Before wildfires ravaged the Los Angeles County community of Altadena, there were 12 homes on Winrock Avenue.
Half of it now remains, including the one that houses Debbie Slavin. The first six houses in her neighborhood are gone, she said.
“And then there’s my house that’s over there,” she said. “And you just have to ask yourself why?”
While she is of course grateful, Slavin said, she is also overwhelmed by grief and guilt for the many people — friends, neighbors and strangers — who are among the tens of thousands displaced.
“I am so, so saddened by the loss that everyone is going through and what they have to go through,” she said. “It’s so heartbreaking.”
As of Wednesday, more than 12,000 structures had been destroyed in fast-moving fires that broke out in the Los Angeles area last week, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fires, fueled by drought and powerful winds, upended communities, turning house after house into rubble and leaving residents struggling with what comes next: whether and how to rebuild.
Slavin and his Winrock neighbors were a close-knit community: They kept an eye on each other’s properties when one of them went on vacation, hosted potlucks, and watched fireworks from their block, which , she said, provided a “prime seat” for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display at the nearby Altadena Town and Country Club.
In conversations over the past week with her neighbors who lost their homes, Slavin said she has remained focused on them, avoiding talking about the smoke damage she will eventually face in her or her home. guilt for being able to escape. a greater loss.
“I felt very, very sad that they lost their home,” Slavin said. “I didn’t think about my house. It was more about thinking about them and the impact it had on them.
But privately, she said, she turned to her faith to try to understand why her house did not perish.
A pastor at her church called it “random grace,” she said, noting that the fires destroyed the homes of others who, like her, had “prayed for their homes” and the area.
A fence caught fire outside Slavin’s mid-century home in 1961, causing a pipe to burst and water to spill onto the house, she said. She believes this stopped the flames from spreading further. The interior of the house will need some smoke-proofing, but otherwise everything is fine. Slavin, who is currently staying with a friend about 20 miles away, said she plans to return with her dogs, Skylar and Snickers, once it is safe to do so.
Jennifer Gray Thompson, founder and executive director of After the Fire, a nonprofit that helps communities recover from massive wildfires, said people like Slavin who escape what might be considered The worst outcome of a tragedy like a fire is often grappling with “real good.” and very deep” feeling of survivor’s guilt.
“People who have lost their homes, but not their lives, feel guilty for complaining about their homes because they know other people have lost their lives,” she said. “And then people who haven’t lost their home or a family member feel guilty for talking about their own trauma, because they’re like, ‘I have a home to go to, so why am I so traumatized?’ So I’m just not going to deal with it.’
Enrique Balcazar faced that emotion when he returned to his destroyed Altadena neighborhood after evacuating the devastating Eaton Fire.
“Everything was on the ground, burned, all the houses” he told Telemundo. His house under construction was the only one in his neighborhood still standing.
He thought, “I don’t deserve this,” he said. “I don’t feel like I deserve anything more than any of my neighbors.”
The fires have killed at least 27 people and are among the most destructive in California history. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday it registered more than 49,000 people receiving federal assistance.
Kip Katz said he still doesn’t understand why the Altadena home he shares with his Akita dog, Kuma, was unharmed. He has lived in the 1954 rambler for 25 years.
“It doesn’t feel real,” he said.
He believes the Altadena Golf Course served as a firebreak for homes below it — like his — and those immediately to the west.
“It’s not because the golf course was flooded or anything like that,” said Katz, 55, who lives with his girlfriend in Pasadena, about a mile and a half from his home. “It’s just a big open space that fire can’t get through.”
The majority of structures north of the golf course are gone, he said.
Katz walked around the neighborhood Sunday and said he was unable to understand what he was seeing.
“It looks like a movie set, because there are houses still standing, and other blocks are completely gone,” he said. Its local hardware stores, pet stores and grocery stores were among the destroyed buildings.
Even though he’ll be able to move back in as soon as it’s safe, he can easily conjure up all the reasons why his community may never be the same.
“You start to think about all the effects this has. Where are all these children going to go? All the elderly people who lost their assisted living facilities and convalescent centers are all gone. So where are these people going? he asked. “And then all the people in the middle that have to take care of these groups, it’s just amazing.”
Originally from the East Coast, Katz said he was drawn to Altadena’s rich culture.
“Altadena is also this really eclectic and unique community, from very poor and lower class communities to, you go a mile or two east and you have billionaires, literally,” he said. “It’s a small town, but there’s a huge mix of cultures and everything else, and it’s just unique to have all of that in a very small community.”
He now wonders if it’s possible for a vibrant community to once again surround his untouched home.
“I don’t know how we will rebuild. I don’t know how people are adjusting to all this,” he said. “I don’t know how we’ll ever become a community again.”
