Hell Angeles - Chapter 2

January 8th

The night is long and full of terror. On day two of the Pacific Palisades fire the morning was worse. Morning was much, much worse. Morning should have brought hope. We had dreams (inspired by California state income taxes we pay, 13.3% in 2023) that during the night forces would multiply, firetrucks, air assets would increase—a plan would take shape—we’d wake up and turn on the TV to find the heroes from 9/11, a thousand soot-covered men, broad-shouldered, triumphant, standing side by side fighting flame with every inch of their soul—the heroes, the heroes—

But no. No heroes. This Los Angeles after all. We make up our heroes and villains and give them spray tans, fake teeth, pectoral implants, an all-is-lost moment imagined after we resolved it. We don’t worry about details that violate the laws of physics or simply don’t make sense at all. As long as the lights go down and everyone enjoys the show, hey, this is what we came to Los Angeles for. When Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles,” he was referring to the species of people who live with the lights turned down in their theatre. They know about reality, but they don’t like it. The hall of mirrors called image, luck and expedience is more fun. Fairy dust can be managed. Reality is stubborn.

A wildfire is real.

Mountains burning all the way to the ocean, are real.

A dry reservoir is as real as it gets.

Operation skill required to manage a large fleet of firefighters is real.

Admitting your limitations early, naming the challenge, iterating, is real.

These things can’t be imagined.

The gap between expectation and reality widened so far that morning, for the residents of Pacific Palisades (I count myself among them) that we entered a period of not being able to see what we were seeing. Call it denial. Cognitive dissonance. Shock. We woke that morning of January 8th to see half our town in flames, but still believing, still believing, the adults would show up with a plan. Eighteen hours into this thing, there would be a shred of progress. Or an idea. Or hope. Despite what anyone tells you now, that morning of January 8th, large swaths of town were there to be saved. Keep reading, and you will find evidence of that. As the community came together we held a common belief. The bet isn’t lost. Please. There’s time. Help.

They will help us.

Just give them the morning…

7:13 am, Wednesday. There on my phone is a message from my son’s baseball coach.

First of all, I hope everyone is safe. I am here if anyone needs any assistance.

14 people added heart emojis.

What an absolute nightmare. We will get through it together.

Same. If anyone is injured and needs me, please call me directly (FZ, Ortho).

The baseball coach chimes back in:

Please add whoever you want. In all seriousness, do not hesitate to ask for help.

Thanks K!

Someone even cracks a joke:

Hey bros. Finally I get invited to the good group chat.

Like I said, the mood was heavy but light. We’ll get through this.

Someone adds:

To me the most helpful will be if anyone has any reliable updates on neighborhoods burning down. A lot of chatter don’t know what to believe.

Now someone posts the first of many “live” maps showing which blocks and which houses, exactly, are on fire. This map shows El Hito Circle between Bieveneda Avenue and Shadow Mountain Drive under the Temescal Canyon ridgeline. The “live” map shows approximately 25 homes in salmon-colored territory (exclamation marks and flags) and a home labelled “16490” at the end of a cul-de-sac, in an ocean of deep red.  The deep red extends up and into the area just south of a mountain ridge. From this map, it appears, those streets are in danger but not yet combusted. Again, hope. Should we feel hope?

Unclear…

Immediately someone combats this “live map” information.

Watch duty is not up to date

Most of alphabets gone

Then the person doubts himself.

Well, I’m not sure. That’s what was reported. Definitely homes burnt on alphabets.

Now we switch to talking about the alphabets. Note, there are several neighborhoods we will talk endlessly about on January 8th. Highlands is north of Sunset, running up into the mountains. Since the origin point of the fire was way up high, near 1190 Piedra Morada Drive, on the edge between suburbia and 153,000 acres of flammable brush known as the Santa Monica Mountains National Park, this is naturally, where people expect destruction. If your house is up there, your fear index is at a 10. If you live in the alphabets right behind town, maybe your chances are better. This is the flat part of town, and as of the morning of January 8th, entire pockets of the alphabets were untouched. We know this because we’re looking at a picture taken a minute ago—

7:36 am. Chautauqua and Sunset.  A row of olive trees stands guarding an untouched white stucco. A hurricane seems to be in the making (tall palm trees that line the street are whipping in a vortex of wind) but mainly, the theme is regularity. This part of the alphabets is regular. Fine. Unmarred. The bottom of this street is crisscrossed with tire marks and flooded with black puddles. Maybe oil. It looks like a racetrack. In the background, deep distance, is a plume of fire. But the picture gives us the narrative and the narrative is that that morning has come, the sun has risen, and some of us will be fine.

