Hell Angeles - Chapter 10

Insurance Hunger Games Part I. FEMA

The whole story takes place in Los Angeles after the fire. That’s what I’m beginning to believe. In early April, I receive a check in my mailbox for $171.99 from the U.S. Treasury Department. The check is dated February 21, 2025, and it may have arrived earlier but there was no postal service on my street. The sky is bright, the air is filthy sticky today, syrupy-sweet with chemical ash from trucks rolling past, blue tarps clapping loose what they scraped from burned lots above. There are very few families living here. It’s lonely without the boom and hiss of trucks. From my driveway, I can see the end of something—the tall trees crowning Will Rogers State Park sagging at the waist, blackened, dead soldiers—and the beginning of the burn scar. The hours where I’m allowed to feel naked terror, cut open like a knife by all that happened between January 7 and January 31—this is over. A check for $171.99 is in my hands. Lady Liberty holds her torch high next to “Pay to the order of.” Kansas City’s distribution manager, Vena S. Robison has added her bubbly signature clouded in grey. The amount is approved. It occurs to me; this is not the full amount. The check for smoke damage, vent cleaning, lead and arsenic in the water must still be in the mail. Is it lost?

Start at the beginning. 

“Any good lawyer recommendations floating around yet?” Elena, who lost her home the night of January 7 asks this on January 8. Her loss is perfectly crystallized but not so for others. It’s early; recall, the fire starts at 10:30 am on January 7, 2025, in an area of repeated ignition (a fire erupted in the same spot New Year’s Eve a week earlier) and the flames, the heat will cause property damage on the scale of war for 24 days. Oddly, the Eaton fire will last exactly 24 days as well.[1] The earliest estimates of loss are $250 billion.[2] These estimates will ratchet down for political reasons (a separate and interesting activity is to track the progression of the total property damage estimates and who is releasing them) but only a few, like Elena, are lawyering up. “My husband Alex W is an insurance lawyer. Office number is 310-824-XXXX,” Maria responds. Peter goes a step further. “I spoke with a lawyer today who believes we collectively has a mass tort claim….”

Mass tort claims are in the ether. Advice starts coming hot and heavy and fast.

“Report claims immediately even if you are not sure about the status of your house.” This advice is from a local builder. “We talked to our insurance agent. Here are my notes. He said there will probably be no surcharge because it’s a major disaster. Keep all your receipts, including food and lodging. We should do an inventory of things we lost in the house. It’s better to start working on it soon.”

Time is of the essence.

At this hour, for me personally, it’s difficult to act. Time is critical but time has lost all meaning. When a 40-acre problem became a 400-acre problem in just under an hour, when it was compounded by other problems like 80 mph Santa Ana winds, waterless hydrants, missing firetrucks, when a total failure of imagination took place, when no one wearing a uniform—any uniform—thought to raise the white flag and shout from the rooftops that what we have here is a fire massacre in the making— a disaster shaping up to be the costliest in history (for reference: 9/11 was $21.8 billion of property damage, Hurricane Katrina was $41 billion, the Camp fire in Butte County in 2018, the deadliest in California history, cost $16.5 billion, the 2020 August Complex fire the largest by acreage in Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity Tehama, Glenn Lake burned 935 structures for a  price tag of $10 billion) when this occurred, I lost my bearings. Call it vertigo. I could see only the mosquito airplane, flitting back and away, with its 500-gallon payload, spraying droplets into a volcano.

With each passing hour, each burning roof that collapses, lawyers get added to the message boards. “Mike Bidart and Ricardo Echevarria of Shernoff Bidart Echevarria for insurance lawyers. The best.” A google form circulates with the names of lawyers. “The Disaster Relief Clinic at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law will refer clients to lawyers who have agreed to take clients pro bono.” The anger is palpable, but it feels premature. Shouldn’t we first figure out what we lost? Shouldn’t we figure out our share of the loss? The call to prayer repeats. Act quickly. File now. File three hours ago.

But file with who?

We scratch our heads. What was the name of that insurance broker we used? It’s not saved in the phone. It turns out everyone operates under the same umbrella of false hope that the insurance broker is like a one-night stand, good for the moment, never needed again, so it takes a few calls to find the person who referred you. That guy says: don’t bother calling your insurance broker. The broker is gone. Moved out of state. If you want a copy of your insurance policy at this late hour, if you need to ask questions about the language (total coverage amount, amounts in each bucket, timeline of payments) better to call the company directly.

As we get the 800 number off the website, we see headlines scrolling across the phone. “The largest U.S. primary insurers have meaningfully reduced exposure to California due to costly and unquantifiable wildfire risk.” Jefferies Bank puts in a note. We’re noodling that statement, assuming it applies to someone else, because we know our personal situation. Sort of. We have a contract. Premiums were paid and the money was taken out of our bank account and now that the worst thing happened, the house and car and office burned, we collect. Right?

A neighbor on Napoli Street reports, “Hi. Heads up. We checked… our insurance company sent a letter just before the fire saying that they were going to drop our fire insurance. Who else received the letter?” A surf coach who lives on Tahitian Terrace calls his insurer right after his home burns. State Farm picks up the phone. The representative tells him that he has no fire coverage. In fact, everyone who lives the strip of land along the Pacific Coast Highway near Will Rogers Beach, was dropped from fire coverage in January 2024. Check your spam box. Check your burned mailbox.

Blood pressure going up. Heart racing. How many of us are going to be in this situation? Some of us? All of us? January 10, 2025, Los Angeles-based multi-line insurer Mercury General (MCY.N) is getting hammered. The stock is down 22%. Allstate is down 7% on the open. Insurance CEOs can smell a bloodbath coming; and for us, the insured, the hold times are getting longer, the responses cloudier. We ask for specific coverage amounts and get encyclopedias of unintelligible advice. For instance. Homeowner question. “Am I covered for partial loss?" Insurer answer. “Properties with Partial Damage. Partially Burned Down. Your insurance cover site security, generators, water and restroom facilities necessary for the protection and repair of your structure… Food Removal. Remove all food from refrigerators and kitchens. Ensure proper documentation before disposal of food, for reimbursement purposes.”

Huh? Can I just know if you’ll pay to rebuild my garage and kitchen? Do I have rental assistance while I’m evacuated? Shirley who owns Knolls Pharmacy on Marquez Avenue, she and her husband have owned and operated it for 35 years and paid insurance premiums through earthquake, wildfire, riots and burglary (pharmacies get burglarized all the time) learns that her insurer will not pay her a cent—not a cent of the $300,000 in fire coverage—until the “Inventory Salvage” expert is sent to the pile of rubble where her store existed. She has accounts payable, huge bills, right now. The beginning of January is when everyone refills their prescriptions. This story repeats, ad infinitum. The insured can’t get insured. Insurers are using every play in the playbook to “reduce exposure” to use the Jefferies Bank term, on the fly. Right now. Not last year or yesterday: right now.

Group panic. Group psychosis?

You mean the language in my insurance contract meant something different before this fire erupted? Is coverage fluid? Is contract law fluid? Yes, it’s fluid; the entire conversation between insured and insurer is changing; it’s dictated by things like size of the impact zone, the number of policies written in the disaster area plus the financial health of the insurer; if Mercury is your policy underwriter and Mercury is down 22% today, expect a longer hold time. Expect an uglier negotiation. Expect to have cash flow problems.

“We should look into government help like FEMA,” Jerome writes.

Silence. An asteroid falls out of the sky. If ever there were terrifying words—a suggestion we weren’t prepared to receive— you’re looking at it. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is mobilizing. Coming our way. There’s not a breathing soul among the 200,000 evacuees who is ready to get off the phone with Mercury or Chubb and get on the phone with FEMA. No person who fought their way through late-stage capitalism, i.e. overpriced college and graduate school and the fiercest job market in the world, who sold their soul to achieve prominence in their corner of American economy, law, medicine, tech, finance,  entertainment, cosmetic dentistry, screenwriting, directing, acting, singing, sports management, solar panel fabrication thought it would come to this. No one imagined their journey up the American success ladder would land them on the top rung staring into the watering maw and murderous gaze of a FEMA inspector.

But here we are. Considering FEMA.

Breakfast on Friday January 10 our U.S. Congresswoman and 28th district of California Representative Judy Chu—a woman with a charmless haircut—repeats the invocation. She appears onscreen with information you don’t want. IMPORTANT FEMA INFORMATION. Here’s how to apply. Visit the website: disasterassistance.gov or call 800-621-FEMA (3362). USE: the FEMA mobile app. “What does this relief include? Temporary displacement assistance (e.g., hotel costs for up to two weeks) $770 for essential personal items. Larger direct grants to help cover essential needs such as medical bills, car repairs, and more….” Click the picture below or HERE.

But why, you wonder. Why would I enter these dark waters?

