can replace, a stove,
Speaker 6: a fridge, I can't get that stuff back.
Speaker 1: Tell us the ages, James and your kids.
Speaker 6: Sure, I've got a seventeen year old William, twelve year
Speaker 6: old named Plum, ten year old named Jonah, and a
Speaker 6: seven year old named Juniper.
Speaker 1: How were they?
Speaker 6: They're pretty impacted. I think my son, I told I
Speaker 6: was worried about him. He's pretty withdrawn. He didn't want
Speaker 6: to play Nintendo, which is like his favorite thing in
Speaker 6: the world, and just really on his own, not eating
Speaker 6: in the way that you normally would. And I think
Speaker 6: my youngest is going to bounce back. I think my
Speaker 6: plum really internalizes it, but my ten year old is
Speaker 6: he's having a hard time.
Speaker 3: James, what do you say to your kids? How do
Speaker 3: you explain this to them?
Speaker 6: I called my therapist friend with the same question. She said,
Speaker 6: just tell them how you feel that and that it's
Speaker 6: going to be okay, that we're going to make a way.
Speaker 6: But they can share with you how you're feeling, like,
Speaker 6: tell me the good, the bad, tell me in your
Speaker 6: heart and when you're ready, I'm listening, and not to
Speaker 6: force it out of them. Give them time.
Speaker 1: You said you called the therapist's friend to help you
Speaker 1: get your kids through it. Who's helping you through it, James.
Speaker 6: No one yet. I've got therapists that I can talk to,
Speaker 6: but I've really the clothes drives, the food. It's been
Speaker 6: really focused on my wife and kids. I'm wearing what
Speaker 6: I have. You know, this is my Tsara T shirt
Speaker 6: and some jeans and some running shoes. So not really
Speaker 6: dressed for the real estate world.
Speaker 1: Yep, I have on a Tsar T shirt myself, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Zara, when you were able to like, I don't
Speaker 3: think people, I mean, I'm imagining it, but when you
Speaker 3: have seconds to grab what you can, you know, what
Speaker 3: was that moment? Like, what were those moments?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, with four kids, you're telling your kids like, oh, pack,
Speaker 6: you know, and my wife is packing. I always have
Speaker 6: our a black box, which I recommend everybody does. You
Speaker 6: have a black box of your documents. That's a go
Speaker 6: bag anytime you don't want to be scrambling for your
Speaker 6: passports at the last minute. So thankfully we got all
Speaker 6: that stuff. But yeah, I just grabbed a couple of shirts.
Speaker 6: I honestly didn't think my house would burn. I mean,
Speaker 6: that was I thought I'd be coming back and it,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe a few days.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So we opened my daughters This is it's strangely funny,
Speaker 6: ironically funny. We opened my daughter's suitcase of clothes and
Speaker 6: it's all her stuffed animals made with beds and there's
Speaker 6: no clothes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you leave your kids like every man for himself.
Speaker 3: You guys, pack what you need. She packs her stuffed.
Speaker 6: Animals, So he's gotta go. Guys, he's coming with us.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think my kids would do that too.
Speaker 3: I think they would grab their baby blankets and their
Speaker 3: mementos and not think about And honestly, maybe she was
Speaker 3: the smart one. She left behind the things she can replace.
Speaker 3: She grabbed, but she couldn't.
Speaker 6: Yes, I just love that she put blankets on them
Speaker 6: so they wouldn't get cold.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone we've talked to today, they We've waited
Speaker 1: on the person who's being impacted to make the joke,
Speaker 1: but everybody has made us smile. Right, everyone who's been
Speaker 1: impacted has some little story and in some way is
Speaker 1: finding a way to stay upbeat. But have you been
Speaker 1: on the phone with insurance companies yet? Is my question?
Speaker 1: And what does that mean for your home, your property
Speaker 1: and moving forward?
Speaker 6: Sure? Well, honestly, this is not to toot my own horm.