So, there’s hope.

The firefighters are there… 

A hopeful resident wants to prove this. They post a photo. It’s a man in an orange traffic vest with his feet planted among the small cactuses on median. There used to be a “Vote Robert F. Kennedy” sign there until someone vandalized it. Orange traffic vest man has his back turned to us and he is staring at two firetrucks parked under dark traffic lights. The traffic lights are out because power is cut. The taillights on the firetrucks are glaring, almost as if it’s a rainy day and they’re caught in a haze. Orange cones knocked over. The road is flooded. What are the firetrucks doing? Controlling traffic at the intersection? We don’t know. The guy who posted this picture adds no explanation. He writes:

7 am.

A parent we know, who works for a large bond fund manager, is just joining. The chat thread contains a warning. “This conversation is being archived and monitored by {XX} Capital to satisfy regulatory obligations.” The discussion on the Palisades Fire is now subject to securities law. 28 other people, some I know, some I’ve never met before are invited to join. They join instantaneously.

Thanks for setting this up K. Good to have a place to share intel.

7:54 am a guy named Andrew is playing Pearl Jam, driving along in his car. He’s filming out his windshield. The car looks to be going east on Shadow Mountain Road. On the right side of the road blue recycling bins lie flat, mouths gaping. There’s a white Tesla and a white pickup parked there, intact. Abandoned. Several homes are intact. Good. All is well in the world. To the left, a different story. Now we see—out the windshield to his left— the entire mountain ridge is aflame. This neighborhood sits below the 153,000 acres of wilderness; until today, right now, the two have coexisted. Suburbia and Mountain. As hellfire explodes along that ridge and Andrew drives calmly along, the flames can’t be more than twenty feet above his car windshield, we start to wonder… about false hope…

My neighbor just saw a news crew reporting from our street and every house except a few near sunset are gone

We’re on the 700 block

Iliff

Has anyone attempted to drive into the Palisades?

Now Andrew, who might have pulled to the side of the road or else is just texting and driving writes (and inexplicably, refers to himself in third person):

People have tried.

One guy got into the highlands and says it’s all burning.

In effort to refute this claim, someone posts a video.

This video is from Greg. Greg we know and trust. He’s a born-and-bred Palisadian who went to school in the East. He’s a parent of two kids at St. Matthew’s Parish School and used to be the facilities director there. He’s a jeans and chainsaw type guy, friendly, outgoing, competent. Everyone likes him. Greg is posting a video.

Great…trustworthy information…

Greg’s pickup truck is parked somewhere in a high section of town. The video is running but nothing is happening. The camera is mounted to his dashboard, no one seems to be in the car, the car isn’t moving. It’s not even clear why he's filming. Is the video a mistake? We keep watching it. It’s like a slow-motion Nature Channel clip of a flower or animal changing over time. But time is passing and nothing is changing. Wind rustles through a palm tree stuck between five homes on the block. It’s oddly peaceful. The sky is a thick soup of grey, and there’s no sign of fire anywhere. Literally anywhere. It could just be an overcast day. Hum drum. Now we start doing other things while we watch this video, like getting coffee, pouring dry cereal into paper cups for the kids, turning on the TV again to see our favorite KTLA reporters (note: for all of Los Angeles’ shortcomings, the local news is excellent. Truly, shockingly excellent) and at minute ten we’re about to give up on this thing. This video sucks. On any other day, if our town weren’t burning, we would have ditched Greg’s video. Why didn’t he edit out these first ten minutes? Maybe he is busy. At minute eleven, finally, finally something happens. The car door chime. He lumbers into the truck next to his friend (his friend was there all along? Saying nothing?) and now the action starts.

We see Greg.

 “Alright,” the other guy, the passenger says, as Greg climbs behind the wheel in a soot-covered red t-shirt with an N95 mask dangling around his neck. “Still on?” Greg asks (he’s referring to the video camera which yes, has been on, recording nothing for twelve minutes). “Still on, you got 150 people watching,” the passenger says.

They are posting this on X. The camera knocks off balance for an instant, swivels, and we see the backseat of the truck which is piled high with crap. Two framed pieces of geometric art sit on the pile of crap. So maybe that’s what Greg was doing. His wife gave him a list of things he should have evacuated from the house the day before, and he waited until now.  Now he throws the truck and gear and drives. We get a sense of where we are because he's narrating the plan, the location, where he intends to conduct and audit and how.