Here’s one reason. Lenders, insurers, increasingly, are requiring it. “I talked with BofA today (our lender) and they said they are waiting to hear from FEMA before making any decision on abatement.” Fascinating. Bank of America is waiting to hear from an entity which isn’t, according to their own definition, in the business of insurance. FEMA is not a public adjuster, not an arbiter of any sort, and yet, scores of financial institutions are withholding decisions (funding) based on FEMA? In fact, what is the technical definition of FEMA?

“FEMA assistance is not a replacement for insurance” the website states. The capstone doctrine, a click away, says FEMA is designed to “sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.” The agency was created by President Jimmy Carter (coincidentally, lying in state on January 7, the day the Los Angeles fires erupt) to manage the Nation’s disasters. The United States has plenty of disasters. “The History of FEMA” section teaches us their critical role in the Great Midwest Floods of 1993, the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, the 1995 terrorist attack at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. All told, FEMA employees have coordinated Federal response and recovery efforts in more than 1,800 incidents. If you got through all that, I’ll reward you with the point. The point is: Federal help is needed in times of duress. Don’t fight it.

What kind of money is FEMA offering?

$43,000 for loss of property, $10,000 repair assistance. $770 for evacuation expenses. It’s less than one tenth, one twentieth, one fiftieth of what we’re owed (depending on your situation) but it’s not nothing. Still, most of us ignore the invitation. We’re going to keep calling our private insurer. We hope not to be in a situation where we’re calling FEMA.

Friday January 10 is a pressure point. The busiest freeway in the world is barricaded shut. The one that appears in your history books, June 17, 1994, when O.J. Simpson drove his White Bronco away in a slow-speed police chase (“more of a failure to yield than to run” Deputy Sherriff Larry Pool said) while 95 million Americans switched over from the NBA finals to watch the former USC Trojan running back with a 100-yard dash time of 9.53 seconds and a world record breaking 4x110-yard relay time of 38.6 seconds, run one last race against law enforcement. We all watched him, our beloved O.J. Simpson, taking a leisurely drive along Interstate 405 with helicopters hovering over, football fans hanging off the railings of overpasses shouting, cheering, gripping homemade signs, “Run OJ Run!” and “Go OJ!!!” This Interstate, this memory—is in the news again. The 405 is about to burn.

Yellow jacketed newscasters stand on a high bluff on Skirball, opposite Mandeville Canyon, pointing down on orange plastic dividers being dragged across the road. Vehicles are u-turning. DC-10 airplanes zoom in the night sky, spraying fire retardant by the thousand-gallon tank. Dozens of firetrucks with sirens blaring (we wish we’d seen this on day one) are climbing the ribbon roads that lead up the mountain. Why all this effort now? Why on day four going into day five has the appropriate response been mounted? Flames are about to jump the Rubicon. The fire is going west to east, into Westwood, UCLA, Ronald Regan Medical Center, and beyond. Our imaginations spiral. Physically, we’re exhausted. Psychically, we’re on the brink. Desperation like we’ve never felt. If the fire consumes another five or ten thousand homes in Los Angeles—it’s game over. The FEMA mobile app will crash. FEMA hotline will never work again.

Pick up the phone. Call disaster assistance.

It is with fear, trepidation, dark curiosity, that we do this. We log onto that place called disasterassistance.gov, and peer around the site. A cheerful greeting. White letters on navy blue shield. “Do you need help after a disaster?” Yes, that describes that situation. The homepage shows a woman in a sleeveless FEMA vest, a baseball cap, ringlets of hair coming down to her waist high fiving a tiny girl standing next to her grandmother on the porch. The grandmother is headless, we can’t see who she is, but her t-shirt reads Pray, Pray, Pray. The brother, slightly older, maybe 6-years-old, stands in his pajamas. The paint on the house is chipping. Apply Now is a red button waiting for our click.

We click it. The journey begins. Confirm you’re not a robot, enter your zip code and find disasters in your area. A treasure hunt follows. “Why isn’t the fire listed in the dropdown menu? What is our disaster named? Is it grouped under the Eaton fire?” Questions flying around from neighbor to neighbor. The group works together. Individuals make progress. By Friday night January 8, it’s offered on the dropdown menu. WILDFIRES AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS 4856. Highlight the bubble. Enter credentials. Pick a password. Get a secure mobile code to log on with your username and password. Feeling good. This part is going well. The feeling dies fast. Seventy-five or a hundred steps follow that require your full mental energy and focus. Maybe you have kids. Or elderly parents evicted from their nursing home behind you, asking for help. A house that just burned. Responsibilities. A car to drive. You can’t go Hunter Thompson style, whiskey and an eight ball of speed, to get through this FEMA application. You just need to muscle through it. Brute force. Did the website buffer for a long time after you hit submit? Stay with it. Words of encouragement come from other people who battled the process. You can do this. A frightening message arrives.

They’ll be in touch.

Wait. Wait a few days. No news.

Then…. the fight is over before it starts. People cry out in agony to neighbors. “I was just denied” “We were just denied” “Is anyone else being denied FEMA coverage?” “I was denied as well” “Also denied FEMA” “I suspect we aren’t absolutely denied, just denied for now.” “Such BS” “Denied, us too. Got the notice a few hours ago” “Denied too here” “I applied but I knew they would deny us. I am angry and sad… we were abandoned. They let our beautiful community burn. Promised us 100 percent of nothing. Praying that our insurance covers something.” “I was denied as well” and “We were denied also.” “Also denied FEMA because we have insurance. Was just assigned an adjuster today for our regular insurance. Haven’t heard from them yet.” “Denied too here.” People start posting their denial notices. A cascade of notices. “NOT APPROVED.” How is it possible that so many of us can be denied all at the same time, and so early? Did we all fill out the application incorrectly? Is it indexed to income? Myth: My income is too high or low to qualify for FEMA assistance. Fact: FEMA does not consider your income when evaluating your application. What is it then? We go digging in the fine print. “Does anyone understand why FEMA denied coverage yet?” Jeremy reports. “FEMA rejected almost everyone. What a joke.”

But FEMA is not a joke; it’s a game. We are as yet, uninitiated players. There are rules, arcana we can’t possibly know. Here’s one. “Insured- Please submit a copy of your insurance settlement or denial letter. If you do not have insurance, you must submit a statement regarding your lack of insurance that is signed and dated by you.” Many, like the family on Napoli or the surf coach on Tahitian Terrace, already know they have no fire coverage. If they submit a letter from the insurer proving they were dropped from fire coverage, they will receive assistance. “What if I have insurance with a very large deductible?” This question is populating the message boards. It’s a common problem. People don’t have enough cash to meet their deductible. “We were told we need to pay off our deductible before FEMA will reimburse for living expenses.”

Others, in a third bucket (maybe the worst bucket) have private insurance that pays them nothing, or close to nothing, but the onus is on them to prove that to FEMA. The process is lengthy, costly, and can be litigious. They need to file with their insurer, wait for a public adjuster to visit their burned lot, fill out an estimate on amount of damage sustained. This number is confirmed or denied by an independent adjuster contracted by the insurer, who may or may not agree to visit the burned lot. The loss estimate may go to arbitration, it may sit in arbitration for a while, the insurer may decide to pay pennies on the dollar of what it costs to rebuild and replace. After all of this is complete, and documented, the insured can present the evidence that they were screwed—screwed beyond belief—and FEMA will send them a $43,000 check for total loss, $10,000 for repair, $770 for evacuation expenses. They’ve spent multiples of that just trying to prove their loss.

To wit, my friend calls me on May 15, 2025. This is 128 days after the fire.

“I am the FEMA pop-up on Pico, getting answers.” She is at 10850 W Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90064, United States at one of several disaster relief centers set up around Altadena and Pacific Palisades. On January 7, midnight, her dream home with a wraparound wooden porch that hung over Sullivan Canyon burned to the ground. The homes to the left and right of her house, were untouched. She felt indelible despair that day, displacing her children from a home she was sure she could never replace. Did she know she’d have problems with California FAIR Plan, in the event of fire? Maybe, possibly. But she didn’t expect it to receive as little as she did. After a 4-month battle to recoup something on her policy, she is being paid 23 cents on the dollar for the structure and less than 10% of personal property (contents inside the home). To boot, no matter how many times she calls FEMA, e-mails, inquires, she did a video call with a FEMA inspector months ago—she receives nothing. Today, she is determined to get to the bridge of Battlestar Galactica, talk to a FEMA captain, and get answers. Ariel is her man. He listens to her sad tale, her near-total loss, and is sympathetic. Starts pulling rules from the playbook no one knew about. If she changes the language on her FEMA application, if she changes the words “rental assistance “ to “rental appraisal” if she claims she has two children (she does) and needs a rental with three bedrooms (two bedrooms would be fine but Ariel insists the number must be three) if she provides documentation that California FAIR plan will pay her not a penny more than $247,000 (he is specific about this number), then FEMA can start giving her assistance. The Agency will cough up the $43,000 and $10,000 and $770 in the following increments. $3,679 a month for eighteen months.