Speaker 6: I haven't called my insurance yet. I've actually been counseling
Speaker 6: my clients. My phone has been going off NonStop. There's
Speaker 6: a service from a church that's offering ash outs which
Speaker 6: they'll come through your ashes and dig through your dig
Speaker 6: through it to find valuables like jewelry, things that are
Speaker 6: really important. And I'm putting a notice out today and
Speaker 6: you know, and the next step is coaching people on
Speaker 6: how to talk to insurance if you need to speak
Speaker 6: with a claims adjuster, uh, you know, preparing preparing them
Speaker 6: for that and after this or tomorrow when I get
Speaker 6: a minute, I'll file my claim, but you have some
Speaker 6: time on that. I've really just been thinking about, you know,
Speaker 6: my community, to be honest, and we have launched you know,
Speaker 6: I was in renovation and uh services for residential real estate,
Speaker 6: so I've done so many homes in the area and
Speaker 6: so we did launch rebuild Altadena dot com. And that
Speaker 6: is I'm committed. I'm not moving away. I'm here. We're
Speaker 6: going to be with people in the process and to
Speaker 6: help them kind of get through navigating the permitting whole
Speaker 6: issue with account work County, so you know, to do
Speaker 6: your permits. We can help expedite those and help rebuild.
Speaker 6: So that's where we're focused at it.
Speaker 1: Tell can you if you don't have an exact number,
Speaker 1: you don't have to uh, it's okay, but I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get an idea. Yes, all homes you sold burned,
Speaker 1: but you also had a bunch of listenings. Do you
Speaker 1: have the idea how many listings you lost and how
Speaker 1: many you have left? Can you give us You might
Speaker 1: have already counted, but even if you don't have an
Speaker 1: exact can you give us an idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's about six, so one on the market and
Speaker 6: then my future spring inventory burned.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So financially, how do you you know insurance companies? We've
Speaker 3: heard all the nightmare stories and I know you haven't
Speaker 3: even begun that journey yet, but I'm sure you're preparing yourself.
Speaker 3: How do you get back on your feet? Do you
Speaker 3: know financially how you're going to get back on your feet?
Speaker 6: No, that is an unknown. But we are launching construction company,
Speaker 6: so I think the insurance when it will be there.
Speaker 6: I have education and knowledge on permitting and how to build,
Speaker 6: so I think that is really where I'm going to pivot.
Speaker 6: Of course, I do have people calling me panic selling,
Speaker 6: and I'm just saying hold the phone. I mean, I
Speaker 6: don't know what's going to happen, so I just don't
Speaker 6: know how to advise people until I learn more information.
Speaker 6: You know, are we going to see a major dip
Speaker 6: in altered because no one wants to come here, or
Speaker 6: because there's low inventory? You know, prices will go up.
Speaker 6: So I don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 1: James. We've heard you talk about and it's understandable for
Speaker 1: any parent. You've got four kids, You're trying to make
Speaker 1: sure they're okay. You've got a wife, you want to
Speaker 1: make sure she's okay. You got a community you want
Speaker 1: to make sure okay. You got clients you want to
Speaker 1: make sure they're okay. Robot and I employ you. Please, James,
Speaker 1: you got to take care of yourself at some point. Brother,
Speaker 1: you got to man. I know, I know you got
Speaker 1: to be strong now and whatnot, but this is taking
Speaker 1: a toll on you, the likes of which you won't
Speaker 1: realize for maybe a little bit. But really, James, you
Speaker 1: are doing incredible heroes work for everybody around you. It sounds,
Speaker 1: but we beg you, yes, please, I will.
Speaker 6: I will for sure. We'll make sure everybody's getting therapy.
Speaker 6: I will create that space for myself. Well.
Speaker 3: James, thank you for sharing your story giving us some
Speaker 3: perspective about what you and so many people are going
Speaker 3: through right now. We just wish you the very best
Speaker 3: and just so happy everyone's safe and sound.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We're speaking to Edwin, Flores and you have lived in
Speaker 3: the Palisades Edwin now for just the last few years,
Speaker 3: but you've had some major life changes. Your wife had
Speaker 3: a baby two weeks ago. You have a young son
Speaker 3: who you were racing to pick up at school when
Speaker 3: this all started to unfold very quickly? Can you walk
Speaker 3: us through when you first were alerted that you needed
Speaker 3: to go get your son, and of course you, I'm
Speaker 3: sure were concerned about your wife and your newborn as well,
Speaker 3: who were far away from where you were.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, the whole day started off kind of weird
Speaker 5: because the winds were definitely extreme for what we're used to.