 “I taped the Starlink to the roof, I duct taped it,” Greg says. His friend replies, “Great. So. this is Shadow Mountain here. Total loss on the corner here.” The friend points the camera to a house that is burned to the earth. “Yup,” Greg replies. Heavy sighs. Greg puts on his blinker; it makes a chunky blinker noise, and the friends crack a joke about how it’s good he used his blinker so everyone driving behind him (town is evacuated) will know he’s about to turn. New road. Another torched house. “Total loss on the left here. We already showed it but—” “Yup. This one’s gone. Via Anita is—” “Two houses burned on the left but then one that’s fine, the one after that is burned. The houses along the right side of the street are fine.” The friend starts coughing. They drive down many streets in this neighborhood, then they drive to another neighborhood, repeating the exercise.

Doing an audit.

Jacob S. joins the conversation, posting an Instagram clip of himself taken in the hours before dawn. The sky is black, he’s in ski goggles with dark rim glasses underneath, a yellow cloth jacket John Wayne style (chic, vintage?) and he’s standing the perfect distance from a huge house on Pampas Ricas that is right now erupting in flames. Because of this house the night sky is an explosion of fireworks. Drama. At the perfect moment, he talks to his followers, certain affection in his voice—

Hey, this is a message for my Palisades people. It’s a really tough situation out here. I’m on Pampas Ricas where Sunset meets Chautauqua. I drove into the village earlier. Most of the houses on Sunset between Chautauqua and the village have burned down. On both sides of the street. The firefighters are trying to save the fire station. Ralph’s is burned down. Gelson’s is burned down. The car wash. The library. The area where the park is in the Huntington. Many of the streets are on fire. Alphabet streets. Just hope everybody got out okay. And everyone is looking out for on another…. Just wanted to send my love.

Mood swing in the chat thread.

People grow angry…

8:00 am. The baseball coach who started the chat is upset about the comment that Andrew, Pearl Jam, made earlier.

[Repost] One guy got into the highlands and says it’s all burning

 Can you please not post rumors and post facts?

Travis adds:

No access to neighborhoods. Police blockades at every entry point.

Note, this guy must have just woken up. Has he not seen the deluge of video footage we’re getting from people we know, Greg, etc., driving the streets of town?

Andrew defends himself—

See the photos.

Jonathan posts a video of the center of Palisades Village, which looks like Pompei was just dredged out of the earth. He writes:

This is what’s left of the Pacific Palisades. The mall survived. Most everything else is gone. Homes, apartment complexes… businesses.

Karl who I know, who has lived in Pacific Palisades for 20 years writes:

Where is that video taken? I can’t even tell.

Looks like Sunset somewhere.

The video was literally taken in the center of town, town center, which we all drive through five times a day and which Karl has driven through 5,000 or more times in his life. His brain isn’t working. He can’t process what’s he’s seeing.

Town center looks like that?

That can’t be town center.

8:02 am, Gregg in the alphabets (different than Greg in the highlands) drives with his wife down the street of a close friend. An hour ago, right here, we felt optimism. This is where those olive trees guarded a white stucco house that stood on a street filled with houses. It was morning. Everything was okay. Now, in Gregg’s video, it’s turning night again. Out his windshield, we see the sky turning black and bright orange. The fire is here, and its blotting out the sun. Greg turns the wheel. He’s wearing a blue puffer jacket and filming with his phone, while his wife holds her phone to the windshield, getting a second recording. The wife talks in a raspy voice to Jessie, who we hope is watching somewhere.

 “Jessie this is what’s going on on your street right this minute. There’s your house. There’s your neighbor. There’s your other neighbor. Your house is standing but I don’t think it’s going to be for long. Nope.” Husband and wife say the last part in unison. Then she says, and this bears repeating, “There’s no fire department here—”

There’s no fire department in the alphabet streets.

The wife has a point, we realize. The chat thread started at the crack of dawn. We’ve gotten dozens of images, videos, and every minute we’re getting more images and videos from people driving around in their cars documenting, the town ablaze. Even the KTLA reporters can’t find firefighters to interview this morning. It is odd, as embers fly—as this thing goes parabolic in the moment we expected hope, a plan—

8:06 am Andrew, busy defending himself, reposts a video of the center of town, every building (save Rick Caruso’s) eviscerated.

Town is eviscerated.

Now Karl’s brain is coming around to the idea that the center of town is gone. Karl writes:

Wow

To which Andrew strangely decides to show us what Starbucks looked like before it burned down. He posts a Google Street View of Starbucks at 901 N Swarthmore Avenue on some earlier, normal day. It’s sunny. Blue sky. A nurse in turquoise just got her mobile order and is crossing the storefront to her car. A burly guy dressed like an L.A. gym teacher, black netted shorts, black t-shirt, black socks, black shoes, shield glasses, walks under the familiar green square awnings. Yes. That was Starbucks before it burned, Andrew wants us to know.