A parent I know loses her condominium in Palisades Hills, her car and her toy store, to the fire. In May, she is still applying for FEMA. She has not received a cent from any of her insurers and because her store burned, she has no income and can’t work. With her last $5,000 in spare cash, she hires a lawyer to fight her insurer. FEMA doesn’t care if there’s a paper trail to prove all this. They continue to say: because she has home, car and business insurance, she is not eligible for assistance.

The stories go on.

At some point, I decide the only way to understand group psychosis is to get in the middle of it and try it out. I file my FEMA application and receive the following notification on my phone February 13, 2025. The message, with typos, is contained here.

I’m contacting you as per your request FEMA Housing Assistance Application For DR 4856 California wild fires. Please let me know if you are still interested in your FEMA Assistance through video call. If you are NOT interested in continuing your claim, please REPLY “NOT interested in the inspection of CANCEL inspection.” I will cancel the inspection as per your request. If no response is received, the application will be returned back to our data base and the process will take longer and possible cancelation of for your assistance. We kindly ask for your collaboration to expedite the process in order to help other disaster victims who are waiting for assistance. If you have any doubts about the authenticity of this message, here is my name and FEMA inspector number for verification: Beatriz V., Inspector ID: V102XX. You can contact FEMA directly at 1-800-621-2262 to confirm my identity. Thank you for your cooperation.

They offer me a site inspection. 

Will you be available tomorrow morning between 11;30 and 2PM for an in-person assessment at the provided address?

As soon as I agree to the visit, they cancel it.

Due to weather conditions, all appointments will be rescheduled for tomorrow Friday. Pacific Palisades weather high 58 low 61, light drizzle.

On Valentines Day, I wait at the end of my driveway for the FEMA inspector, wondering if the inspector can even get here. I had trouble getting here. The National Guard is at the bottom of my street, barricading vehicles without permits. There’s no one living in the area; it looks like a warzone. At the citywide press conference the Public Health Commissioner said, “don’t touch the water in your faucet” and mayor Karen Bass warned us not to breathe the air. There are rolling blackouts on the street, the Department of Water and Power is right now lifting an exploded pipe out of the road across from a double burned lot. I had to drive around that. But here I am.

I’m not about to miss the FEMA site visit.

Her name is Gladys. Beatriz then switches to Gladys. Then Beatriz is put back into the job. This is like waiting for an Uber driver while the algorithm hallucinates. I’m very careful to keep calling the 800 number to confirm the identity of my inspector. Already, dozens of fire impacted families from Altadena and Pacific Palisades have been targeted by criminal rings posing as FEMA inspectors. A neighbor on Monaco reports he was defrauded just days after the application opened. He had his identity stolen. His wife’s identity was stolen. Then both is daughters, married with children, who lived in another part of town had their identities stolen too. Another woman, Julia, tells a grave and pathetic tale about handing over her name, address, social security number, bank account number for direct deposit wire, during a FEMA site inspection. Later, she finds out those were criminals at her home, not FEMA inspectors. But FEMA can do nothing to help. A parent at our school. “I spoke to the person posing as FEMA… My husband was worried it was a scam and cross-examined her. She had our FEMA application number.”

Belatedly, I wonder if the Gladys Beatriz switch is an elaborate plot, and I should cancel the meeting altogether. But it's too late. She pulls up in a red shiny jeep. Precision hubcaps. I can see the FEMA inspector through her dark windshield, and she’s not wearing the sleeveless blue vest with FEMA stamped in yellow, and she has no baseball cap. In fact, she looks nothing like the picture offered online.

Right now, she’s sitting in her car ignoring me. Finishing a personal call. The book called “Scam Me If You Can” that I bought when I was writing an FBI show says that criminals don’t typically play hard-to-get. Beatriz is finishing a 22-minute personal call, and when she comes to meet me, when I see her glossy blowout, her gel manicure, expensive low-top hiking boots and matching crimson athleisure pants and padded vest—when I say, “thank you for coming” and offer my handshake, she rejects me. Won’t shake my hand without hand sanitizer. She goes back to her jeep, and I decide, this is a sign of legitimacy. The woman is snooty and doesn’t want to be here, which means, she’s not here to fleece my social security number.

She carries her distaste to the front door.

“Do you have pictures of the fire damage?” she asks briskly. It’s an intriguing question. There’s debris floating between our noses. Ash in little piles at our feet. Right there on her iPad she has a list of what is wrong; water contains lead and arsenic and copper and lithium and uranium and we have sewage pipe issues (as noted: Department of Water and Power is outside), every vent and air duct is choked with soot, needs to be sucked clean along with the crawl spaces between roof and attic and possibly, even, the insulation taken from parts of the drywall, tested, if contaminated, disinfected and replaced. Hospital grade air purifiers are heaving, pumping, in every corner. Hard surfaces need to be power washed. The soil needs to be lifted, tested. The remediators recommend that smoke damaged furniture, clothes, curtains, rugs be disinfected or disposed of altogether. We’re a family of six so this is not a small task. If the details bore you, the big picture is fairly clear.  We’re standing inside a home deemed uninhabitable by the State, on a street deemed uninhabitable, in a town where a 23,000 acre plus wildfire just eviscerated 9,000 structures. We haven’t been able to live here in six weeks. I’m claiming something on the order of $17,000 in remediation expenses, just to get back home, just to live here so I don’t have to claim more than that in rent. West Los Angeles rent has tripled. This reality is lost on my FEMA companion. Right now, she makes it clear, the onus is on me the homeowner to prove that WILDFIRE STRAIGHT LINE HIGH WINDS 4856 happened, that it caused problems, and that I deserve help.

Maybe I don’t deserve help?

She keeps adjusting her mask, complaining she can’t breathe, as she snaps pictures of the soot, the debris, the air purifiers heaving in every corner. The FEMA inspector pecks at her iPad, then moves outside to my front lawn where there’s a nice view of the 23,714-acre burn scar. She announces, her work is done.

Meeting over.

A few last rapid swiping motions on the iPad. I get the feeling: this was a waste of her time. Okay, I think. It was just an experiment anyway. I was testing the null hypothesis. I fund this arm of government with my tax dollars, but reciprocity is too much to ask. I’ve read enough post-war Soviet literature to know what I was getting myself into; what did I really expect? She is leaving me now. But lingering. The laws of attraction kick in. If someone is ever playing power games with you, if you refuse to care, they get immediately anxious. Beatriz starts talking to me, sharing, splurging on intimacy. She confesses she hates her boss; he tries to send her back and forth between Pacific Palisades and Altadena despite the impassable freeways in Los Angeles. Her grown daughter is giving her trouble. Arguing all the time over tiny, stupid things. Just this morning, a claimant in Pacific Palisades, a woman whose house burned to the ground, really vexed her. Here’s this woman who lost everything and all she could talk about was her cat. “FEMA doesn’t care about cats” Beatriz informs me. Her exit is abrupt. She says, she’ll never see me again. Weeks later, a plot twist. I wonder about that last conversation on the lawn. Manners will take you where brains and money won’t, the saying goes. I was friendly, respectful throughout the meeting. My check for $171.99 arrives. A bigger amount is promised. $6,115.83 if further documentation is submitted.

I study the watermark before I cash the check. Fraud is rampant.

“Has anyone else been dealing with a fraudulent FEMA claim filed with their social security number I’ve tried to apply five times for FEMA in the last five weeks and no one can clear the lock out on my account because someone filed a claim at a rental property in the Highlands that I moved out of nine years ago using my former name. I haven’t been able to file a claim on the home I lost in Marquez Knolls or apply for SBA because of this. Help anyone?” Another neighbor. “We had a fraudulent claim as well… It seems to be happening to lots of Palisades residents.” “Hi Julia!!! Our names were used fraudulently and they cashed the ‘check’. We filled out a claim with FEMA but never actually reached a live agent or heard back from anyone. Seems like a joke, $700 and change doesn’t even cover a day of expenses let alone the loss…. Let me know if you get anywhere.” Another woman, Amber is bombarded all day long by calls from fraudsters posing as FEMA inspectors. “This is the call back 202-255-XXXX felt scammy… I googled the number… and they said, ‘only in area a few days and want to schedule an inspection’.”

The fraud is so thick that it’s deterring people from even applying. Yet, we keep hearing that FEMA assistance is flowing from the taps. Governor Gavin Newsom at a press conference. “Thank you to FEMA and the Trump administration for granting California’s request…. as our communities in Los Angeles continue to rebuild and recover…. I urge Angelenos impacted by the Eaton ad Palisades [fires] to apply for federal assistance to help get back on their feet.” The Governor publishes the numbers on his website.

