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Ben Jacobs had just moved into his Pacific Palisades home with his wife and 10-month-old daughter on January 1st.
They had lived in Venice for over three years and were planning to embark on a new life on Alphabet Street. We just spent the last week unpacking, organizing, and settling into our new home. Around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, Jacobs was at work when she noticed a large cloud of smoke in her backyard.
He called his nanny and told her to evacuate the house with her daughter and meet her at a Whole Foods parking lot in Santa Monica. The family evacuated with only the clothes on their backs, but learned they had lost everything by a neighbor who had videotaped their home burning down.
Jacob’s wife lost her wedding dress and a bracelet given to her by her great-grandmother. He lost things from his grandfather, who was in the army in World War II.
They lost the art and wine they had collected over the years.
“The basic things that you love because they are yours are no longer there,” he added.
The couple was excited to move to the Palisades. Because there was a “neighborhood atmosphere” there. There were kids playing on the street, at school, in the park, everything was walkable.
Ben Jacobs and his wife Taylor move from Venice to a new home in Pacific Palisades with their baby daughter Theodora.
(Photo courtesy of Ben Jacobs)
“Our world was taken away from us in a matter of days,” Jacobs said. “That neighborhood won’t change for another five to 10 years, if not forever. It’s hard to think of where in the future I could live in Los Angeles that could recreate that feeling.”
Friday was a heartbreaking day as residents in the fire zone tried to see what was left of their town.
Sunset Boulevard resembled a ghost town, with homes and businesses no longer smoldering but in a final state of ruin. The skies were clear for the first time since the fires started, and the bright blue background of the destroyed streets and car wrecks made them even more disturbing.
There was little sign of residents who had called home in the neighborhood, many of whom were desperately trying to get into a checkpoint a mile away.
However, the area remained cordoned off and law enforcement closely monitored access.
One couple managed to enter the country on foot from Santa Monica, but said most of the destroyed streets were in disrepair. Only first responders and news crews were on the main street.
Concerned Palisades residents lined up at the foot of Chautauqua Boulevard Friday afternoon, waiting to see their homes for the first time after the fire devastated their neighborhood.
Residents are still not allowed to enter the area alone. However, police cars were slowly guiding residents one by one to their homes. Some had no idea what to expect.
Some people knew their homes were destroyed and just wanted to know what could be salvaged.
“We’re looking through the rubble to see if there are any artifacts left,” said Whitney Farrar, 28, who grew up in the Palisades.
She said her parents fled with no emotion and thought they would be able to return the next day.
Her fiancée, Kyle Warner, who also grew up in the Palisades, said her family did the same thing. He was looking at a photo of the house he was about to see. It seemed that only the Buddha statue remained. He expected family heirlooms to be there as well.
Evan Bishton, 29, waited in line for an hour and a half to go to his parents’ house to get medication for his 78-year-old father.
He, too, had a hunch of what he would see there. The family home where he grew up, which he saw from the roadside, appeared to be in “very clean condition.”
“The smoke is clear enough that you can see small details from far away,” he said.
But he already knew the apartment he lived in was gone after a photo was sent to him by a journalist friend.
“It’s obviously the worst, but I feel like I lost less compared to these guys,” Bishton said, pointing at the people in line. “So I feel for them more than anything.”
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