Palisades Fire Victims Rally Together to Face Decisions and Await Answers

On a rainy Friday afternoon, the Palisades, still reeling from the devastation of a generational fire, faced more ominous signs in the form of the storm clouds looming overhead. 

Yard signs filled the streets, advertising for fire debris removal, insurance assistance and reconstruction services. Excavators were at work on a few lots in the area, but the rest looked unchanged since flames tore through this area on Jan. 7. Two months later and the Palisades is far from returning to being the coveted Los Angeles suburb of graceful palms and stucco mansions it once was. 

Destruction is around every corner. Rows of brick chimneys lined the barren streets. Picket fences guard now empty lots. Glass shattered around cars, still parked in driveways, paint the picture of its drivers who once lived there. Churches, elementary schools, cleaners, gas stations and small businesses are left a shell of what they once were. A few lots have been cleared, but the weight of this tragedy looms large.

“I want the birds and the squirrels to come back,” Nicole Gyarmathy from Johnson Tree Company said as she hugged a tree — literally — that survived the fires. “They need their home back, too.”

For many in the Palisades, the hope is to return to the community they have loved, but an unclear timeline and heightened fire safety regulations may force people to sell. Rebuilding safely and efficiently is costlier — some aging residents are considering leaving the area for good.

“The younger majority is more apt to consider not moving, rebuilding. They have the lifespan. They have the energy versus the ones that are 60-plus. They are not interested so much in rebuilding because they’re exhausted,” real estate agent Betty Gulezyan told TheWrap, noting the older generation represents a majority of prospective renters and buyers in her Orange County market.

The agent said that the supply for rentals and inventory for purchase cannot support the demand post-fires. “They are a little more open to maybe changing locations, versus the younger ones that are maybe 30-something. They are able to wait.”

While many members of the community have banded together — bonding closer with neighbors after the tragedy and sharing resources — everyone is faced with their own realities, stories and priorities.

Two months later, it’s still a mess

Gyarmathy’s apartment complex burned down, but she is determined to come back to the area she’s called home for over a decade. She works with her husband for their Johnson Tree Company family business so regrowth can happen more efficiently.

Sporting a trucker hat she made for the company with the Palisades’ 90272 zip code, Gyarmathy pointed out some plants already rebounding from the fire damage, adding, “We must give them time to rebuild.”

She hopes that the humans and wildlife will come back and do the same. 

As she walked, she stripped branches from the trees and pointed out hints of green and pink that inspire hope in the midst of so much destruction.

Chuck Hart was also in the area. The general contractor was on the ground with his construction team, actively clearing fire debris from a lot. His company, Hart Built Construction, has been in the Palisades for 26 years, but he said the process to get permits to clear the area has been encumbered by more red tape than ever before. The contractor argued governmental entities like the Army Corps have been given freer reign of the area and more opportunity for business, specifically in clearing lots. 

“If you’re with the Army Corps [of Engineers], you get free parking over here. You get to take over whatever area of town you want to,” Hart told TheWrap, adding that his team has had to take waste to more distant landfills than the government agency.

“It is very frustrating when I have office staff calling and going to various places that we’ve been told to go to by elected officials, by people in building and safety, by people in County — why are you taking me on a wild goose chase for two-and-a-half, three weeks to get something simple that should take maybe 30 minutes online?”

Mayor Karen Bass has specifically urged affected Palisades residents to opt into the Army Corps of Engineers’ debris removal program. Her office noted in a press release that the Army Corps manages all permitting, final disposal and ensures compliance with safety and environmental regulations — removing liability concerns for the homeowner.

“The hiccup is just that there has been no one that can answer any questions,” Hart said. While he sat back and watched the Army Corps flock into the area, he could not get administrative assistance to answer procedural questions. Hart said he even had to threaten a lawsuit to get the county’s attention.

Remarkably, the fourth-generation Palisadian saved his home, his mother’s home in which he grew up, nine neighbors’ homes and an apartment building in the area during the fires. Hart and his crew attached fire fighting gear he had already owned to hydrants in the neighborhood using, he said, “common sense” and lifelong experience. He said he has defended his mother’s house from fires four times in the past decade. The Washington Post wrote an article about it.

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Hart never moved out after the January wildfire. He set up shop and housed several of his workmen as they attempted to help clear on the ground. The contractor said his mother, now in her 80s, still wants to move back.

Logistics of rebuilding

Progress plaques adorned lawns, notating some lots that had passed hazardous materials certifications and others that were cleared by the Army Corps of Engineers — a service that Palisadians must pay for through insurers but options are available for un- and underinsured residents, making it free of cost. 

The Army Corps of Engineers completed its first phase of hazardous material removal in just 28 days, record time, a representative from the Mayor’s office told TheWrap. By comparison, this phase of the debris removal took more than twice as long to complete in 2018 for the devastating Camp Fire, according to the city.