Disaster assistance by the numbers: 30,563 visits at the two Disaster Recovery Centers that remain open at UCLA Research Park and Altadena Recovery Center. $200 million in FEMA assistance. To date, more than 31,636 households have been approved for FEMA funds, including, $24, 631,795 in housing assistance for short-term rental assistance and home repair costs. $76, 690,832 in other essential disaster-related needs, such as expenses related to medical, dental, and lost personal possessions. $101,322,628 in individual housing support. This, alongside an angry post from an electrician whose home burned, who is working on clearing debris from burned homes all over town. “There should be a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST FEMA !! THE WORST! 5.5 months same excuses everyday!! Any lawyers have a lawsuit? I’m sure you will have thousands sign up.  ALL FEMA DOES IS VERIFY YOU 3X Same call and tell you nothing!! AND GIVE YOU ZERO INFORMATION.”

The first week of May I conduct a survey. I’m inspired to do it because my friend Cort is waiting on hold with FEMA, after 125 days, he still has not received an inspection (video or in-person) and still has not gotten even the $770 check for emergency expenses. I ask three dozen people if they’ve filed with FEMA. I ask what they’ve received. Six people have received the check for $770. One person wasn’t able to cash the check because it was sent to their burned street, to their burned mailbox, reabsorbed in the postal service and canceled. Better than most who received nothing. That surf coach and former physical education teacher who inherited a two-bedroom home (his dad bought it in 1970) and had no fire insurance, was dropped from State Farm in January 2024, lost a home valued at over $1,000,000 and for his loss, FEMA sent him the $43,000 and the $10,000. He’s the only person I’ve spoken to in Pacific Palisades who has received the allotted amount. I continue to survey. A friend I spoke to yesterday, who lives within 1,000 feet of where the fire broke out at 1190 Piedra Morada Drive, was told by FEMA she is outside the impacted zone. 

“Hello, FEMA has added a letter to your account on DisasterAssitance.gov. It’s very important that you read it.”

Yesterday, May 15, long after I assumed FEMA forgot me, I receive the familiar greeting. It’s an e-mail from noreply-ecorr@dhs.gov; I hesitate to open it. My relationship with FEMA has been so productive, so happy, compared to others. There’s only downside here, I think, as I go through the verification process and begin scrolling tabs. We cut large checks to make the home “safe” for our return; none of the amounts were covered by insurance. On one tab all my evidence, all my documentation is posted. Someone from FEMA has gone through each credit card receipt and vendor invoice and added a time stamp. After reviewing it, they have added a decision letter to the correspondence tab. In a world where everything changes too rapidly, too brutally, where history is moving away from us never to be seen again—I am relieved to see the steady hand of FEMA. I click open the letter. The banner reads “NOT APPROVED” and then there are steps, a dozen or so, if I’d like to appeal the decision.

---

[1] The Pacific Palisades and Eaton Fires are declared “contained” at the same time on January 31, 2025.
[2] ABC story from January 15, 2025.

Hell Angeles - Chapter 9

Trees

On the desk lie heaps of receipts, scraps of paper, notes so feverishly scrawled and chaotic, I have to stop and think where I jotted down the sentence, “Los Angeles has no native trees.” Who said that? When? And why? Why does it keep coming back to me as I watch the Pacific Palisades fire tear open the earth? It is the first day since the fires started on January 7 that I attempt to sit at a desk and write. Record letters. Process the images. Inferno. Trees. The beginning of writing about a thing is the gathering of images. Straps cut the shoulder. Feet stumble on the trail. It’s awkward and unsteady. Stay with it. 

Gather the images.

Daniel Clive McCallum, a neighbor in Pacific Palisades, said the craziest thing he saw was a 12-foot Christmas tree ablaze, tumbling down the center of his street. It was 8:30 pm the first night and the Santa Ana winds were out of control. The tree, a giant flaming orange spear, shot right towards him. He described it as “mesmerizingly beautiful and terrifying at the same time.” Another resident, Anna Wonder, after her house and neighborhood burned in total posts a picture. The picture was taken as the fire approached. Billows of grey-yellow smoke gather over a flowering rose tree in her backyard. The sun is still out and there’s blue sky yet. The buds on the rose tree are blush pink, perfectly formed, immune to danger. She writes to us, “Before everything burnt… I had no idea the capacity of the of catastrophe… but I felt the need to take a picture... I felt something.”

She felt something. The fire coming.

Andrew Dubbins, a journalist, drives up the winding road towards his childhood home, a two-story wood-shingled Craftsman his dad built 40 years ago.[1] The house sits high atop the road leading to Will Rogers Park where the trees are majestic (when I have out of town visitors, I always send them there). Dubbins knows the fire isn’t there yet; but it may be coming. He needs to check on his elderly parents. There’s only one road leading out of that place. A “fire trap” in local parlance. As he drives, he passes a grove of California oak trees where he and his sister used to look for deer grazing. He describes the pine tree and redwood in his front yard. The flowering pear tree where they strung Christmas lights every year, the two oaks which shaded his upstairs bedroom like a tree house. An unruly avocado tree. A round pine that a prior owner, a professional golfer, trimmed in the shape of a golf ball. It had quirky branches, perfect for climbing. Bougainvillea in the backyard. His dad used to clip the Bougainvillea on Sundays while his mom took her coffee, read the Los Angeles Times by the window looking out at a liquidambar. His parents are in shock as the fire approaches. The parents don’t want to leave. Dubbins negotiates. He says that once the firetrucks arrive, they need to evacuate. The firetrucks never do arrive. The “pop-pop-pop of trees being incinerated” is their cue to leave. Mother, father, son pile into the car. They hurriedly call 911 and are patched through to the fire department. “Will Rogers is on fire, and there are no firefighters, not a single truck!” Dubbins shouts. Through gridlocked traffic they drive to his one-bedroom on West Adams. He parks his parents on the couch in front of the news because what else to do with them? They’re in shock. He prepares a depressing dinner. Microwave leftover pasta and rice. His mom can’t swallow. The flames they narrowly escaped they now see. A KABC news anchor points up to Will Rogers Park— burning now, that part of Pacific Palisades is burning. It’s almost unthinkable. They pile back in the car. Why? Because there are neighbors who didn’t get out. After midnight, they tell an LAPD sergeant stationed on Sunset Boulevard below Amalfi to please call Station 69 and report those people. There are no firetrucks up there, they repeat. The LAPD sergeant is disinterested; he tells them to use their own phone. In shock, drained and hopeless, they trudge up Amalfi Drive to see what they can see. Flames swallow the entire canyon. It’s a miracle they can just pick out their home, their two-story Craftsman. “There’s your mom’s pine tree,” the dad says as it goes up in flames.

My mind becomes a split-frame camera. I read his account; the “flowering pear tree where we string white Christmas lights every year,” and it occurs to me: we have our own version. The California sycamore that sits like a king on our lawn. Thick, glossy leaves. Stone grey trunk. Wide branches for the kids to climb. The first of December each year, we wrap it with lights. They sycamore becomes a beacon for the neighborhood. It can be seen from the bottom of the hill, and my kids point it out excitedly as we drive home. People walking their dogs tell us they look forward to us lighting that tree each year. 7:17 pm on January 7, 2025, the doorbell camera points across our front lawn, under the heavy, leafy branches of the sycamore. All is well on our front lawn. A hundred feet beyond the tree—a panoramic view of hell. The sky is painted red. The canyon is on fire.

Every time I read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, to one of my kids, it leaves my throat empty. My kids ask me endlessly in their different ways, what the story means. They seem to know that because we’re reading about a tree, the story means something. Why does the boy take everything, her branches and leaves and apples? Why does he go away? When he returns, why is he unhappy and why does the tree offer him what little she has left? He cuts down her trunk and abandons her again. Now on the final page he’s an old man. Wrinkled. The tree remarks that she has nothing left to give him except for a place to sit. He sits on her stump. Lowers his chin. The final line of the book. And the tree was happy. But how can the tree be happy? After so much betrayal and ruination. Always, we hover over the pages pondering the mystery.

Trees are in the psyche. Imago Dei. The image of God is what makes man human? The image of the tree is buried just as deep. Deeper.

The problem of where we came from, what we are doing here, finds the tree. Nabokov starts his memoir with, “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The first image of his life is an empty cradle, made of wood, floating in a void. The Buddha sat under a tree for 40 days. Christ was nailed to a tree. Images of the Argonne Forest where the deadliest campaign in American war history was fought—a million Americans participated and 26,000 were slain—are famous not for the carnage, we can find that anywhere, but for their trees. Those haunting trees. Blackened trees split open against a white sky, exploded, askew, like teeth sticking out from a coffin. The negation of the negation. From the Jewish Kabbalah, the tree of life. It represents God’s creation itself ex nihilo. Ex nihilo. Out of nothing. Three words followed by three words. Tree of life. Out of nothing. When man is at his bottomless worst, no image haunts, no image conveys, like the tree destroyed.

