The Palisades Fire destroyed more than structures it destroyed a way of life and a community that encompassed all ages.
When nearly 6,000 buildings were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, about 30 percent of them belonged to seniors. Many did not have family. This story/journey was relayed to me by one of our town’s feisty seniors.
“I am one of the over-80s who doesn’t know what to do. I’ve made a list of over 30 helping agencies that have not helped, including Pali Long-Term Recovery Group. I’ve been driven MORE crazy by online forms and applications for services such as counseling (finally have appointments). One link replied that they were not set up to counsel yet. So why did they give us the link?! I still don’t have a case manager.
People have no idea what it’s like for seniors with no family who have lost everything, often irreplaceable items of historical significance, precious family heirlooms. There isn’t enough money in the world to replace the photos from 1930 on and the research I did in prep for a book about my mother’s memories of Nazi Germany.
People call the fire a nightmare. “It isn’t a nightmare,” I tell people, “You wake up from a nightmare.” “What is it?” she was asked. “War,” she said — but I was wrong. The “war” was the fire, the evacuation. This last year has been the “peace” that follows a war.
My uncle, drafted into the Wehrmacht, told me in the 1950s, “Sometimes the peace is worse than the war.” Homes and services bombed out, friends, family, neighbors gone, the scramble for a place to live (check Steinbeck’s Once There Was a War — people lived in the rubble just as some Palisadians are living in their “remediated” homes), food, clothing — and help. Germans couldn’t get money.
She did not go to the Palisades January 7, 2025 anniversary events in Pacific Palisades on January 7 because, “Why would anyone celebrate heartbreak?”
The resident lived on Bollinger Drive for 54 years and had a file labeled “Disaster Prep,” and left it when she evacuated on January 7, 2025, and added. “But it burned. Folks at the Westwood Recovery Center had an appreciative guffaw when I told them that.”
After the Westwood Recover center, she spent five weeks with a friend in Brentwood and then another five weeks with friends in Seattle. She almost bought a duplex at a retirement community there but was stymied and the sale didn’t come through.
“I was getting so many post-fire problems messages (don’t get me started on log-ons, multi-factor authentication — digital cerberin that prevent access to solutions),” she said and added she finally had offers of help from Brad Sherman’s and Lindsay Horvath’s aides, so that she drove back to Los Angeles.
Initially she consulted an AAA Travel consultant about the trip to L.A., who told her, “You’re not ready to do such a drive!” to which she commented “How helpful.”
Once back, she said, “take that consultant!” But then she found that the U.S. Postal Service had changed her mailing address to Seattle and discovered “that well over 30 entities had my Bollinger address, which proved indescribable consequences.”
In March, she tried to move into first Airbnb, which she described as looking good, but waited an hour for a host to rescue her from the cold night fog with lock-access information.
“Finally, inside, I found a bedroom window broken out onto an alley,” the Palisadian said and added that the absentee host then moved her to a converted garage on the same property that was also terrible and unsafe.
Airbnb refunded the Palisadian the entire amount. “This is part of a longer story that ends with the host harassing me until Airbnb stepped in again,” she said.
In April, she found a second Airbnb at 7th and Montana and this host met her at the door, showed her how the locks/keys worked, and schlepped her baggage up a long flight of stairs! “But, no covered parking and bad knees or I would have stayed in that terrific studio,” the resident said.
When I saw a “for lease” sign at 7th and Montana at an HOA, “I jumped on it.”
The first realtor told her nothing was available, so she got a new realtor – and the place. “I barely read what I signed. Not a place I’d want to live or die in but I was grateful to have an elevator and covered parking. Her friends brought furniture.
Her lease is up May 1, and she’ll go month to month. “I’m terrified of another move,” she said and was appreciative that the Palisades Long-Term Recovery Group is offering events, but asks a question that many seniors are asking, “What about those of us who have no family. We need a human. Postwar peace is different for my antique friends who have a spouse or adult child helping.”
She said that on January 7, 2026, she “celebrated” the loss of her home, with an auto accident (no injuries) on narrow Upper Mesa, where construction didn’t have a flag man. “That date will live in infamy,” she said, “though I might not.
“I want a T-shirt, that reads ‘Thank you. I’m lucky — but it’s not home.’” And adds, “I also want one that says, “Even Nazis didn’t wear masks.”
She said, “If need someone to complain, all my friends know I’m here for that.”
And concluded, “I CANNOT be positive just yet. I shudder at ‘Palisades Strong.’ I don’t know a single fire refugee who feels ‘strong.’”
The resident said her life motto has changed from “Nothing works the first time” to “Nothing works.”