With wildfires burning across Southern California, Emily Procter recently shared her grief over potentially losing her home.
After evacuating her home in the Pacific Palisades, the CSI: Miami alum opened up about the “feeling and close community” as she questioned how she and her neighbors will more forward in the aftermath.
“Selfishly, I wanted to be here to say we loved our neighborhood, and we still do,” Procter explained on CNN. “It was an incredible community. We have evacuated. I believe our home is also gone. It was news I got from a stranger, which is a very surreal experience.”
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She expressed her gratitude for the local fire station and first responders. “They’re as much apart of our neighborhood as anyone, and I know what they’re having to do now must be extraordinarily difficult,” she said.
Procter continued to open up about her tight-knit community. “But what you realize is that… all of those houses are not structures, they’re actually microcosms of people’s lives, and we all interact,” she continued. “I have an across-the-street neighbor who is pregnant and one who is applying for college, and we have a new neighbor moving in and we were making plans to drop things off, and I bicker back-and-forth with my postman about football teams. It has been my life. I’m so grateful to have survived.”
The West Wing alum added, “It is my home, it is my neighborhood, it’s my community. And so, when you see it burn, it’s not the things, and you almost don’t even think about the safety … But what we mourn is our lives.”
“I just keep thinking, what is the path forward? What is the best way? How can it work? How can we make it work?” said Procter. “And I think that’s gonna be the next question we have to answer is, because we were such a feeling and close community, is how do we make it work?”
Procter also addressed those interested in helping, telling them, “offering of community is probably the greatest gift, just to tell people that you love them and that we’re in it.”
Meanwhile, stars like Paris Hilton, Milo Ventimiglia, Adam Brody, Leighton Meester and Billy Crystal have lost their homes in the wildfires.
Fires have broken out in Malibu, the Pacific Palisades, Eaton Canyon, the Hollywood Hills and other areas around Los Angeles County amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm that picked up Tuesday.
As of Thursday, at least six people have died in the Southern California wildfires, which have forced nearly 180,000 people to evacuate and left more than 1.5 million without power.
President Joe Biden, who extended his Los Angeles trip on Wednesday to visit first responders and those affected, declared the fires a major disaster.
“Over 100,000 people have been ordered to evacuate communities impacted by the Southern California wildfires,” wrote Biden on X. “At least two people have been killed. And many more are injured — including firefighters. It’s devastating. To the residents of Southern California: We are with you.”
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