January 7, January 8, January 9, January 10, January 11, January 12, all through the weekend and into the next week—as the Pacific Palisades fire rages—people topple forth with images of destroyed trees. Trees bringing destruction. Trees carrying fire down from the mountain ridge, trees exploding, trees tangled in power lines, trees crashing into the sides of homes collapsing in flames, storefronts, schools, and churches collapsing in flames. The church spire made of wood, burning. My friend sends me a side angle video of her home, the entire thing made of unfinished wood, with 270-degree views of Sullivan Canyon, the thing is burning like an Olympic torch. Trees carry flame, they bring death and destruction from somewhere to us. Something from nothing.

There are no native trees in Los Angeles.

Now it’s bothering me that I can’t remember who said this, so I go to the archives. Not an easy task. When I read, I read with a pen. I notate too much so when a line haunts me a decade later, I embark on an endless treasure hunt. This one is hard to track down. John Cheever. A Pulitzer Prize winner. Awarded the National Medal for Literature. Considered to be among America’s great short story and novel writers (“Chekhov of the suburbs” they called him). Like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, he did a stint in Hollywood. When The Paris Review interviews him about his life and work in 1976, they ask him what he thinks about Los Angeles. His answer is provocative.

Interviewer:

What do you think about working in Hollywood?

Cheever:

Southern California always smells very much like a summer night… which to me means the end of sailing, the end of games, but it isn’t that at all. It simply doesn’t correspond to my experience. I’m very much concerned with the trees… with the nativity of trees, and when you find yourself in a place where all the trees are transplanted and have no history, I find it disconcerting.

He goes on to say that his “principal feeling about Hollywood is suicide,” and each morning before he started screenwriting, he’d “try to make it to the shower before I hanged myself.” His answer twists and turns through odd detail (the pools are too hot, the store that sells Yarmulkes for dogs bothers him) and finally, we are left with the impression. Trees with no history make him suicidal.

But is it fact?

It can’t be. Washingtonia filifera, an ugly, scrubby palm tree comes to mind, with dead dogs lying sideways. A strange memory. I’m on a road trip to Palm Desert with my friend Allison. She’s driving me through the place, it’s my first time, and she isn’t saying much about the predictable milieu of smoothly paved roads, country clubs and strip malls. What is there to point out? Then we leave civilization to cut through the desert and instead of cutting through open desert we find ourselves passing a thousand Washingtonia filifera planted in rows. She tells me these are California native palms; they’ve been in this desert since the dawn of time. Out of nowhere she says, “so many dead dogs here” in a wistful tone. I’m still fixated on the trees. These trees are oppressive looking. Their tops are heavy and dusty and overgrown, the same hair as the beasts in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. The trunks as are thick as three humans strung together. They grow with equal space in between, making dark corridors of shade. Now I see a dog. A mangy, underfed thing teetering through the trees. The next dog I see is a carcass, hit by a car, on the shoulder. As we drive, I see mangy dogs, more carcasses lying on the side of the road. A dog baring his teeth, trying to cross. What the hell is going on here? I finally ask my tour guide. We just left the land of fountains and country clubs and now we’re in a Cormac McCarthy novel. What dark dance is playing out here? Who owns these dogs, where are they coming from, where are they going? Why do they keep trying to get murdered crossing the road? My friend is unsure. She writes it off to coincidence.

Interestingly, the native tree of Los Angeles, Washingtonia filifera, is not the one you see on the front page of newspapers when the city burns.

A famous photo from the 2018 Woolsey wildfire in Malibu shows eight palm trees standing tall, fronds blowing left through wind, backlit by a home exploding in flame. Those trees were imported. While the house explodes, the imported palm trees stand triumphant. People on the internet grow angry about this photo. The comment field fills with poison. How can manmade structures burn, and palm trees survive? Is it a conspiracy? Is there an arsonist targeting homes and businesses but saving the trees? What kind of arsonist would that be? A non-native-tree-loving arsonist? Bored college scientists offer their knowledge online. Palm trees contain enough moisture to resist flame temperatures that climb to 1400 degrees. But beware of overly dry palm fronds, they caution (as if that’s a problem we can do something about.) Dry palm fronds ignite, they float easily, they are perfect carriers of fire. Yes, we know.

An image comes to us from the Eaton fire on January 8, 2025. Here is the head of a palm tree swimming in a crimson sky, swimming in red sparks. No angry comments yet. If the tree succumbs it can avoid interrogation.

In catastrophe, it seems, people want catastrophe. The want the beginning and middle and end of the catastrophe. Images should contain terror, because how else to convey it? Matthew 24:44; So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when do you not expect him.

At 4:17 pm on January 8, it comes. “Aerial view of the alphabets” lands on our phone screens. This image is taken from a plane or a drone; the angle that war history prefers. Make no mistake. This neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, the one founded in 1921 by Methodist ministers and named accordingly (the nomenclature of the streets follows the alphabetical sequence of their families starting with ABCD; Albright, Bashford, Carey, Drummond, Embury, Fiske, Galloway, Illiff, etc) has gone to war. The place has gone to battle with a higher force and lost. Approximately 900 dwellings are annihilated, flattened to ash and smoking dust. A crude image. A fate worse than death. Annihilation without the bodies. Every writer who writes about California wildfires describes their fire as the “worst in California history.” It could be a fact. The facts keep changing, growing, evolving. Destruction worsening. What I know when I see “Aerial view of the alphabets” is that we’ve reached a new level. The firetrucks didn’t bother to drive up those streets. No sword and shield were drawn. In a city where most everyone is a transplant—where history is either offensive or doesn’t apply—finally, finally we’ve erased it. January 8, 2025, at 4:17 pm the beating heart of Pacific Palisades is gone.

Catastrophists breathe a sigh of relief.

I’m staring at the dark lines between smoldering piles of ash, wondering if those are trees. Did any trees survive? Are those dark lines trees? The photo is going viral. “Aerial view of the alphabets” climbs from local news to national news then onto BBC and South China Morning Post and Al Jazeera and TV Globo. It makes its trip around the world. Soon, friends of ours from the East Coast, an old family friend in France, sends us the photo and asks with trepidation if we live in that part of town. My 9-year-old tells me the photo reminds him of Hiroshima. We visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum exactly 46 days before this fire. He's not wrong. The photo does look like Hiroshima.

From this moment on, my anxiety triples. It’s not the homes that are gone; by this point, everyone we know in town has lost their home. We know that. It’s the other thing. The home we don’t speak of. The separation between you and your neighbors. Everything you look at when you look out the window. What you walk past when you walk. What you smell and breathe and feel, what you sit under, what you lean on when you lean.

A diversion, a memory.

When I first moved to California, I was disconnected in a way I’d never been. As a teenager I knew what I lacked, what I needed, and I’d gone after it. Someone at my rehearsal dinner called me ambitious, and it made me cringe. Ambition it turns out, is useful in the world of Universe One.[2] By 32 I’d gotten everything I set out to get, and by 34, I was more lost, more confused, more anchorless than I’d ever been. I was a wife, a mother of two pregnant with baby three and four—beating the odds—climbing the ranks on a male-dominated trading floor at the most powerful bank in the world. It sounds trite now, because it is. Success in the world of Universe One leaves you with the problem of what to do with your soul. My soul was aching. Quit the job. Quit the status. Quit the money. Start doing something you care about. Well, I did that. I started writing. First, I wanted to write for TV. Then I wanted to write movies. Then a novel. Try, try, try, fail. Try, fail. Try, fail. Fail, fail harder. Try forever and fail forever. Try designed for the Fail. After five years, writing brought me more pain than anything else. I was in a world of pain. Here was a joke God was playing on me. Succeed at the thing you’re not designed for. Fail at the thing that fills your soul. But that was it. That was my story. In a final twist of irony, my husband thought we should move to California. Not just California but Los Angeles and not just Los Angeles but Pacific Palisades. The place where when you go to grab a coffee, you stand behind the best, most creative, most celebrated, highest-paid writers in history. Literally every direction I turned, parents at school, people waiting at their cars at a stop light, there were writers who had succeeded. Succeeded on an enormous stage. To say I was faceless, shapeless, invisible and ashamed—ashamed to be me—is to understate the problem. When I met people, I didn’t talk about what I was doing. Or I lied about it. Or I lied by omission. I grew to my smallest size. I rose each morning to eat breakfast with the kids, saw them off to school, sat down to write inside an invisible lie of shame, and felt pain like I’d never felt before. In the afternoons, I went walking. I walked off my pain.

Pain through the trees.

The trees in Pacific Palisades became my friends. Coral trees bursting in scarlet bloom. Japanese elms. Seventy-foot shaggy pine trees with pinecones dripping from the bows. Sycamores planted in rows, olive trees rising in a spire. Towering Eucalyptus trees. Lemon trees. Non-native palms from all over the earth; slender and handsome, their heads bending in blue sky. No resemblance to Washingtonia filifera. From my driveway, the trees accompanied me all the way up to the trailhead. Once I got far enough back on the trail, I could look over the envelope into the canyon and see for miles, a certain tree that wears a single white ballet slipper bloom. Even on hundred-degree days, days when only me and the rattlesnakes were out, I’d sweat my way up to that canyon and walk for miles just to be in the company of those trees. At the worst time in my life, the trees listened. The yoke was made less by those trees.

