Residents Not Being Allowed Back in Homes, Yet

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The four-story 881 Alma Real Building the site of many medical and dental offices collapsed.

The reason that residents are not being allowed into the evacuation zone is because the streets are filled with debris and broken wires. Although the electricity is off, it makes driving dangerous. Stop lights are not working. There are trees and branches on the street and there are still spot fires popping up.

There are police cars, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles with lights going as they drive up and down the streets.

The fire is not 100 percent contained, but it seems like it has been a hundred years when all residents were asked to evacuate. This editor understands why people just want to know about their homes.

This editor did a drive through the Palisades this morning, January 9. The Riviera section of the Palisades is largely untouched, which is why there is police presence at Sunset and Allenford to prevent looters from going into the area. No one was being allowed in and there are police at all entry points.

Some of the homes in the Rustic Canyon looked like they survived—but others were burned.

By Will Rogers, the land looked scorched. I was told that the Will Rogers Historic Farm house had burned, but I was unable to verify it.

Several homes along Sunset, and in Rivas Canyon were burned.

The homes in the Alphabet streets were all destroyed, with the exception of a few along Chautauqua.

Dodging wires, trees and burned out vehicles, I drove down Carey Street. Station 69 and the home next to it were intact. The businesses along Sunset across from Ralphs were destroyed, as was Ralphs.

The car wash was standing, as was Anawalt, but a corner of the building was smoking the property owner was trying to find a fire truck that had water to put on it. It seems like water is still in short supply in Pacific Palisades. The lack of hydrant pressure was given as one reason more properties were not saved.

The building owned by TOPA that housed Chase Bank and Taj Palisades was destroyed.

Rick Caruso’s village and the stores along Swathmore north of Sunset were intact. It was rumored that Caruso put flame retardant on his stores to save them.

The Village Green looked as if nothing had happened, but in the background, the Business Block Building, one of the oldest in Pacific Palisades was in ruins. Across the street, Elyse Walker and all of the stores between that store and Via de la Paz were destroyed as was the 860 Via de la Paz building.

Schools or parts of schools destroyed included Village, Palisades Elementary and Seven Arrows.

Churches burnt by the fire were the Palisadian Presbyterian, Corpus Christi and the Methodist Church. Religion houses intact were the Lutheran Church and Kehilat Israel. This editor was unable to check on the Morman, Calvary or the Lake Shrine.

Gelson’s grocery store, and the Shell station that does service work were badly burned. There are two large apartment/condo buildings just off Sunset behind Shell and to the left. The one directly behind the station was destroyed and the brick building next to Atria Senior living also suffered damage.

On Swarthmore, Via de la Paz, Radcliffe, part of Haverford and the side streets all the way to the bluffs the majority of the homes were destroyed. If a house was still standing it was the exception.

As this editor was walking the bluffs, one could only see total devastation.

Looking down the hill above Temescal Canyon Road, one saw the remains/the footprints of the two -mobile home parks, Tahitian Terrace and Palisades Bowl –  sources of affordable housing in the Palisades.

On the El Medio bluffs, this editor watched a home go up in flames—but there was no one there to put out the fire.

Headed down Sunset to check on Las Casas and Marquez, I was stopped. A large apartment building was smoking and police said it was starting to crumble and might hit the pavement.

Walking to the park, the 881 building was destroyed, as was the library and there were smoke plumes coming from the ground caused by embers. Smoke was coming from the large gym’s  roof this editor asked the firefighters sitting on the curb at the Palisades Recreation Center  about it.

They said it appeared the roof had caught on fire. They didn’t have hoses or water to fight it, but told me they had reported it. The Huntington neighborhood that surrounded the park looked like it had been wiped out. The tennis shop had melted together.

On a positive side, it appears the Woman’s Club was intact as was the historic Aldersgate house.

I ran into one person who biked in to see if he could find his mom’s medication. I know I hoped that I would find something that I could recognize at my house—but the truth is, the fire burned fast and totally destroyed homes and everything in them. For the majority of the people living near the village, nothing is left but beams, fireplaces and ash.

The air is really bad, and white ash was blowing everywhere.

I know that people want to see their homes, but for too many people there’s nothing, absolutely nothing left.

There still appeared to be no water at the hydrants and there were still areas smoking.

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