People are getting desperate.

How did Almar look when driving down?

Where is this one?

Looks like El Medio near me

Think it’s muskingham

Ugh shit

My house is gone on the corner of earlham and Swarthmore. Pictures to verify.

Fuck. So sorry Mike. Brutal.

Anyone have any word on Hartzell?

Our house is gone on Via our neighbors are saying.

This is 900 block of Kagawa just below Bashford. No photos since then.

Thanks for sending… as expected our houses on Kagawa was on fire 927

Someone posts a sepia picture of a tree and a house. The photo could be an Ed Ruscha work. 1960’s horror element to it.

911 Hartzell. My house. In flames. See pic.

Dan drives into the center of town. He wants us to see the burned carcass of Starbucks, and the entire block beyond it which looks like a bomb dropped. Dan has a friend is in his passenger seat (people take risk in pairs) and the friend is having a conniption. “Right here, right here this is where’s it’s got to be – Oh my god—Oh my god—I’ve never. Look at this. It’s beyond comprehension.”

It is beyond comprehension.

Another person I know adds that his neighbors’ brother is a fireman and just got access to McKendree above Bestor. Everything is gone on the back side. All the homes on McKendree except one is gone.

I’m not sure this was an exaggeration.

This is so so sad.

This is so sad.

Oh and he said not to try and enter there are downed power lines everywhere and it’s really dangerous

A 3rd grade teacher I know writes to the group:

All of highlands on fire. We lost our house too.

Ugh, so sorry H.

Is all of Haverford gone?

Note, in a calamity of this magnitude, people’s sympathy extends for exactly a second. It is not unlike (what I imagine) WWI trenches to feel like. You gaze down at your neighbor, bleeding on the ground, and are about to say you’re sorry until one lodges in your shoulder.

Cut to me.

I was apoplectic, albeit fine, at 8:00 am on day two.

My neighbor down the street is reaching out to me. She’s a jeweler with four children, who during the evacuation packed her cars full of valuables (including unsold gems) drove the cars to “safety” in Westwood and then had both cars, and everything inside, stolen. She has been on the phone all morning dealing with credit card companies because the thieves are charging thousands of dollars of purchases right now as this fire curls up Sunset towards her home, which sits on an embankment in the lower Riviera. She texts me:

Did ur house make it?

I can see my house it’s intact thank God

I respond:

I don’t know. How can you see?

She calls me. She is standing on a bluff along San Vicente in Santa Monica looking into Pacific Palisades. She can see our neighborhood. She plans to drive to our neighborhood (with what car I wonder? If both her cars were stolen) just to check that what she is seeing is in fact true.

Can it be true?

Our street is clear.

This is news. Recall: midnight before, flames were swallowing my friend’s house which is up and across from us, not very far away. From our doorbell camera we could the midnight sky turn scarlet and orange, exploding with embers. Then the power cut, then we couldn’t see anything, and we had no way to get information. No information at all. We assumed the fire jumped the canyon, took our house, and we’d find out in the morning. But what did we know? Apparently, nothing.

Now my friend is saying our street is fine…

She’s driving there now…

I need to sit.

8:37 am, I collapse. Almost vomit. This is one of many times in the coming week where my emotions go parabolic. Waves of emotion. Emotion I can neither predict nor control. I barely believe what she writes, and yet, she writes.

Ur house is ok

I’m here

As I read this, I want to cry. I am crying. Is this the first time I’m crying since the fire started? I don’t know. It isn’t important. The gestalt coming through my body is huge. Space releases in my chest. I can breathe. But I’m crying hard. It takes me a minute to type back.

Omg!!!!

You’re there?

Wheels turning. Who can I share this news with that my house is still standing? It’s not a good time to share good news with anyone in Pacific Palisades. Not while (on the chat thread) the apocalypse is getting its workday started, tearing down every street in every neighborhood and torching houses that were fine just an hour ago. Literally, everyone I’ve ever met in this town is getting word that their home is burned down. But my friend, the jeweler, just confirmed—she’s standing in front of my house—that our house made it.

I write to someone in Maine: our house made it.