When I see the image “Aerial view of the alphabets,” I have a feeling of death. 

I can’t think about what it will be like when I return.

I begin not sleeping. I go days without eating much. My husband and I try make decisions about how to stay evacuated, how to deal with the aftermath of this fire, how to work again and get the kids enrolled into new schools, whether to rent somewhere else in Los Angeles and finish out the schoolyear, whether to stay with friends and not sign a 12 or 24-month lease that insurance won’t cover, whether to leave California entirely and not deal with any of this (a fantasy if ever there was one) stay, leave, stay, leave, leave, stay just long enough to get organized to leave, stay, leave— the decision tree is knotted and ugly, the walls of the prison grow thicker. To uproot four kids is to invite everyone’s neuroses in for dinner. To live in this prison of indecision is to ask for marital discord. People sense our confusion. We get a hundred phone calls, texts, e-mails. Friends inside and outside the state. “You can’t live there.” “It’s a toxic mess.” “The air is unbreathable.” “Everyone is leaving.” The logic is presented. The logic is real. But the problem is, our home stands. It’s right on the burn scar. What to do? We’ve been married 17 years now, and neither of us recognize the other. The fighting, the uncertainty, it’s poison.

Maybe it will get better when we have clarity—

What clarity?

I read an article in the LA Times containing “lessons” for us from victims of the Tubbs fire (which tore apart Napa and Sonoma County in 2017). Lessons for how they rebuilt their community. Coped with the loss. “Many replacement homes are still under construction. Some lots are still empty…. Grass from winter rains wafting in the wind along with the sharp echoes of hammers and nail guns. In Larkfield Estates, Sherwood and his family have moved into their new home. The old walnut tree that used to shade his front yard has been transformed into an elegant dining room table.”

A dining room table is not what I wanted from this. What I want, what I can never have, is the way our town was before. The trees…

If I can just get back there, if I can get back there…

In times of trauma, memory is fantasy.

January 17, 2025, at 3:34 pm I’m pulled into the present. The checkpoint is manned by the National Guard. I drive past tanks, soldiers in uniform, and I take a left climbing up the hill on Sunset. Every day that week I’d tried to get through the checkpoint between the designated hours, just to lay eyes on my home. Tuesday, I brought my daughters with me to the checkpoint. We wore N95 masks as we presented our credentials, an electricity bill with our name and address, matching driver’s license, matching passport, car registration. The military men wouldn’t let us through. They turned us away. Wednesday, I drove back by myself. They shoved me off at Kenter and Sunset. Thursday, I got as far as San Vicente and Allenford, to the crest of that hill where I can see the edge of my neighborhood in the distance. But they wouldn’t let me further. On Friday January 17, I get out of my car. I show my credentials to the thick-necked man in bland camouflage and Oakley wraparound shades. I’m expecting him to say no. Refuse me. Turn around and drive the other way. Recall: it’s in my personality. Try. Fail. Try. Fail. The Try seems designed for the Fail. He remarks, people with press badges are being allowed through. I don’t have a press badge. But then he nods at me. I can proceed?

I go slowly. 10 or 15 mph; I’m half-expecting him or one of the policemen to call me back. The car climbs Sunset. I take a right on the first road leading into my neighborhood. The first thing I notice is that on this side of the neighborhood, the tree canopy is thick. Soot-covered, but thick. I’m overwhelmed with emotion. The air is yellow and toxic, so thick and chemical you can’t breathe. Ash drifts onto the windshield. Ash all over the place. But the place is there. In surreal state, it’s there. I can see Eucalyptus trees on the hill, fifty feet up and to the left, against a backdrop of burned mountains. Scorched earth going back, back for as far as you can see.

I’m in a state I can’t remember being in—ever—as I pull into our driveway. The house I live in, the one where my kids feel safe, is there. To see it now, to see it there in the place that borders a 23,000-acre graveyard—where 6,900 structures burned in the same zip code—the existence, the confusion, the line between what’s here and not here, where we can exist and not exist, brings a feeling.

How to describe?

I go inside. The air is unbreathable, smoke and chemical and ash, soot on every surface. But the floor is beneath me. The walls are upright. Glass smashed on the floor. Flowers rotted in the vase. Not burned. What can it mean? A Category 5 hurricane came through our backyard. To be here, to clock the destruction but know that it’s nothing, nothing really in the scheme of what’s been burned what’s been lost—to know that the place exists and it’s here, but we can never live in it again, not now, not like this—

Everything moves through me.

Through the head right to the heart.

I sit. Remove my N95 mask. I cry so hard I nearly choke, vomit. People visit me that haven’t in a long time. At 5 years old I walked into a funeral home and peered over the edge of my dad’s coffin. Haven’t seen that face for years. My grandfather, same church. My grandmother, same church. Same funeral. The dog I loved, the black labrador wandered off and never came back. The bunny never came back. My mom wailed when they took my brother away, not knowing if they’d bring him back. I was left alone all that time, small and young and afraid. Didn’t know if anyone would come back. My 9-month-old daughter, her head gushing blood, as I carry her into an emergency room. This is fear, grief, in all the ways I’ve known it, lighting up my nervous system. And there should be relief. Relief should be mixed in there, but it’s not. The faces of my kids are on the wall. The front door is there, it’s not burned to the earth. The orchid I never water, lies smashed in its pot. The charred mountains outside are not inside, the smoke and soot and ash can be washed away. But it’s impossible. You can’t live on the edge of a graveyard. Can you?

Finally, when none of it makes sense, I pick up my head. A strip of narrow window runs on either side of the front door. I can see sycamore leaves.

The tree made it, I see.

---

[1] Andrew Dubbins for Alta Journal, January 16, 2025
[2] Page 40, True and False Magic by Phil Stutz. “Universe One is defined by mathematics. Anything dominated by mathematics, whether it’s a culture or a religion, eventually becomes completely money driven. The bottom-line value is money. In Universe One, nobody is satisfied, and the field is very narrow. People are pissed, because someone else is getting more than they’re getting. Money, in itself, cannot create what you need, and you end up with all kinds of conflict. Higher forces do not exist in Universe One because they cannot be quantified – in Universe One, you cannot access them. No matter what happens in Universe One, even if you make all the money in the world, you end up feeling like a loser, because the only real value is in Universe Two, where you must create something. Page 41, “If you want to know who you really are, ask yourself what you would spend your time on even if you knew it would never make you any money.”

Hell Angeles - Chapter 8

Safety Deposit Boxes

Every story needs a mystery box. Long before the Pacific Palisades fire ignited his zip code, American filmmaker J.J. Abrams made the concept famous. “If you show the audience a box, they’ll want to know what’s in it.” What we know on Wednesday January 8 at 3:54 pm is that finally this story has a mystery box. As flames are ripping east on Sunset Boulevard, Josh asks a question.

Does anyone know if Bank of America in middle of town burned down?

Silence. A photo is posted. The second biggest bank in America by market capitalization looks bombed.[1] Blasted. Blowtorched out of existence. The part remaining, as if by irony, is the BANK OF AMERICA sign with the red and blue diamond insignia. Below the familiar icon are two side-by-side ATMs whose interiors have exploded. The ATMs are fun to look at. If you lined up washing machines side by side and put a Molotov cocktail inside each, that’s what these ATMs look like.

Wow

I wonder if all the safety deposit boxes melted

Mark that moment.

Mark it…

There’s our mystery box moment.

Patrick posts a video that is 2 minutes 29 seconds of footage. He is driving east on Sunset through the center of Pacific Palisades, and the place looks like a war memorial in the making. Storefronts are burning. Whatever isn’t torched is being torched. He takes a right turn at a stoplight and loops around the block as if he’s headed to Gelson’s or Regal Cleaners or Toppings Frozen Yogurt. He goes around another block. Literally dozens (hundreds?) of storefronts are compromised. By compromised, I mean, incinerating before our eyes. Spitting ash and ember. Crackling. Exploding. It’s quite a thing to see the center of town like this with no nuclear accident to point to. Patrick could name this video anything.

He names it: B of A is gone

Immediately Carole writes back.

My safe deposit box!

Heartbreak emoji.

Carly:

exactly- my safe deposit box

Until now, curiosity has not been part of our story. Hope and despair, yes, fear and panic, yes, grief, terror, moments of delusion followed by hallucinatory calm followed by heavy caffeine and heart palpitations leading to the normal return of shock, anxiety and disgust. All of this, yes. But not curiosity. Since January 7 at approximately 10:30 am, I have not felt curious about why people are upset about this fire. I basically know what people keep in their house and why they don’t want those things incinerated. Ovens, couches, clothes, art, power tools, pet supplies. Old photographs that mean more than the ones on their smartphone. To the contrary, I don’t know what they keep in their safety deposit box at their local, physical bank branch.

