A Letter From Hell

The Last Seven Days

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

Hi Friends,

Let me tell you about the last seven days. A week ago Tuesday, super high winds were predicted in our area of Altadena in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. Our home, at the base of Mt Lowe in the Angeles National Forest is surrounded by massive Italian Stone Pines, Leppo Pines, Coast Live Oaks. All of these magnificent giants dwarf our mid-century modern home. As the wind gusts reached gale force above 60 miles per hour, we made the decision to evacuate our house and shelter at my wife’s office in Pasadena.

My wife had left earlier in the day with a workout bag of clothes and I left that evening with our dog, Miso in tow along with our housemate and her dog and cat. As we walked from our bedroom door to the carport, my dog and I were nearly knocked down by the gusts. I marveled at the fact that the pines and oaks were bending to nearly capacity and I couldn’t fathom how they were still standing. I only brought a backpack with a toiletry bag and charger cords for electronics, thinking that I would be back in the morning when the winds died down.

During the early evening, around 7 PM, the internet was buzzing with the news that a fire had started in Eaton Canyon, about 10 miles from my house. Concern turned to alarm when checking the Watch Duty app and seeing multiple residential fires popping up on the map of greater Los Angeles. The fire, whipped into a fury by 100-mile per hour gusts, was quickly out of control and devouring everything in its path leading to our neighborhood.

By light of early morning, we tried to drive to our house in case we could help hose it down or put out embers, but were blockaded by police from getting anywhere within 4 miles of our neighborhood. The thick black smoke made the daylight insignificant and literal flying fire made my skin crawl as we tried to drive out of the worst horror movie I have ever lived through. By midday Wednesday, it was confirmed by a neighbor on neighborhood email chain that our magical home was one of the countless victims of the rampaging wild fire.

After a night at my wife’s office, my older daughter found us refuge at her friend’s studio apartment in Echo Park, about 10 miles away near downtown Los Angeles. So my wife, our housemate, and I along with our three pets were rehoused as neighbors, friends, and fellow Altadenans tried to survive the reality of Dante’s Inferno.

We had escaped harm with literally the clothes on our backs. The shock of losing every physical possession in our cindered home is still haunting our conscious days and sleepless nights. I had a couple nights of nightmares, clutching my wife and dog as I could feel my body mired in molten lava, waking to a reality that was just slightly better than my dream.

We are very blessed and fortunate. My daughter insisted on starting a GoFundMe for us and the outpouring of love is phenomenal. For the first few days, my wife and I would clutch each other in tears of grief, but now, as friends, family and even strangers come to our aid, we embrace in tears of love and gratitude.

Each day is filled with filtering noise from factual information from realtors, insurance agents, private adjusters, and well-meaning friends. FEMA has us on their radar, but we are fortunate to have excellent fire insurance. So, we scramble to find a home, to live lives through borrowed or donated means, to land on some sense of normalcy. This is going to take a while.

But as of yesterday, I have writing journals and pens again, I’m determined to keep posting, to keep writing, to regain footing where we have slipped so far.

To all of you who have donated, supported, prayed for, and reached out to us, you are the hope we have in this moment. We are forever grateful for this tremendous outpouring of love and compassion that we can never repay but will never forget.

We will rebuild, but it will take years. Every aspect of my everyday life is now different, but there is joy and excitement in the journey that my family and I have now begun.

I thought I had another series of posts that I would prepare for the near future. Life has given me something quite different to reflect upon.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Thanks for reading Tales From The Trails! Thank you to all of my subscribers and if you liked what you have read please consider subscribing for free to receive new posts every week and to support my work. I really want to hear your thoughts on my work so please consider leaving a like and comment. I greatly appreciate you being here and I’ll talk to you next week.