Speaker 5: We have a side gate at the home where our
Speaker 5: dogs kind of go out in the morning, and the
Speaker 5: entire fence was down, and that's where I kind of
Speaker 5: got the first notice that this was a little bit
Speaker 5: different than what we're used to. I comfortably took my
Speaker 5: son to school and left my wife at home with
Speaker 5: the baby. She obviously just gave birth two weeks ago
Speaker 5: and had a sea section. So you know, after doctor's orders,
Speaker 5: she's not really able to lift much or move around
Speaker 5: too much. So I left her at home with the
Speaker 5: positive thought that everything was gonna be okay. So I
Speaker 5: went to work and I probably did one meeting, and
Speaker 5: at the very end of the meeting, I got a
Speaker 5: text from the school saying a fire has broken out
Speaker 5: in a very very close vicinity. Please make your way
Speaker 5: to the school as soon as possible to pick up
Speaker 5: your son. And well, I didn't really think much of it.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, cool, let me just grab my stuff.
Speaker 5: And once I got.
Speaker 8: In my car and looked towards the sky, like this
Speaker 8: gray cloud just kind of overpowered what you're looking at,
Speaker 8: and quickly I got in my car so.
Speaker 5: I drive you straight there, and checking in on my wife,
Speaker 5: checking in with friends in the area to make sure
Speaker 5: if they got the message as well. And it just
Speaker 5: seemed like a very very long drive that I was
Speaker 5: making from Culver City to just the pch. The cloud
Speaker 5: just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and you know,
Speaker 5: I was texting friends and sending them photos.
Speaker 2: I was like, I do not know what I'm getting into,
Speaker 2: but this is not looking good.
Speaker 5: The closer I got, the more the fear kind of
Speaker 5: came in, saying like, I have two things I have
Speaker 5: to do, and I don't know if I can do
Speaker 5: both of them. And one of them is picking up
Speaker 5: my son and the other one is picking up my
Speaker 5: wife and my baby. And the school is the Monassory
Speaker 5: and it sits in the mar Kessnoles of Palisades is
Speaker 5: just kind of pretty dead center of the Palisades and
Speaker 5: just south of the highlands where the fires began. And
Speaker 5: once I got into pch you can see the amount
Speaker 5: of people racing towards the Palisades, which I can only
Speaker 5: assume it's other parents. I can only assume it's other
Speaker 5: neighbors that live nearby. And we tried our best to
Speaker 5: kind of, you know, follow the rules, but you can
Speaker 5: see people, you know, bypassing red lights, chasing fire trucks
Speaker 5: to get there faster. And by the time we made it,
Speaker 5: you know, close to where the Palazi stars, it's just Chautaqua.
Speaker 2: You can see the amount of traffic already trying to
Speaker 2: get out as well.
Speaker 5: And once I made a ride onto Mescal, which is
Speaker 5: the middle street that gets you up there, the line
Speaker 5: to get onto v ch was already insane. There was
Speaker 5: tons of cars racing to the top of the hill
Speaker 5: and the main street, which the Sunset, it was bumper
Speaker 5: to bumper, like there was.
Speaker 2: No room to maneuver any which way, and I was
Speaker 2: already fearful.
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, this is not going to be
Speaker 5: good because I still have so many blocks to get
Speaker 5: to my kid. It probably took me about half an
Speaker 5: hour to get to the kids school, and during that
Speaker 5: time I kept checking in with my wife. I was like,
Speaker 5: I think you need to just start packing things up.
Speaker 5: We didn't really think we were. We had a fear
Speaker 5: of the fire. Thought we were just gonna be like
Speaker 5: in an area that's probably gonna be smoky. We live
Speaker 5: in the Sunset Mesa area and it's just behind the
Speaker 5: Getty Villa, which you know the For some reason in
Speaker 5: our head we're like, yeah, this this isn't.
Speaker 2: Gonna touch us.
Speaker 5: I think it's just more so, you know, step away while,
Speaker 5: step away from the area while the smoke is around,
Speaker 5: and then we'll be back in, you know.
Speaker 2: Two days.
Speaker 5: Once I was able to make it to my son,
Speaker 5: the teachers were not doing well.
Speaker 2: They had still ten more kids to go.
Speaker 5: You can see the fire and the smoke from the mountains,
Speaker 5: and they they had concerns for themselves and as well
Speaker 5: as for those, you know, remaining ten kids or so.