Gillian:

Does anyone know if Chase Bank or Wells Fargo are still standing?

Chantal:

looks like the Chase bank is on fire in heathers video

Jill:

Anyone know about safety deposit boxes at Wells Fargo?

Dozens more come forward. And let’s get something out of the way. My astonishment. Before January 7, 2025, if you’d asked me how many residents of the Pacific Palisades keep safety deposit boxes, I’m not sure what my answer would have been. Not many? The same number of people who go to the American Express office to purchase travelers checks before they travel to Italy or Mexico? I thought these things were obsolete. You say the words “local physical bank branch” and my brain immediately goes to the statistic: 92% of money—all money—is digital and not physical. Pixels. Not paper. Entries in computer bases. This is what America makes. Entries in computer bases for the rest of the world to buy. There’s almost no reason to visit a physical bank branch ever. Except clearly, all these people do:

Josh:

Hi all. Have seen requests/asks about safety deposit boxes and banks. Mixed reporting about how fireproof they are.

Wondering about US Bank. Saw it standing on video posted here yesterday at 5pm, but hearing it may have been lost last night. Any intel?

Bita:

Also safety deposit box of BofA on sunset? Any news on that

Amanda:

same question, would be great to have any insight as to if safety deposit boxes made it at BofA

Now I’m racking my brain for the last time I thought about a safety deposit box. No specific memories. Only general fuzz. Summer. Childhood. A kitchen phone with a ten-foot cord. My grandmother moving around holding her coin purse and car keys. She interrupts the PBS show I’m watching because we need to run errands. First the post office then the bank. Boredom, tedium. A bowl of orange lollypops. I’d rather be anywhere but here. I go for another lollypop while she waits for a bank teller with clean hair to finish up with the other person. Can this honestly be the last time I saw a safety deposit box? 

Nima:

Does anybody know if the bank safe deposit boxes are fireproof?

Sam:

They are, at least that’s the standard

Maria:

A banker told me its design to resist heat but eventually it might melt

Wait. Hang on. Jason Bourne springs to mind. The Bourne Identity. The scene at the start of the 2002 movie (taken from the Robert Ludlum book written in 1980) where Jason Bourne wakes up on a park bench in Zurich. He doesn’t know who he is. The cops are speaking to him in German and suddenly, without knowing how, he responds in perfect German. They continue to harass him, poking him with a stick until Bourne flies into motion. Fluid attack. Heel of his hand flies into cop number one’s throat. He’s throwing jackhammer punches at cop number two. Slamming heads. Both Swiss policemen are spraying blood, writhing on the ground near his feet, half unconscious. Where now does Jason Bourne make his escape? Gemeinschaft Bank.

An uptight Swiss banker recognizes him as an important customer. Jason Bourne is bio-scanned and escorted into a bank vault where he peers into his safety deposit box, knowing, feeling, that his search for himself is about begin. The story of Jason Bourne, the man who inspired real life Bowe Bergdahl a former United States Army Soldier to go renegading from his post (against orders) to fight the Taliban alone and was subsequently captured and held hostage for five years—all of this—starts with a safety deposit box…

Nima:

If anyone gets in today, would be grateful to find out of if the bank vault at the BofA in the village survived. I’ve read mixed reviews on the fireproofing of safe deposit boxes.

Cross fingers emoji.

Alexana:

Me too, I saw some video and it did look like there were some boxes standing inside BofA

Nima:

Hallelujia

Alisa:

Thanks to all of you heroes who are driving through areas of our town with videos and giving people hope as we as answers. It’s what we call “a mitzvah” – a very good deed that cannot be repaid.

Repaid for what? What do you have in that safety deposit box? One of the key features of a financial crisis is that we don’t know what each player at the table has and what they stand to lose. It’s what makes it fascinating. When asset prices go insane (I worked on a trading floor for fourteen years) and there’s talk of “deleveraging” this means that someone is about to vomit up their meal. They’ve gambled too heavily on one direction. They’re being called to post margin, but they don’t have the cash. Think Long Term Capital Management in 1998 which needed a $3.6 billion bailout. Or Bear Stears, Lehman, AIG, Northern Rock in 2008 which lead to every major financial institution in the world needing a bailout. Or Silicon Valley Bank in 2024, receiving a bailout for no reason I can think of.  Financial crises are fascinating, and we have one brewing right here in Pacific Palisades. During a wildfire. Banks in flames. Banks erupting. Banks exploding. We are watching a dollhouse version of the 2008 Big Short Margin Call Too Big to Fail on replay—and people are in distress—

Kari:

Anyone know if any of the vault boxes remain at Chase bank?

Yasmin:

Anyone knows how to get info about Bank of America safe deposit boxes?

Michelle:

We sent a request through the general safe deposit online portal. They’ve really done a disservice to not send emails out to the box holders. IMO.

When Bita writes to us again, Are the safe deposit boxes still standing? They survived the fire? someone posts the Los Angeles Times cover from Friday, January 10, 2025. It contains a nice description.

 “Everything is burned down; over 6,000 structures lost in devastating firestorm.”

Still, Yasmin isn’t sure.

Any news of security for Bank of America safe deposit boxes?

Plz let me know if anyone has info.

Sheila responds:

I spoke with another bank and was told that the safety deposit boxes likely survived the fire since they are enclosed within the vault. Debris needs to be clear before gaining access. The person I spoke to said there will be a specific day to get access. Call BofA customer service and ask who the contact person is.

Elizabeth disagrees:

When I called Bank of America, they didn’t know who the contact person was and they said somebody will call me in three days. I’ll keep everyone posted if I hear anything.

Nicole:

Thank you! This would be helpful.

Carolyn:

Not sure if it was this chain but I called B of A and they said the safety deposit boxes are fire safe. She can’t guarantee in our circumstances though of course. She said it’s being looked into and we will get an email. We can also check splash page of B of A for alerts. So not much info by fyi and they are aware etc etc thank you for being a loyal customer yada yada

Like any good financial crisis (or B story in a drama) the suspense is interminable. A full week after the fire starts on Tuesday January 14 at 12:14 pm after flames have died out in the center of town and left behind piles of black ash, people still don’t have answers.

Kari:

Does anyone know about the boxes at Chase? Did they make it?

CDore:

Any idea if US Bank is OK? We have a safe deposit box there.

Jeremy:

Does anyone have a sense when we will be able to access Chase safety deposit box

Melanie:

Has anyone been able to contact Wella Fargo? I can’t get anyone on the phone- anywhere! I have safety deposit box there and want to get my stuff out. It’s all I have left

Crying face emoji. Crying face emoji. Crying face emoji.

Alison:

Wells did not burn thankfully. It may take a while to get access to your boxes but your stuff is safe. Thanks!

Jeremy:

What about Chase safety deposit boxes?

Alisa:

Or First Citizens Bank deposit boxes? 

Of course, Yasmin:

Does anyone have update about Bank of America safe deposit boxes ?

And Sarah +44 number reaching out from the United Kingdom:

Has anyone had any luck with the US Bank and news on safety deposit boxes?

By Monday January 20 at 2:50 pm, the desperation is at boiling point. It’s clear to me now that some of these people have multiple deposit boxes at multiple banks.  I won’t even get into how potentially odd this behavior is.  

Does anyone have an update on the safe deposit boxes ( chase and b of a)

??!

Carolyn:

I called B of A and they still have no info

Bita:

I talked to BofA and no real solid news

Parvaneh:

Does anyone know what happened to safety deposit boxes in Bank of America

Dana:

There was just a very grim report on kcal about the boxes. I’ve been really anxious about them as well. The “safe expert” painted a very negative picture but we don’t know until we do.

Parvaneh:

I know I got confused after watching the news

Finally, the authorities are getting involved. Maybe we’ll get a bailout. Or maybe just a grim local news report. Here’s the inexact transcript from KCAL:

KCAL News: Jan 21st, 2025

(Two female news anchors appear)

Safe deposit boxes aren’t not always so safe. This is video of banks going up in flames during the Palisades fire. People of course put special items in safe deposit boxes for protection. But it turns out that while they are fire resistant, experts say they are not fireproof. 

(Expert appears. He’s a burly guy with a white bristly beard. In a white turtleneck and black windbreaker with a patch that reads “SAFE DEPOSIT.” He looms over a laptop camera in what looks to be a dentist’s reception area. Pastel walls. Cheesy art. His red face fills the entire screen, as he’s being interviewed. Asked to give his expert opinion on the state of the safety deposit boxes at banks that burned in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. As he talks, he glances down at his note to make sure he gets the temperatures right.)

“Kind of like an oven. When the temperature inside the vault reaches 450 degrees anything that is in paper, like cash or deeds, is going to combust. All you’re going to have is ash. When the temperature reaches 1763 degrees, if you have jewelry in that vault, you have a melted glob of gold or silver” 

The two females, the news anchors cut in with their thoughts.