At 9:02 am, I’m still thinking about my friend the jeweler who like Johnny Appleseed is wandering up and down the street, spreading cheer. I’m so grateful to her. She has made my day. My husband and kids’ day. Sure, terrible, terrible catastrophe is unfolding all around us and we’re losing things we can’t see, but on a local level, a microscopic level, things will be okay. The house is standing. Our sports equipment is in the garage. All is not lost. We’re going to get through this. Now for some reason I have the impulse to check back in with her. Why? Why right then? I don’t know. I write:

Is it safe there?

She immediately responds:

My house just went up

Because I don’t believe it, I write—

No

Stop

She writes back:

Yes

Now all I can think about is myself. 22 minutes? I only got 22 minutes of bliss, peace, conviction that things would be okay before satanic forces rolled back in? I try calling her. She accidently picks up and I hear her scream before she hangs up. She can’t talk. Her roof is burning. She’s watching the fire explode from Sunset right up the embankment, taking her house and her kids’ rooms and possibly the home to the right. While this happening my selfishness is blinding. My greediness is all consuming. I just want my house to be okay. It was okay 22 minutes ago. But now, if her house is in flames, then soon it will go up the street and my house will be gone.

9:13 am, I desperately want to call her again but it’s rude to call someone when they’re watching their house burn. I write—

Are there firetrucks there?

No none.

9:27 am, my life mirrors the chat thread. The chat thread, which includes every person I’ve ever met in Pacific Palisades, is exploding with panic. The theme is panic. Panic, panic, more panic. Panic porn. Panic party. Panic for breakfast. Panic topped with panic. You’re panicked? Watch my house burn. Here’s the video. Yours will go next. There it is. Yours is going up in flames. But why? Why? Because there was no plan. There was never a plan. They’re going to let all of the Pacific Palisades burn including all the homes, sky and earth, every canyon, just look what they did to that Starbucks building. You can’t even tell if a Starbucks was ever there. You want to understand the scale of this problem? Look at it from the point of view of a pilot. The pilot shot this aerial video five minutes ago at 9:22 am.

The plane is loud. Rotors above. A black arm extends under the left wing, which appears to have a cupholder. The pilot is flying west to east over Pacific Palisades. The entire mountain ridge is burning. The mix of colors is oddly pleasing. Deep green. White smoke. Bright orange flame. The flames rip from one mountain ridge to the next, creating a seam in the earth, as if what we’re watching is volcanic eruptions. The plane turns and all we see is smoke—smoke choking the earth—the whole, massive landscape—

They’re going to let it burn.

How are you?

Katharine types that question into the chat. There might be 1,000 people in the chat thread now (whatever max capacity is) and its totally unclear who she is addressing. Nonetheless, a guy named Patrick responds.

Via burned. I think my brother’s house on Friends St near the Bluffs is also gone.

Patrick isn’t doing well, we assume, by the picture he adds to his comment. A large lot with no home. Or rather, the home is a pile of ash. The terracotta tiles and a little artichoke plant in the corner of his driveway made it.

This is Mt. Holyoke & Beirut in the Via Bluffs.

We have been told our entire block was burned

Heartbreak emoji

OH god… Its so bad… in daylight

Which block?

Beirut

Anything by Channel? Or canyon charter?

Desperation takes hold. Desperation trumps panic.

Which part? Wondering about 15207 friends

He’s 15263 and said it’s all gone

Heartbreak emoji. 

What about Lombard?

A good friend of mine, a lawyer named S, who helped evacuate our daughter from school the day before, posts a video of her street.

Via de La Paz all homes gone. Our home is gone.

Crying face emoji. Heartbreak emoji. Someone writes:

My neighbor just went into Marquez. Marquez elementary is gone, Ronnie’s is gone. Houses are burning on Livorno. Bollinger Livorno loop homes burning actively and spreading. Just so devastating.

Can you drive down Haverford as well please?

Finally, someone responds to my friend whose street and house burned—

I’m so sorry S.

9:30 am, at what looks to be the gates of hell, Nima encourages us.

So heartbroken. But thankful for our community. We will rebuild!

People can’t resist. They are desperate for their plot of earth:

If anyone is in the alphabets can you please try to drive down the 900s block of Iliff?

And 1100 block of Galloway, please?

And all of Fiske too?

800 block of Galloway please.

So sorry to everyone! And 1111 Embury? My cats are still there.

Back to cats. At some point, I start measuring time and destruction in cats. Fernando is missing. He has black fur and white paws. Here comes a “FERNANDO MISSING” picture but it’s lost so quickly, it ripples into the ether, because other people are posting pictures of their homes burning and cats they’ve misplaced. Can this many people have left their cat behind? Why? By mid-morning we’re at max chaos. Nothing is real. Except chaos.