Speaker 5: I jumped back in my car and I raced heading
Speaker 5: westbound on sunset, And unfortunately, as soon as I hit Pch,
Speaker 5: I could not move. Like the cars somehow were just stopped.
Speaker 5: We couldn't figure out what was happening, and so you.
Speaker 3: Couldn't get to your You couldn't get to your wife
Speaker 3: and to your new born child. So she had to
Speaker 3: she had to take matters into her own hands, correct
Speaker 3: and escape on her own.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I called her and I said, listen, I
Speaker 5: know you can't lift much. I know you can move
Speaker 5: things around, but I just I need you to just
Speaker 5: grab as much as you can, grab the dogs, grab
Speaker 5: the baby, and just get ready just in case.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try my best.
Speaker 5: But to be honest, I'm moving ten feet every twenty minutes,
Speaker 5: like I am not moving.
Speaker 3: Well, you're we're starting through your head at that point.
Speaker 3: I'm just curious, like I can't even imagine what your
Speaker 3: brain is saying to you.
Speaker 5: There's two things. The first thing was my son who
Speaker 5: was in the car with me. The sky was orange,
Speaker 5: it was dark orange. The moon was red or the
Speaker 5: sun was like bright bright red. And my son has asthma,
Speaker 5: so I knew that there was no chance that I
Speaker 5: can step out of this room the car without him
Speaker 5: having any type of asthma attack. And in my head,
Speaker 5: I knew I don't have his inhaler, I don't have
Speaker 5: anything that can help him in case he does suffer
Speaker 5: from any of these attacks. So I had to keep
Speaker 5: him in the car. I didn't have anything in the
Speaker 5: car with me, so I took my shirt off and
Speaker 5: I actually wrapped her around his head, just so that
Speaker 5: he wasn't breathing anything in case he got into the car.
Speaker 5: That drive, going towards the Palises drive again. It just
Speaker 5: took so so long, and you're starting to see people
Speaker 5: starting to walk with their suitcases on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: Cars pulled off to the side already.
Speaker 5: I think everyone was in disbelief, not knowing if they
Speaker 5: really have to take everything or are they just going
Speaker 5: to wait it out. I tried my best to wait
Speaker 5: it out. I'm a film of my wife the entire time. She's,
Speaker 5: you know, getting little things as much as she can.
Speaker 5: Carrie luckily. Unluckily, we still had our hospital back pretty
Speaker 5: much packed because we were just at the hospital not
Speaker 5: even a week ago, and she was able to grab
Speaker 5: that bag, tossed in a few more things, primarily for
Speaker 5: the kids. And you know, I'm going down the list
Speaker 5: of like what do we need for my kid obviously
Speaker 5: the asthma medicine, fourmula for our baby, at least one
Speaker 5: or two bottles, diapers, like anything that can think of
Speaker 5: that's going to be immediate, and she luckily was able
Speaker 5: to grab that throw it in the car. She had
Speaker 5: to grab the dogs, throw them in the car. They
Speaker 5: were piled on top of suitcases, and then for the baby.
Speaker 5: The unfortunate part was I had the base for the
Speaker 5: car seat and she had the car seat, so she
Speaker 5: essentially did her best to just put the car seat
Speaker 5: on the front seat and just tie it with the
Speaker 5: seat belt as best as she could.
Speaker 3: These are the things you don't plan for, really, like
Speaker 3: you don't think it's going to happen like this. And
Speaker 3: thank goodness you all got out safely with at least
Speaker 3: a few things, because your house ended up being completely destroyed.
Speaker 2: Completely destroyed, And I think it's one of those hard things.
Speaker 5: Like I said, we thought we'd be back, you know,
Speaker 5: we thought, hey, in two days, once the small clears,
Speaker 5: we'll be back, so there's nothing to worry about. And
Speaker 5: you know, you're staying close to the news and you're
Speaker 5: watching these winds swirl and then go left and right,
Speaker 5: and you know, we're file following the app that you
Speaker 5: know updated every so happened hours and at some point
Speaker 5: at the end of that first day, you can see
Speaker 5: that there's a fire around us, but yet the map
Speaker 5: in the middle of it had not been updated.
Speaker 2: Yet, so we had hope. We had hope. We held
Speaker 2: on to it.
Speaker 5: We had friends in that area that kept texting us, saying,
Speaker 5: a self connection to my camera, I can see that
Speaker 5: things are working.