“In most cases the valuable items stored in safe deposit boxes aren’t federally insured. They need to be covered by a homeowners insurance policy or a specific safe deposit insurance policy.”

They conclude the news segment with:

“I can only imagine what was inside all those safe deposit boxes….”  

Right after this, we get our first official communication from a bank.

Communication! Official!

An answer!

Carolyn posts:

An update on the financial center at 15314 West Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, CA

At Bank of America, our thoughts continue to be with all of our customers, clients, teammates and community members who have been affected by the wildfires in Los Angeles.

With this in mind, we want to share an update with you on our local Bank of America financial center at 15314 West Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, CA. Our records show you this financial center serves you, including with safe deposit box services.

Safe Deposit Box Status

As you may know, this financial center has been severely damaged by the fires.

E-mail cuts off.

Second half of e-mail posted by Carolyn:

Safe Deposit Box Status

As you may know, this financial center has been severely damaged by the fires. Our teams are fully at work, securing the site and taking steps to assess the safe deposit boxes as soon as possible.

What’s next?

We will keep you updated as this important work progresses, through written communications and direct outreach by phone. In the meantime, if you have questions, you can contact our Safe Deposit Box Priority Line at 877.218.8262.

If your financial situation has been impacted and you need assistance, please:

Phone symbol. Call our priority line at 855.729.1764

Mobile symbol. Log in to our Mobile app[2] and ask ERICA[3] about “wildfire assistance.”

After this unsatisfying answer we get a B story within the B story. It’s hard to explain why or how this happens (other than the obvious that people are confused, broken, in turmoil) but it happens. Communication goes awry.

S:

If you know of anyone in need of female products that lost their home they can get free tampons or pads from tampontribe.com The pads look thin but they are for heavy flow...

Yasmin:

Has anyone gotten an email from b of a regarding the safe deposit boxes

Yasmin reposts the tampon offer and responds to S:

Plz.

Plz text me if can !

The mystery is unfolding on levels we can’t possibly decode. Tampons. Safety deposit boxes. Tampons in safety boxes? The mystery is getting weird. From the sublime to the ridiculous we’re moving. From Universe Two (the soul) to Universe One (money)[4] we go with endless, sinister implications for our mental health and happiness. And people can’t get their various local bank branch managers to respond to their entreaties.

Pietro panics:

Safe deposit boxes at chase?

Are those insured at all?

Are safety deposit boxes insured? Great question. For this we need to circle back to the KCAL news report on January 21: “In most cases the valuable items stored in safe deposit boxes aren’t federally insured. They need to be covered by a homeowners insurance policy or a specific safe deposit insurance policy.” Which is interesting because the definition of a Safety Deposit Box (according to Investopedia) is “an individually secured container that stays in the vault of a federally insured bank or credit union.” Answer: safety deposit boxes hold uninsured items inside an insured place.

It's not a pun. It makes total sense.

The FDIC can’t possibly insure your odd behavior or waywardness. Like if you hid cash from the IRS. Or stole jewels from your employer and have been spreading them across multiple safety deposit boxes at multiple local, physical bank branches in Pacific Palisades. Or if your parent is dementia-ridden and your sibling has a drug problem so you visited your parent on a stormy night last August and guided his shaky hand into signing a newly designed living will that cuts your sibling out of the deal altogether, and then went to the bank Monday morning at 8 am to stash the living will deep in your safety deposit box only to be revealed after that parent’s funeral. If you’re engaged in horseplay, if this is your remit, the FDIC wants no part of it. Sorry. For all its faults, the federal government has some sense and needs to draw the line somewhere.

Note: right around this time I get a call from a friend that does not bode well for these people. My friend recruits two friends to bike up Palisades Drive (past the checkpoints) to his home for the express purpose of “locating his safe” under hundreds of pounds of rubble. Before the fire, my friend’s family kept the safe in the basement. This is problematic of course because now, likely, it will take a few strong men hours to find. But they’re committed. They go in with shovels and crowbars. After hours of physical labor, they are covered in ash and debris and dripping sweat. Choking on hexavalent chromium. Miraculously, they locate the thing. Eureka! It’s intact. But the combination dial on the safe is melted. There’s only one option now, and that’s to take turns with the crowbar. Shovel. Crowbar. Shovel. They bring the axe down on this thing as many times as it takes for the safe door to crack open. What’s inside? Fine dust.

I debate whether to add this story to the thread. I don’t need to. A fight breaks out that I didn’t start. Wednesday February 19 at 9:51 am from Ben.

For those of you looking for updates on the vaults at Chase and Bank of America, I just heard that they actually melted shut in the fire. That is why it is taking them longer to get them open. Sounds like they are going to get them open this week.

Melinda:

Where did you get this information?

Kat:

this is not true.

bank of america has already removed all boxes and they are all intact. mine is at chase and we are still waiting for them to get into the vault since there is underground parking they need to make sure it’s safe to walk on site

Ben:

Then it may just be Chase 

Kat:

where did you hear this

i was at chase yesterday they did not say this

Ben:

Got it. I may have misheard on the BofA piece.

Kat can’t let it go:

where did the chase info come from

misinformation

They haven’t been able to go inside the vault yet

Ben:

Because it melted shut

(He’s sticking to his guns)

The only reason Topa hasn’t started debris removal is that vault

Kat:

It has concrete all around it and I saw the door

Ben:

He indicated that they can’t open the door because the door melted to the frame

Scott cuts in:

Why were taxpayers paying for her boondoggle to Ghana in the first place?

On that note the argument ends and it’s not until 1:28 pm the same day February 19, 2025 that Joel, who admits he works for a political news outlet but promises not to post anything political, comes to us with official information. Have people given up by now? Am I the only resident of Pacific Palisades who has never owned a safety deposit box and never will and can’t imagine a reason for owning a safety deposit box when there are so many better forms of subterfuge—the only person following the thread who is deeply fascinated with how this B Story ends? I’m on the edge of my seat popcorn in hand waiting to see where fate and destiny will take us on this question of small metal boxes and items my neighbors hid inside them.

A friend of mine opened the very first safe deposit box to be recovered from the ruins of the Bank of America building today….

Here it comes.

Drumroll.

Thankfully, all of the contents were intact. Apparently the staff were all hugging and high-fiving each other. A bit of good news for those of you worried about your safe deposit boxes.

Heart emoji. Prayer symbol. Blue heart.

Kat:

I’m so happy to hear

I pray the same with chase

But not until three months later Friday April 4, at 8:57 am after the biggest wildfire in state history sweeps town do people finally get access:

Hazel:

Anyone have news re: Chase safe deposit boxes?

Kat:

I got my contents on Tuesday UNTOUCHED

Heart emoji

the boxes looked great

Alisa:

Did you go there or did you make an appt? We emailed them but haven’t heard back yet. How did you get in touch w them? Happy for you!!

Kat:

through email

thank you I’m sure you are safe!!

Ian:

They got the vault out of the branch last week. The inside of the vault looked quite clean.

Kat:

pacific.palisades.sdb@chase.com 

i think because the top floor collapsed onto the first floor it protected the vault even more

boxes looked shiny and beautiful

Happy face wearing star sunglasses

Alisa:

This is great! I didn’t have the pacific palisades in my email. Will email them again. Incredible!!!

Kat:

papers were intact as well

please keep us posted…. I pray that you will be happy!

And in case you were wondering. If we finally get answers. If these people finally give us the reveal. If we watched six seasons of the TV drama for a reason. If the showrunner knows how to pay off the story line of the young pretty wife with makeup concealing a black eye who visits her safety deposit box to stash a secret seconds before the FBI bursts into her home and husband’s office, who just barely makes it onto a bus headed out of the United States to Tiajuana and points further south… abandoning her infant child with her sister but not before inscribing a tiny silver bracelet for the child to wear that contains the code to the safety deposit box at the bank, a code that everyone wants including the fugitive husband and FBI and a retired, alcoholic investigator back for one more investigation…. a code to a box that unlocks the whole story… now the sister is on the run too, infant in arms sirens flashing in background… and if we can just go back to the safety deposit box to find out what is inside… if… if…

 Our mystery box moment pays off in a whimper.

Maria:

The chase boxes are safe out of the burn building I have an appointment for next week to take my contents, if they survived.

2 boxes, mostly jewelry. Will see

---

[1] Federal Reserve statistics. U.S. Banks ranked by consolidated assets. federalreserve.gov/releases/lbr/current/
[2] Bank of America has the footnote. I can’t see it on the e-mail.
[3] IBID. Bank of America also has this footnote.
[4] In True and False Magic, Phil Stutz defines Universe One and Two as parallel states of mind. We cycle back and forth between them. Universe Two is the place of the soul; the place from which you create. Universe One, alternatively, is about competition, money, hierarchy. It’s a way of thinking that gives you the feeling that you are either winning or losing.