High school introduced me to the Palisades. As soon as I was able to drive, my friends and I would frequent the bluffs, which became a special place. We would hang out, enjoy the views, and crack jokes.
Venturing into the Palisades became a ritual. Almost every Friday we would take the drive up PCH or Allenford Avenue into the Palisades to hang out. As that phase of our lives ended, the bluffs became a place to take family and friends from out of town for many of the same reasons I would go there in high school.
The hikes from El Medio to Temescal, and in Will Rogers State Park have always been favorites. My childhood friends and I would go there regularly to escape our normal day-to-day routines. Will Rogers State Beach was our go-to beach for as long as I can remember and most of my twenties were spent partying in Santa Monica Canyon at a house my good friend was house-sitting every summer. Working in construction for various general contractors on the Westside meant working on countless homes and businesses throughout the Palisades, only digging my roots deeper into the community’s fabric. For many of us who had the privilege of growing up on the Westside, the list of everlasting memories goes on and on.
Fast forward to last week. Monday morning began as most do. I woke up, fried a couple eggs, and sat down to eat a quick bite while watching the morning news. When the weather segment came on, the weather lady mentioned a "Red Flag" warning from Tuesday through Thursday, with Tuesday bringing hurricane force winds of 80-100 miles per hour. In the back of my mind, I knew how dry it had been and that with this type of wind, fire could be expected, but nothing could have prepared anyone for this.
Tuesday afternoon brought unfathomable scenes to Los Angeles. In my younger years, I may have picked up my camera that night and gone out to document the event, but after doom-scrolling on social media after work, I decided that staying home was the best option. Just as we thought the fires were dying down heading into the weekend, the Palisades fire flared back up, threatening homes around Mandeville Canyon and Encino, as well as the Getty Museum. My mother’s best friend, who lives in Encino, called Friday evening to tell my mom she had been given the order to evacuate.
I was having a lot of trouble processing everything that had been going on. Making it into work, putting on a face like everything was "all good" was taking its toll. Meanwhile, "content creators" were coming out in droves to "document" what was going on, filling timelines with posts that felt incredibly disingenuous.
A drone crashed into one of the firefighter air support planes, making even harder to tell who was documenting the disaster for Los Angeles and who was documenting it for "likes." This was around the same time that the conspiracy theories started coming out, while all I could think about was the fires are still happening.
Friends lost their homes, friends' parents lost their homes, clients whose houses I worked on lost their homes. Now I find myself at a loss for words. So many questions are swirling around that it has become hard to process anything.
Here are photos I took this past weekend around the Palisades, Malibu, and Santa Monica, special places to so many of us.
