Before anyone received official warning about the Eaton fire, the message lit up the Pickerball group’s discussion.
“Everyone look up, there’s a brush fire in the canyon nearby,” the message read. “If you’re anywhere near Eaton Canyon, I’m out.”
Over the next few days, a discussion of about 50 people who regularly meet at the Altadena Country Club met with updates on where the fire was directed, to be asked to pass safe updates on what was lost.
In the nearly 10 months since the fire started, that group has grown into a community of more than 8,500 people, including more than 3,000 who regularly communicate in the conflict group and vent their frustrations. The network, mostly from Altadena, saw the adrenaline that attracted people at the beginning of the year wearing a recreational cave, decided whether to return or look for surveillance or to deal with new and continuous admissions.
Resident Ursula Hyman calls this time “a time of great disappointment.”
A recent AI analysis of Discord’s chat found distressed messages about financial pressures have increased. Joy Chen, the network’s Executive Director, said emotions have changed from contempt to despair.
“I’m in [chat] Every single day. “I was struck by the amount of grief and trauma that was being poured out on people,” Chen said. It’s a different level now than it was in the first days after the fire. “
“The idea that there is nowhere to turn … makes people feel really neglected,” one message read.
“No law firm will be able to compensate a long-term employer like me,” Read another.
Inside the fire escape group that survived.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Similar to slack, the chat consists of several channels focused on topics including repair, rebuilding, health and safety, mental health and legal support. Neighborhood leaders help answer field questions and answers. Chen points out that the messaging app can be driven by external factors or algorithms like social media.
“We’re really just surviving talking to each other. We’re a different beast than a social media account.”
The Eaton Fire Supler survival network has led to good compensation in insurance compensation and has been a vocal critic of Edison’s offer, recently pushing the company to Front $ 2.4 billion emergency housing. The network also turns to each other with questions and answers about building rebuilding efforts, toxicity and the insurmountable task it takes to find normalcy after a disaster.
Erin Position, the CEO of the Greater Los Angeles area of residence, said that her group saw a growing community within the network and encouraged the group to include a non-sofit environment. In the interim, the shelter agreed to become a funder of the network to begin accepting donations. The California Community Foundation also provided funding.
Chen, who was deputy mayor of Los Angeles under Mayor Jim Hahn, was the administrator of a WhatsApp group for survivors of the Eaton Fire Reavers. The message group has been moved from WhatsApp to allow more people to join and newcomers can find old information.
Chen has lived in Altadena for more than a decade and considers herself lucky. Although her home was filled with ash and repairs were needed, she was able to bounce back.
Others in the grass network saw their homes burned or severely damaged.
Andrew Wessels’ family has moved ten times this past year after their day in West Altadena suffered severe smoke damage. The floorboards, walls and ceiling of the living room will have to be torn out and replaced.
While fighting for approval from the insurance company, the tribulations finally found some stability in the long curse. But questions rage over whether it will be able to return to its Glen Avenue location.
“I have a 6- and 2-year-old,” said Wessels, 41. “What do we need to do to get this home out of the way where we can safely put these kids back in there?”
The homestead that was burned in the Eaton fire.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Wessel had lived in Altadena for less than two years when the fire struck. A new resident compared to others, he threw himself into public approval, and was the lead author of the network’s recent response to Edison’s collective offer, a group that says it was heavily recruited from affected properties and offered insufficient payments.
He believes the real situation is stronger now than it was months ago when the recovery was fueled by the push to clean up.
Now, residents, initially ready to return as soon as possible, have been challenged by ongoing questions about the levels of toxic pollution and concerns from insurance carriers about the cost of rebuilding.
“More and more people are hitting the wall. Less and less help now,” he said, adding that the challenges continue to mount. “How many can you jump?”
A recent UCLA report found that nearly 70% of badly damaged homes in Altadena have not filed for redevelopment permits or been sold. The report stated that the limbo is due to various factors that exist, including restrictions on whether to stay or leave, hold on to insurance and financial instability.
Hyman lives under the burning ground. His house was saved by Avocado Terrace; His daughter’s house wasn’t like that, and it wasn’t the rental hyman owned. The retired lawyer considers himself lucky – he has a house to live in, after all.
“I’m not going to be homeless,” said Hyman, 74. But he knows other first-timers face a different reality. “I deal with hundreds of people every day when that’s not the case.”
Hyman himself knows nearly 80 people who lost their homes in the fire and admits that for many, the post-fire reality is taking its toll. He has been involved in a variety of fire rescue projects, including the Eaton Fire Rescue Network. He consulted with Chen on Edison’s draft response and helped write a proposal for emergency funding in the area.
“We have people sleeping on the streets, we have people who are bedridden. We need urgent money,” he said. “A strong sense of despair is alive.”
The network of thousands of fire survivors began as a Pickerball group chat.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Hyman said that as time goes on and as the crisis becomes ‘old news,’ people feel like they have been left behind like a ghost on the ground.
“That sense of urgency is gone and yet the urgency is more real because people are in the input group when they decide whether to build or rebuild – they are in a critical decision-making position.”
A recent report from the Department of Angelsfire recovery program established after the fires, surveyed more than 2,300 residents throughout La County and found that 8 out of 10 residents of Pacific Palisades are not returning home. The charge is highest for homes that make less than $100,000. The report found that many such households have had to cut back on food or skip medical care.
This is not Altadena’s first fire. His house was the only one standing on his street after a fire in 1993 tore it from his former home. He moved to his current place in the back, soon you were not sure how the poison stays in this place.
His daughter was a child then; Hyman did not think that almost 30 years later, he would go through this kind of experience as an adult with his child, forcing the family to move.
“Emotionally, it’s tearing my family apart and it’s killing me financially,” Hyman said.
“It was a traumatic time – no doubt about it.”
::
On a late afternoon, Chen drives through Altadena. The children’s old Preschool and primary school are gone and many friends’ homes are empty now, including several members of the original WhatsApp group. But at Altadena Country Club, the pitterleball courts somehow remain. The fire that destroyed the clubhouse and many nearby homes was thrown into the area, leaving even the nets untouched.
Chen did not think that in his 30-year career in global business, public policy and the media that he could refer to a team that has recovered from the disaster that appeared in the sports debate.
She also didn’t imagine that from this place where neighbors gathered to play, an even larger community would emerge where people could lean on one another to navigate unknowns and where their struggles — and their persistence — were seen and heard, and not forgotten.