Speaker 2: We started getting videos of our.
Speaker 5: At the bottom of our hill where the Getty's landscape
Speaker 5: started burning. We started getting videos of our the restaurants
Speaker 5: right next to us. We live right next to the
Speaker 5: real end Enchilada, which unfortunately burned down the first day
Speaker 5: as well. So in our heads we're thinking, there's still
Speaker 5: a chance, there's still a chance. And I was trying
Speaker 5: to find any which way, like how can I get information?
Speaker 5: And you know, I stuck to the to the social
Speaker 5: media platform X and I was like, someone's gonna be
Speaker 5: talking about it, someone's gonna be posting about it. And
Speaker 5: you know, the very next day, maybe around midnight, I
Speaker 5: was like, I'm desperate to find something. I think it
Speaker 5: was a firefighter that posted, you know, everything on Seahorn
Speaker 5: Drive from this address to stage dress this address is burning.
Speaker 5: And it just so happens that that's where we got
Speaker 5: our first glimpse of the house on fire. So we
Speaker 5: knew what we were gonna expect. We kind of waited
Speaker 5: to see if there was anything else that was gonna
Speaker 5: come up. And the very next day, I guess the
Speaker 5: neighbor was able to get into the area and luckily
Speaker 5: took video of as much as he could so that
Speaker 5: everyone would get some kind of understanding or closure. And
Speaker 5: you know, we live at the very end of an
Speaker 5: intersection where I think it was a long pause for
Speaker 5: us where we saw it, and it just it was
Speaker 5: very surreal knowing that, you know, you're just looking at
Speaker 5: a driveway like there's not even any structure, if there's
Speaker 5: no there's nothing there but just flat flat land, And
Speaker 5: you know, all I can think about is like that
Speaker 5: whole garage is full of all of my boxes that
Speaker 5: I had just put in there three weeks ago, and
Speaker 5: I was going one by one trying to like, you know,
Speaker 5: empty them out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think, I think now.
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking, and it and it's and it's just it's
Speaker 3: such a sad story that so many I know of
Speaker 3: your neighbors and friends are going through as well. But Edwin,
Speaker 3: we really appreciate you walking us through that. You really
Speaker 3: painted the picture of what it must have been like.
Speaker 3: And we're just so happy that you and your wife
Speaker 3: and your children and your pets are okay, and we
Speaker 3: are sending you our very best. We just, you know,
Speaker 3: we just can't even imagine how difficult this is. But
Speaker 3: thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: So we are joined now by Rabbi Daniel Sure joining us. Sir,
Speaker 1: you just before we came on here, you said you
Speaker 1: were able to get back up and take a look,
Speaker 1: I think at your neighborhood and where your house is.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you saw.
Speaker 7: You know, we'd gotten once to check the conreation and
Speaker 7: ones to my own home, and what we see is pain, right.
Speaker 7: We see a community that so many of us nearly
Speaker 7: had memorized. Right walking the streets, playing with our kids.
Speaker 7: We nearly had this, this neighborhood memorized. And for a second,
Speaker 7: you feel disoriented and lost because all of the landmark
Speaker 7: pieces of how you'd remember that, telling your kids you
Speaker 7: can ride up three houses to the purple mailbox and
Speaker 7: then stop, which all of us if parents, have done
Speaker 7: things like that, and then the mailbox is gone and
Speaker 7: the house is gone, and it's it is a painful
Speaker 7: and also a little bit confusing because all of the
Speaker 7: memories of all that love and the neighborhood fled through
Speaker 7: you while you're assessing that, and it's just a it's
Speaker 7: an incredibly complex emotional process.
Speaker 3: And Rabbi, I know you you lost your home, what
Speaker 3: about your stream, your neighborhood? Did anyone's home survive? Are
Speaker 3: you all literally in the same boat, so to speak.
Speaker 7: There are two homes out of one hundred and sixty
Speaker 7: one hundred and seventy out of our neighborhood, and we
Speaker 7: are in that same boat. And that's what's so interesting
Speaker 7: about this moment is like, as as people we've learned
Speaker 7: how to care for people in trauma. There's no good
Speaker 7: example or guidance on how to care for those in trauma.
Speaker 7: While in trauma, it's a different kind of shared experience.
