Two things stood out when I walked around the neighborhood the other day on Lake Avenue in the heart of Altadena.
Like a frozen image of a lingering nightmare, the commercial strip still had a lot of some unclear tile rubs, but there was also music.
Altadena is hurt and sad.
Altadena is healing and reconstruction.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won over 12 National Journalism Awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
I parked outside the Altadena Community Church, and it still looked like it was hit by a bomb and saw the tractor pressed the dirt at the nearby Bunny Museum.
And I called Victor Anap, the chairman of the Alta Dena Town Council, to tell her how much she enjoyed her essay in the Colorado Boulevard newspaper.
“We lost our homes, history, trees older than any of us, and a sense of security that never returns to the exact same,” Knapp writes. However, Altadena’s spirit is her salvation. “We lost a lot, we don’t lose each other.
A cross remains above the burnt ruins of the Altadena Community Church, which was destroyed in the Eton Fire six months ago.
There’s nothing badly important about the six-month mark since Eaton and Palisades fired and other historical book disasters. But that’s an opportunity to revisit and remember.
16,000 buildings have been destroyed.
Thirty lives were lost.
Countless livelihoods have been defeated.
Knapp, who has lost her home and plans to rebuild, did not underestimate her recovery for the next year, but as we spoke, she dropped some sugar cubes on that bitter coffee. She said that a building permit has been issued, she said, the foundation has been poured and 98% of all properties have been cleared despite the remaining outliers on Lake Avenue.
It’s all promising and I would like to believe that the nearby communities affected by Altadena and Etonfire are at least similar to what they are. The same goes for Pacific Palisade and Malibu. Here we saw the same juxtaposition of destruction and regeneration on a visit a few days ago.
I smashed and groaned through blank canvases of abandoned town, looking at an army of trucks and hard hats. At the edge of the business corridor at Palisade, I saw the broken spine of a fallen staircase lying like the length of a broken vertebrae. Where lots were being cleaned up, the background was open sea.
It’s too early to know what these unique and beloved communities will look like in four or five years. Insurance disputes, litigation and decisive causes of the Eton and Palisade fire may take years to resolve. There is a heated debate about lack of preparation and failure of the warning system. Investors hover like a buzzard. Some fire victims are determined to rebuild, some can’t afford it, some are still weighing their options.
What we know is, as they always do, fire and wind will remain forever in the cusp of catastrophe. Not only along the western edge of the county, but also anywhere. LA is built for drama, and the same geological power creates beauty and risk. The San Andreas faults were located across the San Gabriels and helped create those peaks.
Workers look out over businesses along Mariposa Street on Lake Avenue in Altadena, which was destroyed by Etonfire.
When I checked in with the evacuees I knew, I watched out the relentless waves of sadness, hope, anger, fear and orientation.
“I can’t wrap my head around how this will happen,” said Alice Lynn, therapist who “changed” her Highlands and the wider Palisades community forever. She is in a temporary residence during clearance and cleanup work.
“How do you feel a sense of normalcy when I came home in the mid-80s and everything around me sees this devastation and loss?” Lin asked.
Her friends, Joe and Arlein’s Halper (95 and 89), are no longer a short walk away. The properties they owned have been cleanly shaved, and the “for sale” sign stands where their front door once was. Before the fire, neither saw the future in the advanced living community, but that’s where they are in Playa Vista.
The swing still hangs down into the burnt playground at the Altadena Community Church, which was destroyed by Eton Fire six months ago.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“The loss of our homes, our neighbours and our community is tragic to us, but this is a very soft landing,” Joe said. They made new friends, including several other Palisade evacuees, and Joe choked when he told me that his beloved youthful bride had occupied the pickleball.
In Altadena, one sign represents both a wish and a promise. I pushed the door and told me that my manager, Alma Ayala, had donated clothing, household items and other items to stock the store.
Ayala believes some of them came from people who keep the rescued items. And when those who have lost everything return to Altadena, she suspects that items in her store will find a new home and a second life.
“This is the third time we’ve opened this shop,” Ayala said.
When it opened in 2016 for business. When it emerged from the Death Grip in Covid.
And now.
Steve Hofwendar of West Altadenan and his wife, Lili Knight, both actors sift through their options. Getting closer to 70, they know that they can exchange the house they lost in the palm of their west. But they are busy with their lives and are unable to bring home the mini orchards that produced goods for the big radiographers of the porch market that connected their neighborhoods.
As the first nearby wildfire sent smoke sprinting through Altadena, I wondered if anyone committed to rebuilding was shaking or if there were flashbacks.
“I think it’s going to be wind,” Hofwendal said.
His neighbor, Johnni Miller, is already working with the builder along with her husband, Anthony Ruffin.
A hopeful message remains at the gates of the Eton Fire Zone facility.
Miller and Ruffin – social workers whose jobs house homeless people – remain in Glendale’s temporary quarters, but sometimes return to their property. On a recent evening visit, Miller was rattling at the coyote’s appeal. The howling was longer and greater than she remembers, and “terrifying in a way I wasn’t scared before.”
She said she suspected that “the lack of sound buffering from the missing home” was a factor and that “when we get home again, we’ll be more cautious about kicking out animals at night.”
When they checked in with Diane Williams, 90 and 86, they said they were committed to rebuilding it on Bleburn Road, Altadena, where they still lived for half a century. But they know that it will take a while.
“The worries are we are not yet alive,” Diane said.
She handed the phone to Verne. Byrne had itching to share updates. The architects of their new home were connected at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Verne told me. They took a blueprint there, setting the magical moments by studio employees using several projection equipment.
“They were able to take the building plan and project it on the surface… on this huge floor where they could walk around our new home,” Verne said. “It’s been the most uplifting event since it happened six months ago.”
One thing I noticed, across the vast and unforgettable cemetery of Altadena, in a cleared and graded facility, over the vast and unforgettable cemetery of a lost home:
There are almost always more signs of “not for sale” than there are signs of “not for sale.”
I understand both emotions.
The day after the fire, I met Mark Turner and his wife, Claire Wavell, at the evacuation center in Pasadena. Turner showed photos of her 13-year-old daughter May, who was 13 years old, with photos of her home.
The family has been moving more than dozens of times since then, and for now they have settled on a rental property owned in Arizona. May has been registered with the school there and considering the uncertainty when or if Altadena becomes Altadena again, they are seriously considering selling the home they loved so much.
Signs offering Altadena a “embrace and kiss” are placed in the front yard of Eton’s fire-smashed house.
“It’s very mixed up. Honestly, it’s heartbreaking,” said Wavell, who began processing it again.
Webbel writes poems to clean the mind of all noise. Among them are “The Wind’s Return,” “1000 Weeks,” and “6 Months.”
6 months today
Our lives have changed forever…
6 months today
I burned out that night
Branded in the heart
steve.lopez@latimes.com
