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At Pasadena City College’s Disaster Resource Center, the long, methodical work of rebuilding lives is underway.
The residents who lost everything – most in Ethan’s fire that burned-out neighborhoods just a mile or so from downtown – come glassy-eyed, smelling of smoke, some in cars crammed with belongings, others on foot.
There is a group of tables in the center of the room and others at the edges. Shocked arrivals wander through this circle of services, considering what each has to offer.
On a recent morning, the center was busy but not frantic. Fire victims swayed and explained their needs to a masked greeter, who then directed them accordingly. Some even lacked identification, so they stopped first at the California Department of Motor Vehicles counter to sign up for a new license. An eye chart was pinned behind the desk.
Other stations offered advice on insurance and helped people sign up for disaster relief. Others provided guidance for people looking for contractors. Edna helped people whose jobs were destroyed. A table manned by the county’s animal control agency gave suggestions on how to find lost pets, while the county assessor advised visitors how it affects their property taxes.
Assessments are based on land and improvements, the bureau official explained, so if a house has been demolished, then the property must be reassessed. Residents can apply for a “misfortune and disaster” reassessment.
There seems little doubt about that.
This morning, several residents were dismayed to learn that their requests for FEMA assistance had been denied. This turned out to be a problem in FEMA system. The staff heard the complaints and rushed to fix it. Anyone who gets rejected should move on, they said. The application may simply need more information.
This center, as well as another one across town in the old Westfield Mall and operated by UCLA (soon to become the UCLA Research Park), ask a thousand questions from a thousand tragedies. They are reshaping foundations for individuals and families that looked solid just two weeks ago and now look terribly, immeasurably fragile.
Still, there are reasons for hope. In Pasadena, for example, the “medical aid” table was empty on Friday. And the center steadily, cheerfully processed people as soon as they arrived.
In every disaster, there is a point where rescue turns to recovery, where the rush of adrenaline is replaced by the constant commitment to work. Less noticed is that there is a brief moment in between, a moment of stabilization when lives need to be settled before the work ahead can really begin. In this pause, medical crises have largely subsided, and the future still seems too big to fully contemplate.
This is the moment Los Angeles is experiencing today.
Those who arrive at the center come with harrowing stories of escape and loss—and often not much else. Jackie and David Jacobs were among the visitors this morning. They’ve lived in Altadena for more than 30 years, only to see their house evaporate two weeks ago. They arrived at the center with only the clothes they were wearing – and they had come from a donation.
Still, they remained focused and positive. “In life,” reflects David Jacobs, “you have trials.”
The fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades share some characteristics and differ in others. Both erupted on January 7, Palisades in the morning and Eton later that evening. Both ran rampant through the neighborhoods with similar ferocity, crushing firefighters with winds reaching 100 miles per hour, hurling embers down dark streets and across vast distances.
Their devastation and the inability of fire crews to contain them should remind critics that these fires were not local failures. These two fires broke out in different jurisdictions with different fire departments and yet suffered similar fates.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has suffered a lot of criticism for her answer, and some may prove meritorious. But the Altadena fires were outside the city of Los Angeles, so the fact that low water pressure also frustrated Altadena firefighters is proof that this isn’t a failure in Los Angeles, but a systemic weakness: Fire hydrants are designed to put out house fires, not wildfires, and can’t handle the stress of fast-moving fires of this magnitude.
These fires were just too big, the winds too strong, the landscape is too dry. Climate change has exacerbated these problems and will continue to do so. The destruction is not Delta smelt’s fault or Santa Ynez Reservoir repairs or misleading claims about Los Angeles Fire Department budget cuts ( the budget was eventually increasednot cut).
When stability resumes, one can only hope that sanity comes with it.
If Altadena and Palisade caught fire under similar circumstances, they fought under different circumstances, including the politics surrounding them.
In Bass’s case, the profile of her work and the backbench of critics pushed politics to the fore. Defeated mayoral candidate Rick Caruso went on the Bill Maher show to announce that he would “fully fund” the fire department, a claim that is as nonsensical as it gets self service. What is full funding? And how was he going to stop these fires?
Not a single question was asked, much less answered.
Unfortunately, it’s a reminder that crash is no bar to glory, but the different political temperature surrounding these two communities also shows it doesn’t have to be. While the Palisades fire has drawn politics at every level, even appearing in President Trump’s somber and whiny inauguration speech, the leadership around Altadena — an impersonal community without its own city government — agreed to put politics aside.
There is, for example, the long-standing question of whether Altadena could be better served by being annexed to neighboring Pasadenaan idea that surfaced briefly in discussions of fire response. Instead of arguing over whether this would have alleviated the crash or somehow tamed the wind, the leaders of the two districts deliberately sidelined it.
Speaking to reporters at the FEMA center, one Altadena City Council member insisted that annexation talks should be put on hold for now. Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo agreed.
“This is not the time for political discussions,” he insisted.
Behind him, the real work of restoration continued step by step. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Pasadena City College Disaster Resource Center had served approximately 2,500 families.
Jacobs was among them. They found temporary housing and considered the work ahead. Faith, they said, would see them through.