Speaker 7: There's a different power to it, of course. But if
Speaker 7: I had a neighbor whose house burned down, we would
Speaker 7: surround them with love. And when all the neighbor's houses
Speaker 7: burned down, there's this flip where part of it is
Speaker 7: surrounding the two houses that stayed with love because of
Speaker 7: the guilt, because of the the confusion about what will
Speaker 7: happened to them, about will they be allowed to live
Speaker 7: in their home? How long I drove through the neighborhood,
Speaker 7: it's not an area to live in. So your house survived,
Speaker 7: and there's even a weird sense of survival guilt to it,
Speaker 7: and yet your neighborhood was robbed of you and it
Speaker 7: is gone too.
Speaker 1: Well, Robi, what do you do? And I'm just curious
Speaker 1: to how you answer it. Your you're a man of faith,
Speaker 1: and so many people in the community are coming to
Speaker 1: you for some kind of guidance and counsel, and so
Speaker 1: often people do answer ask that question, why why would this?
Speaker 1: Why would my God allow something like this? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you've gotten that question, but just how do you,
Speaker 1: as a man of faith, make sense of what's happening
Speaker 1: right now. We know things just happen in Some people say,
Speaker 1: is God's plan? But what is your answer to it?
Speaker 7: I mean, look, the Jewish tradition holds a lot of
Speaker 7: different answers to it. But there's a number of theologians
Speaker 7: and philosophers who understand God as part of this universe
Speaker 7: and not as the puppet master of this universe. And
Speaker 7: when you understand God as a concept as as as
Speaker 7: the noun that connects to human love and care and
Speaker 7: compassion in this world, then it isn't so much why
Speaker 7: would God? And it's more about what do we do
Speaker 7: to create that space of faith in these moments right
Speaker 7: I believe that things that happen, I'm not one of
Speaker 7: those bad things happen for a reason, but I am
Speaker 7: a When bad things happen, we have a choice, We
Speaker 7: have a divine choice. We can either step up and
Speaker 7: be partners in faith and we can care for humanity
Speaker 7: and we can see travesty as the kind of origin
Speaker 7: story that means our children will fix this world because
Speaker 7: they have experienced the kind of pain that will motivate
Speaker 7: them to or we can just ask why, and if
Speaker 7: we find community and we find the people who we
Speaker 7: can connect to, and by the way, part of the
Speaker 7: devastation is we have that the Palisades was in a
Speaker 7: wonderful community of people who showed up for each other
Speaker 7: and loved each other. I was at countless of the
Speaker 7: homes that went down. I was in their homes, and
Speaker 7: I blessed their homes by putting the Mozusa that piece
Speaker 7: up on the door that in the inside talked about
Speaker 7: how to show love and create a world of love.
Speaker 7: So we have a choice to hold onto that community
Speaker 7: and care for it and do something real. But right
Speaker 7: now we're also in pain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you We've been hearing everyone's stories, Rabbi about
Speaker 3: how they they got out safely. What's your story?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 7: I'm going to carry some grief and wrestling with it
Speaker 7: for a while. I was out of town. I was
Speaker 7: at a conference, and I was coming back an hour later.
Speaker 7: Then I ended up coming back and my wife called
Speaker 7: me and said, should I be worried about this fire?
Speaker 7: And we talked it through and she went about her day.
Speaker 7: At first it was nothing. Up on the top of
Speaker 7: the hill. We had one like a week earlier, and
Speaker 7: by the time it was something I couldn't get back.
Speaker 7: So I was on the phone with my wife while
Speaker 7: reception would cut in and out, and we problem solved
Speaker 7: on what to do, and my wife, in a truly
Speaker 7: heroic axe, was able to go to two schools to
Speaker 7: pick up the dogs, to collect everyone. She couldn't get
Speaker 7: her car through, so she actually took a jogger and
Speaker 7: ran to the synagogue to pick up our youngest son
Speaker 7: through smoke and it. You know, she saved our entire
Speaker 7: family and for that will always be the most important
Speaker 7: already was but the most important person in my world.
Speaker 7: But I'm there's gonna be a really hard moment for
Speaker 7: those of us who couldn't help at all. How we
Speaker 7: figure out do you go to that next conference? Are
Speaker 7: you comfortable leaving your family? Because no one saw this coming,
Speaker 7: No one, absolutely no one. When the fire came up,
Speaker 7: we said, it can't jump the street. It's a wide street.
