The line of cars on Sunset Boulevard heading out of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7 was backed up for miles. I was one of a few cars driving in.
Homeowners and housekeepers were dashing in and out of front doors packing their cars. Some were already packed. Residents were just waiting until they decided it was time to go. One man sounded confident that the billowing smoke in the distance would remain there. I’m from Southern California, but this was my first time in the Palisades. At that point, it was still easy to share his confidence. The flames wouldn’t dare to come all the way down here and touch an entire neighborhood, right?
But a blotted sun began to set and an ominous gray quickly fell over us. There were no fire engines visible, just police officers blaring their sirens and imploring people to leave. Night fell and walls of choking smoke collapsed onto storefronts and coffee shops, behind them a charging inferno. That’s when I decided it was time to go. I parked for a moment in a grocery store parking lot to chart the best way out.
Last week, I returned to that parking lot. All that remained of the grocery store was a burned shell. Down the street, President Trump was surveying what was once a neighborhood.
It can be easy to look at the rubble the way an outsider might, in a way that’s completely disconnected from the real lives that the rubble represents. But I can still see the Palisades the way it was that Tuesday afternoon, a landscape that lives only in memories. I keep thinking of the brick-lined front steps of that house on Rimmer Avenue, and of the woman standing there on her porch gazing into the smoky distance.
Those front steps are still there. But nothing else.
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