Tragedy Is Big Business

This was the site of the writer’s two-story home on Radcliffe.

By CHAZ PLAGER

Hearing that, you might write me off as just another cynic finding the worst in everything, but those who visited the Palisades after the fires will know what I mean. What was planted in front of every burnt-out ashen shell of what used to be shelter? Flowers? Thoughts and prayers? No, it was advertisements.

Demolition, real estate, cleanup— there’s a lot of money to be gained from a major disaster. Every tear a gold coin, every worry a deal, every sob story a “Sign here, please”. What was especially hard for me was reckoning with the fact that they really were necessary; business exists because there’s demand for it, and our family would need their services if we were going to rebuild someday.

“I don’t know if we’re going to rebuild in the Palisades,” said my father. He then added, “I don’t know. It depends on the day or hour you asked me, or the most recent phone call I got off of with an insurer, or architect, or builder, or friend.”

This wasn’t particularly surprising, as I’d also heard from my mother something similar. “If the world weren’t so uncertain right now, with tariffs looming, potential labor and building supply shortages, and a possible recession, I’d say yes, any day. But now it is not so simple.”

Our family’s insurance has been very kind to us, compared to the horror stories we’ve heard from some other Palisadian friends. The discovery of asbestos on our property has delayed the cleanup process, which is unfortunate. We’ve decided to use a private contractor rather than the Army Corps as well. However, even with generous assistance from our insurance, things don’t look optimistic as far as rebuilding estimates go.

“I spoke to two different architects who each said it would cost $1000 per square foot conservatively, and our house was a 3300 square foot home. That cost doesn’t even include the tariffs, permits, site prep, or architect fees,” my father said. The newly implemented 22% insurance premium on all future houses in the Palisades isn’t helping, either. “I wouldn’t mind having a smaller house, but I honestly doubt we’d be able to afford even that,” said my mother. If it’s a question of money, as things look now, they’re bleak.

The sentiment, however, is a different matter entirely.

“I love— loved— the Palisades,” my father said. “I’d love it if we could live there again.” Then, he sighed. “But I can’t say I want to live in a construction zone for the next 3-10 years. Even if we finish rebuilding, we may still be living in a construction zone while we wait for our neighbors, and even when it’s done the Palisades might be totally different from the one we loved.”

My mother thinks that the new Palisades will be better than the old one, but concurred on the construction zone part. “We were lucky that we fit your childhood into the Palisades and had you leave for college before we lost the schools. We don’t have the same pressing needs that other families with school-aged children have.”

The nature of my father’s job as a producer means that he spends a great amount of time every year filming in Canada. Now that we as a family have permanent residency status, we’ve begun to consider purchasing a place to stay in Canada as well.

“I definitely still want to have a place to stay in LA,” said my mother. “Maybe we’ll get a condo here and a condo there. I don’t know. Insurance is giving us time and money to consider things for right now.”

“We’re both getting older,” my father said. “We thought we’d live in the Palisades for a long, long time. But now that we’re without a home and both our kids are in college, we’re not sure where we want to live for the next ten, twenty years— and how much of that do we want to spend in a construction zone? We’ve got a wide net we’re casting.”

The future’s not without hope. We’re blessed to have both resources and time. My brother, who will be graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in June, has a full-time job offer waiting for him and his girlfriend in Sacramento; our family will be just fine.

But there’s a part of me that feels powerless still. Powerless to stop the fire that took our home; powerless to stop the tariffs driving up the price of rebuilding; powerless to force contractors and insurance to cooperate. But leaving the nest means understanding reality, and the reality is that most people are powerless against the forces that make up the world. I just didn’t think I’d have to understand so soon.

A coyote had taken up residence i n the back yard of the home on Radcliffe.