The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said Thursday that her brother was among the thousands of people who lost their homes in Palisades fire.
“The loss you are going through, I share indirectly. He has also affected my family, ”Bass said at a meeting of the Community Council of Pacific Palisades. “My brother, who has lived in Malibu for 40 years, has gone through many fires, evacuated many times, this time did not escape.”
Bass and other elected officials spoke with about 1,000 people who attended the voluntary organization meeting in Zoom.
The mayor, who attended an embassy cocktail in Ghana when the fire began, said his brother's house “was my family home where we went on vacation.”
The loss of the house, he said, is “a type of shock and pain that is a trauma that will be with us for a long time.”
Los Angeles Dist. Atty County. Nathan Hochman said he also had a brother who lost a house in Pacific Palisades.
His sister lived in Swarthmore Avenue, he said. His house was destroyed.
“It was really an apocalyptic scene since the winds blew, the fires still continue,” he said. “It's a disaster. I thought I saw disasters in the 90s when we hit ourselves with fires, floods, an earthquake and disturbances, and that pales compared to what I was seeing. “
Bass and other officials told residents, who have been increasingly frustrated because of their inability to access their homes in mandatory evacuation areas, who hoped to increase access next week.
The prognosis demands light rain during the weekend. Bass issued an emergency executive order on Tuesday to prop up burning areas of Los Angeles that are vulnerable to landslides and debris flow.
The next rain, for many evacuees, has only increased its desire to look in their houses in ruins for anything wild before it can be damaged by water.
During the Zoom meeting, the Council of the City of Los Angeles, Traci Park, which represents Pacific Palisades, said that hundreds of workers had been in the area, closing broken pipes, sweeping their nails, clearing the roads, eliminating the members of broken trees and inspect homes.
She said she had been pressing to get more access to the area, but that everything was “still in emergency mode.”
The neighborhoods devastated by fire, they said, are “currently a toxic disaster”, and the next rain will complicate that situation.
Park was excited when he talked about his own time in destroyed neighborhoods.
“Personally, if I see a clay pot or a stone figure and I can reach it, I leave it where I think your main door was,” Park said, fighting tears. “Then, when you return, there will be something familiar, not just a lot of ashes.
“I want you to know that when you return, it will be difficult to see your home and your community,” he added. “It has gone mainly, and the scale of the loss is certainly amazing. But we don't want you to see it alone. And we don't want you to feel without support. “
Park told residents that when they were allowed to return to their neighborhoods, they would see “a strong presence of firefighters and city workers.”
