"Are you okay?"
How to help the fire survivors of Los Angeles
Dear friends,
Within hours of the Palisades fire hitting the news last week, the first text messages pinged in: “Are you okay?“ My family had just moved out of the Los Angeles area on New Year’s Eve, eight days before the fires would decimate my former neighborhood. Our two-bedroom rental apartment is now occupied by a neighbor whose house burned down with all his possessions inside.
I sent my own flurry of messages to friends in the evacuation zones: “How can I help? Do you need a place to crash?”
We know 19 families who lost their homes, plus two still waiting to hear if their houses withstood the assault. At least 24 people have died in the infernos that have blazed through 40,000 acres of Los Angeles County. It’s the worst catastrophe to hit California in decades and likely the costliest ever. But for Californians, the cost is measured not just in lives lost and houses charred. Every time a piece of our beloved city burns, it takes an emotional and mental toll that cannot be quantified in trauma yards and grief dollars.
“Are you okay?” has become a challenging question to answer. Physically, yes, we are safe, about 40 miles south of the blaze, but the Santa Ana winds are blowing here, too, and our sense of safety shifts with the wind.
Mister Rogers famously said that his mother would tell him, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” What fills my heart in the face of destruction are the thousands of eager helpers.
Some firefighters are pulling double and triple shifts, but it’s not just the professionals who work beyond exhaustion. Teenagers like 14-year-old Avery Colvert who began building an impromptu “shopping center” for her peers, Altadena Girls, within 48 hours of her high school burning down and her family’s evacuation from Pasadena.
Mister Rogers would be encouraged by the long lines of helpers gathering at animal shelters, community centers, grassroots organizations and churches. In front of the Pasadena Community Job Center, hundreds of volunteers lined up to help clear debris and distribute supplies. On Wednesday, chef José Andrés was on the streets of the Pacific Palisades doling out food to first responders and displaced residents. His nonprofit, World Central Kitchen, feeds those suffering around the world, from Palestine to Ukraine, but when catastrophe visited his own backyard he mobilized his volunteers. “Sandwiches, fruit, water — these guys need to drink!” he said, surrounded by fire trucks.
He’s not the only one. The Los Angeles Times compiled a list of at least 50 restaurants offering free food to first responders and evacuees. Clothing stores have opened their doors, posting, “Fire survivors, come in and take whatever you need.” The YMCA is offering free childcare. Bobbie, a maker of organic baby formula, is giving away its product.
Best Friends Animal Society pulled 90 cats and 41 dogs from local shelters to help free up space for four-legged survivors, and most of the shelter pets immediately went into foster homes because so many volunteers opened their homes. Nurses, psychotherapists and veterinarians have jumped into action, but so have booksellers, truck drivers, teenagers and children. Stumble into All Power Books, a small Los Angeles bookstore, and you won’t find your favorite novel right now, but you will find N95 masks, food cans, blankets, toiletries and sleeping bags. Its owners transformed the bookstore into an emergency supply center, recognizing that its proximity to the 10 Freeway made it an ideal distribution hub. By Thursday afternoon, the bookstore was turning away donations because its storage capacity was maxed out. Los Angeles really is the city of angels.
Our “larger” neighbors are helping, too. Over the Pacific, Canadian Canadair CL-415 water bombers are filling up in the Santa Monica Bay to drop water on the Palisades fire. Some 150 Mexican firefighters are working alongside their US peers.
We will need all the help we can get, not just in the immediate aftermath, but for months or years to come. A major disaster like this disrupts more than individuals’ lives. It upends our understanding of home, and our desire to be spared from the ever-intensifying climate crisis.
But it also shows us our resilience as a community. We may need to rebuild with steel roofs and sprinklers — or, in certain places, we may not be able to rebuild at all — but what remains intact is our solidarity, our knowledge that we all inhabit the same fragile planet, and that we are only as strong as the bonds we form and the hands we hold.
Read the full story here on Reasons to be Cheerful!
Everybody is asking me how they can help. The Los Angeles Times compiled this list for the best ways to help with your time, money, or heart: How to help those affected by fires.
With much love,
Michaela