Speaker 7: So there's just so many and you talk to people.
Speaker 7: Everyone has a story, what they did, what they didn't do,
Speaker 7: who they called, who they checked in on. You look
Speaker 7: at their phone logs and they were checking in on
Speaker 7: every single one of their friends while trying to evacuate
Speaker 7: at the same time, it was it was chaos because
Speaker 7: it is such a in person, tangible, close knit community.
Speaker 1: You talk about how you might have a difficult time
Speaker 1: reconciling or dealing with the uh you being gone when
Speaker 1: this all went down. I'm curious, though, what's your wife's
Speaker 1: response to that, because I'm sure you said that to her,
Speaker 1: And how is she comforted you or tried to get
Speaker 1: you to you know what, stop that.
Speaker 7: Well, I'll tell you part of it is her fault,
Speaker 7: because she says every time I leave, bad things happen here,
Speaker 7: talking about like the power outage or kid wakes up
Speaker 7: in the middle of the night sick. And so I
Speaker 7: said that, and she dismissed me pretty hard. I tell
Speaker 7: you that joke is now over. She reminded me of that,
Speaker 7: like we are a team and you can't foresee these things.
Speaker 7: And part of being a role model to our children,
Speaker 7: which is really the most important thing we do, is
Speaker 7: showing them that tragedy and the things that might scare
Speaker 7: us cannot stop us. We have to move forward with life.
Speaker 7: We have to think about how we rebuild. We have
Speaker 7: to reach out, we have to create community. We have
Speaker 7: to keep the tether to the people we care about.
Speaker 7: And as I said before, we have to be thinking
Speaker 7: about how the world can be stronger and better for
Speaker 7: it because we have three kids. We have three kids
Speaker 7: who can go and make a difference in this world,
Speaker 7: who can create beautiful lives, who will do something that
Speaker 7: makes us proud. And we have to make sure that
Speaker 7: moments like this strengthen their resolve and don't break them. Wow,
Speaker 7: even if when they go to bed at night we're
Speaker 7: a little broken.
Speaker 3: Rabbi, I was going to ask you what it has
Speaker 3: been like, what it will be like leading your congregation.
Speaker 3: Your synagogue is amazing, it's beautiful, we saw it. It
Speaker 3: remarkably survived. I was going to ask how you lead
Speaker 3: people when you're trying to work through your own mental
Speaker 3: and physical stress of having gone through this tragedy with them.
Speaker 3: But my goodness, just hearing your words right there, I
Speaker 3: don't think you're going to have a hard time. You
Speaker 3: have a way of inspiring while you're also dealing. Is
Speaker 3: this a new thing where you have never really had
Speaker 3: to walk the walk along with your your congregation at
Speaker 3: the same time in this in this path of pain.
Speaker 7: You know it's important to note that every religion has
Speaker 7: a different setup and structure with their with their leadership
Speaker 7: and clergy and the way the Jewish tradition is set.
Speaker 7: Rabbis are not outside the scope of their community. We're
Speaker 7: community members. There's there's a piece of rabbinic literature that
Speaker 7: says in every community, the following are required, and it
Speaker 7: lists it off a t sure and a doctor, one
Speaker 7: who understands the laws, someone to supply the food, sanitation,
Speaker 7: like all the things you can think of that a
Speaker 7: community needs, and a rabbi. And it doesn't start with
Speaker 7: rabbi right like it's it's about the idea that rabbi
Speaker 7: is part of the community. So when you say lead,
Speaker 7: I guide, but we lead with love and we absorb
Speaker 7: what are surrounding. On last Friday, we were able to
Speaker 7: gather as a community, not in our own space, but
Speaker 7: in another one, another synagogue, sigin a temple was so
Speaker 7: gracious to offer us their space to use, and we
Speaker 7: led with love as I saw faces in tears, myself
Speaker 7: our senior rabbi, Rabbi Amy Bernstein, the canter canter heien Frankel.
Speaker 7: We cried with them and we laughed with them. We
Speaker 7: shared in that pain and that joy of being able
Speaker 7: to be together after three days of fear and separation.
Speaker 7: And so it's not about leading in this moment. It's
Speaker 7: about meeting the people where we need to be met,
Speaker 7: and then and then knowing that my love language is
Speaker 7: to help make sure that even while we sit in
Speaker 7: this pain, we see a path that will be to
Speaker 7: move forward.
