I have and so has my family – in the Eaton Fire. On January 7, 2025. The unprecedented winds became so horrific in our city and accelerated this fire to a place where our emergency phone alerts were ordering all Altadena residents to clear out of their homes and seek shelter elsewhere. We had already loaded 2 cars with some essential things for a few days – our computers, some photos, a couple of keepsakes, and our dog’s portable kennel and her things. Our power had been out since about 4:00 p.m. As we packed things up in the darkness of our house (save our personal flashlights held in our hands and mouths) this blank mindedness (a fear of the unknown?) suppressed rational and practical thinking.
We had been texting neighbors in the area, and many of them had already left for hotels and friend’s/family’s in other cities. We were grateful to be invited into our dear friends’ home just a city away. We fled our home of 9 years thinking, “Oh, we’ll be back here in a day or so…”
I don’t think we slept much that night. The howling winds were unrelenting. The next morning we would learn from a kind neighbor checking our property, that the night’s fire had taken out 6 homes on our block (including his).
More than 7,000 structures were damaged or destroyed by the fire: homes and apartment buildings, 12 houses of worship (including a mosque and Buddhist temple), much of beautiful and historic Farnsworth Park, our post office, the cleaners, the Aldi’s Grocery Store, restaurants and coffee houses, the Bunny Museum, the friendly ACE Hardware, and many small businesses. Several public and private schools were burned or fire damaged. The Altadena Public Library and smaller branch library survived and spent two months cleaning shelves and over 70,000 books. The library welcomed back the community on March 4th.
You can imagine, the joy this brought to the heart of my librarian/researcher character, Margaret Louise Gray. She’s a regular again, doing her research for a future hope-filled Christmas show. Oops… Right now, I can hear her saying, “Shh! I haven’t even secured a place for this evening of theatrical Christmas stories, nor have I spoken with some of the potential actors.”
Sorry Margaret! I know you’ll have something to share soon. Please stay tuned.
So, Melea, what happened to you and your family? We were displaced for 2.5 months. The morning of January 8th we learned six of our street’s 11 neighbors lost their homes to the fire, with six other homes still standing (one of them being ours). Since that day we’ve been living in the land of “Relief & Grief” right around the corner from “Grateful & Guilt”.
Our home needed smoke remediation, deep cleaning of all surfaces, new attic insulation, the cleaning out of all air ducting and the HVAC system, the clearing away of burned brush and tree limbs around the perimeter of our yards, and eventual planning of future plantings that were destroyed in the winds and tiny fires that did not spread.
When you remediate a home, you pack much of it up into boxes and move things out so that the cleanup crew can work efficiently. It was hard work doing this, especially because I felt overwhelmed and heart-sick as I had things to pack up. Unpacking it all has been a totally different story. It’s been a time to evaluate what will stay, be gifted to someone, or given to our local Salvation Army donations.
Putting my office back together has been very therapeutic and brought me back to my calling. Even placing Margaret’s nearly 50 little finger puppets on stands from her fall show — “Back to School… Back to the Library” – gave me a sense of renewed hope for my character’s future. However, before this “puppet moment” I couldn’t seem to pull her up after the fire. I had lost her voice, her zest for life, her mannerisms, her humor, and her calling and purpose. She seemed to have gone up in the smoke of the Eaton Fire. And then one day, I opened an unmarked box of Margaret’s things. And she began to reappear. It was an assortment of things I had collected for two years while building this character. The stuffed bookworm (Bookie), some books on libraries and librarians in other countries, key children’s books, a pair of her glasses, and some of her choice recycled items for future crafts. As I held these items, I felt my mind re-engaging. I thought about playful Margaret and her honest, sincere, and imaginative ways. And that’s when it came to me…
Perhaps, Margaret had to flee the fire that fateful night as well – so where did she go? Go to Margaret bio page under Re-Story Theater to learn more about what happened to her that fateful night, and to her newly acquired Bookmobile*.
Can you tell how much I cherish this character called Margaret Louise Gray? So much so that plans are afoot to bring Margaret out in a couple of ways in the Pasadena area. One is a fundraiser for two nonprofits (more info to follow on this), And then, at a Christmas show where Margert will MC a theatrical event using her literary research skills and her own dramatic storytelling skills. I’m looking forward to her playful and informative ways, and her hope-filled approach to life and the future.
Speaking of looking forward, we are choosing to believe what the Altadena yard signs say: “Altadena Strong” and “We Will Rebuild”. There’s a possibility for transformation when a city goes through a common tragic story. Has it drawn our street closer together? Yes. We call ourselves “Winrock Strong,” and as I write this, we will be gathering on Friday night to share appetizers and drinks. Will we cry? Possibly. Will we listen? Absolutely.
Yes, we fled for our lives that night and so did all our Altadena neighbors. I’ve learned everyone has their story to tell about this life-changing moment on January 7th (and 8th), 2025. I will never be the same person.
Well, this is a LONG overdue blog. Thanks for caring enough to read to the very end.
Margaret’s Post-Script about her January 7, 2025 Eaton Fire experience is detailed there.
