We Were Watching: a Survivor’s Report

Hank Wright | 2025 PaliFire

By HANK WRIGHT

I moved to the Palisades in 1992 joining Ann who purchased her 900-sq.-ft. Palisades home in 1985. We purchased our circa 1954, 1850-sq.-ft. home in 1995. We put everything into our home. We raised our son here. He went to Marquez Elementary. I walked him to school. I knew my neighbors. I gave back to the community through volunteerism.

We weren’t rich. My neighbors weren’t rich. They bought small houses when houses were small. They paid off their mortgages. They stayed, building the community. Improving the community.

In 1992, the Palisades was a middle-class neighborhood built up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s at first for returning WWII veterans and then came young families looking for the California lifestyle. The average Palisades home was built in 1962.

By 2025, 77% were owner occupied, 27% of the residents over 65 owning their homes for over 20 years. Now those homes are gone. Ash. Lives forever destroyed.

Let me tell you what happened.

The state kept maps. Secret maps. They marked the land around our homes as ‘avoidance areas.’ Firefighters couldn’t use bulldozers there. Couldn’t cut firebreaks. The state’s policy: “let it burn.”

A fire started New Year’s Eve. Eight acres. The firefighters contained it. Then LAFD was ordered to leave by an unelected park ranger disconnected from our community. You can’t hurt the plants! The ground was smoldering. LAFD left as commanded.

For six days, nobody watched. The National Weather Service issued its highest fire risk warning. Nobody connected the dots.

Our mayor left town on January 4 for Africa. She had promised to never leave the country. She left. Her deputy mayor for emergency response was on paid administrative leave when the fires hit—for calling in a City Hall bomb threat. He pled guilty. These are the people tasked with keeping us safe.

On January 7, the wind came. The fire roared back to life. It took everything. The mayor says the recovery is faster than any in history. That’s a lie. The federal government sent help and money. The city sends press releases and makes excuses. They cut the fire department’s budget over our objections.

We had fewer firefighters per capita than any major city in America. We knew it. The Pacific Palisades community council wrote letters. We went to meetings. We took notes. We remembered what city leaders promised.

LADWP promised to never take the Santa Ynez Reservoir offline without a backup. They did. Hydrants ran dry.

That’s why they dismiss us. We remember, which is so inconvenient. For them.

We’re not rich. We’re the people who paid our mortgages, raised families and stayed. We believed in the California dream, living working, and giving back to the community.

We’re not privileged. We’re organized. We show up. We ask questions. And we’re still here. Asking.

Why were firefighters pulled off a smoldering fire?

Why was the reservoir empty?

Why did the firefighters sit down at the beach while my home burned with a fire hydrant right across the street?

Why did the state put plants before people?

Twelve people died. Seven thousand structures were destroyed. The costliest disaster in American history. Hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. An untold human tragedy.

It was preventable.

It was controllable.

It was an across-the-board failure.

We know. We were watching.

I don’t want promises. I want a mayor who fixes pipes.

I want accountability.

I want problem solvers not troublemakers. I want solutions.

I don’t want speeches about national issues. I want someone who answers the phone when the city is on fire.

It’s time to try something else.