Speaker 1: Man, you've just counseled us here. We've been watching from Afar,
Speaker 1: and we've been now talking to a lot of folks
Speaker 1: here in La since we got here, and every single
Speaker 1: one of them after we've talked to them, has made
Speaker 1: us feel better. It's put us a smile on our face.
Speaker 1: Our homes are three thousand miles away. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: you all have a resolve and an energy and a
Speaker 1: joy and an appreciation and a community. Something is coming
Speaker 1: through right now in La and you certainly are a
Speaker 1: part of it. We thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 1: I know it's hell for you and your community and
Speaker 1: your family personally, but man, really really appreciate what you're doing,
Speaker 1: taking time with us and also guiding. As you say,
Speaker 1: I won't say lead anymore when I talk about a rabbi,
Speaker 1: but guiding your community.
Speaker 9: So thank you so much, man, I appreciate I want
Speaker 9: to leave you one note please, As a Jewish peace people,
Speaker 9: we've known the story of devastation and rebuilding for thousands
Speaker 9: of years, and so it's not to dismiss the pain.
Speaker 7: Of this moment, but it's to know that we really
Speaker 7: we will rebuild the heirlooms that I lost. The Canter
Speaker 7: so aptly said, when I buy a new Kiddish cup
Speaker 7: to bless for Shabbat, my grandkids will know that as
Speaker 7: the cup that we first blessed Shabbat. After this moment
Speaker 7: of pain, we'll create new heirlooms. Well, we'll start again,
Speaker 7: and so we will lean on three thousand years of
Speaker 7: history to learn to do it. And as a culture,
Speaker 7: as a people, as all of it, there is so much,
Speaker 7: so much to look forward to. So thank you for
Speaker 7: having me on. I really appreciate it, and I hope
Speaker 7: you guys are able to share this message out and
Speaker 7: all the stories you've heard for so many to hear.
Speaker 3: Rabi Sure, thank you so much and we will and
Speaker 3: we appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Those are just a few examples ropes of the stories
Speaker 1: we are hearing here, each one a little different but
Speaker 1: each one kind of theme so a certain degree as well.
Speaker 1: When you hear about this, just a commonality, not a comparison,
Speaker 1: but there's a commonality to the suffering that everybody has. Somebody.
Speaker 1: You might have lost your home, maybe you didn't, but
Speaker 1: everybody's in the same boat out here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I find that I found that so interesting and
Speaker 3: not something I was expecting coming here to hear people's stories.
Speaker 3: They're vastly different, and yet they all have the same
Speaker 3: theme to it. There's a gratitude, there's a sense of community.
Speaker 3: There's a sense of togetherness that was there all the time,
Speaker 3: it seems like, but just heightened, and people are just
Speaker 3: so grateful and aware of it, checking in on one another.
Speaker 3: And I love that the messages to those of us
Speaker 3: who didn't suffer any losses or aren't a part of
Speaker 3: this community, that we can still take the lessons learned
Speaker 3: during these fires and apply them to our own lives,
Speaker 3: to our own communities. It doesn't have to have some
Speaker 3: sort of a tragedy for us to remember to be
Speaker 3: kind to our neighbors, to check in on people who
Speaker 3: are vulnerable, and to make sure that we have a
Speaker 3: safety plan in place. Natural disasters can happen anywhere, and
Speaker 3: these are all lessons and all takeaways I believe we
Speaker 3: can all use in our own lives.
Speaker 1: And so thank you once again to all of our
Speaker 1: guests who have suffered, who are suffering right now, but
Speaker 1: have still taken the time to tell their stories, to
Speaker 1: spend some time with us, and for that we are
Speaker 1: forever grateful, not just for the time, but also for
Speaker 1: the lessons they gave us and quite frankly, given us
Speaker 1: a reason to smile, given us a reason to be
Speaker 1: optimistic in the midst of an unspeakable tragedy. Robes and
Speaker 1: I will continue to be talking to people while we
Speaker 1: are here in LA. We will bring you more of
Speaker 1: their stories in our next episode of Amy and TJ.
Speaker 3: But for now, I'm TJ Holmes and I'm Amy Roboch.
Speaker 3: Have a wonderful day, everyone,