Mayor Bass has since urged all affected residents to opt into the second phase of the government-sponsored debris removal program to streamline recovery efforts, extending the deadline to do so until March 31. The Mayor’s office has also specifically noted that hiring a private contractor like Hart can be expensive and leaves the individual liable.

Dominique Koski lost her childhood home in the Palisades Fire. The 27-year-old Gersh brand partnership coordinator has lived in the Palisades her whole life, and her parents lived in the house they’ve since lost for 28 years. Her family’s home was the first on her street to be cleared by the Army Corps of Engineers. The home is now just a patch of dirt. 

She and her family submitted the paperwork, a process streamlined on community Zoom calls and organizing efforts, but they did not expect the process to be so quick. Their lot is one of the few cleared on her block, but one of hundreds in the community. A sign outside indicated that all of the steps of removal were complete. For now though, the Koskis are unsure whether or not they will rebuild and are sheltered in a secondary home in Ojai.

“We want to see if people are coming back and planning to rebuild. It’s not of interest to us if it’s going to be just big mega mansions and expensive stores. That’s not why we lived in the Palisades,” Koski said. “For 28 years, we lived in it because of the good school system and the community, and we just want to make sure that that same Palisades community is coming back and those small businesses — that’s what is important to us.”

Koski told TheWrap that her after-school spot, Palisades Garden Cafe, reopened to serve the community. The cafe was just a few feet away from complete destruction.

Though many residents have not returned to the area full time, the cafe was packed with construction workers, families and patrons just 15 minutes before its closing on a Friday afternoon. The cashier, who has worked at the cafe for over seven years, said that she feels lucky to still be able to serve the community. Other than Palisades Garden Cafe, many of the small businesses in the area have yet to reopen.

A leadership vacuum

While each resident’s story appears to be playing out at different paces, one thing that Palisadians have agreed on is the lack of streamlined communication as the rebuilding process gets underway. 

“This idea of leadership doesn’t exist in the political class,” financial adviser and Palisades resident Ross Gerber told TheWrap. “The political class really is best at just talking to the media all day, but they don’t actually do anything, so there’s this leadership vacuum, where decision making is really confusing.”

Mayor Bass appointed Steve Soboroff as interim Chief Recovery Officer for the city on Jan. 17. Now two-thirds into his 90-day stint, a clear path forward has yet to emerge. The mayor has since appointed an Illinois-based emergency management consulting firm, Hagerty Consulting, to assist with infrastructure restoration and environmental mitigation.

Adding to the chaos, the mayor removed Kristin Crowley as fire chief on Feb. 21, appointing former Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva in the interim. 

Gerber did commend the city for restoring water and power to his home, which survived the fires, in record time. LADWP restored clean water to residents in two months.

“In the tragic Camp Fire, it took 18 months. It was done here in two,” Bass said at an early March news conference at Palisades Recreation Center. “I’m committed to rebuilding this community at lightning speed.”

Private entities like Rick Caruso’s Steadfast L.A. have spearheaded their own initiatives. The civic nonprofit organization has recently partnered with Samara Housing to provide free and fast low-income, prefab housing to select residents in the Palisades and Altadena.

“They’ve been calling it the unified command, which is really the funniest oxymoron they could have come up with,” Gerber added. The founder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management did not lose his home but said he lives just “two blocks from hell.” After it had been cleared of smoke, he and his family moved back into their home earlier this month.

“The guys with machine guns are two blocks away at the checkpoint with the police because we’d be looted if they weren’t there, basically,” he said of the National Guard still patrolling the area alongside the Los Angeles Police Department. “Sunset [Boulevard] is a border now.”

Mayor Bass updated her executive order on rebuilding Tuesday, taking additional action by “cutting more red tape” to expedite rapid rebuilding in the Palisades. The updated order aligns the city with the state’s directives in an attempt to remove bureaucratic hurdles that could delay the reconstruction process. 

Existential questions

As the city’s efforts continue, the question of whether residents will return remains. Palisades residents range from young families to retirees — each with their own specific considerations on whether it makes sense to come back.

“There’s a bunch of existential questions that you’re having post-60 anyway,” Tim Sexton, a music executive who lost his home in the Palisades, told TheWrap. “Where you’re going to live, what your life will look like, that this fire either hastens or exacerbates or adds to the pace of that. I don’t know what we’ll do. We don’t know enough yet.”

A recent poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times, found that fewer than one-fourth of L.A. County residents are considering moving out of the area because of the fires and more than seven in 10 residents are happy with their neighborhood.

“The main focus until recently has really been the support, emotional support,” Robert Lempert of Resilient Palisades, who also lost his home in the fires, told TheWrap. “You look across the literature, the most important things for resilience and communities recovering from this sort of natural disaster is connections among people and strong social networks and networks of mutual support among residents.”

While walking past a since-closed Palisades Charter Elementary School, a mother and her three daughters posed in front of its marquee that read “Hope.” The daughters all attended the elementary school. One exclaimed that her classroom burned down, the other said hers made it.

The young mother, who declined to provide her name, said she thought it would be three years at least before things get back to a new normal. When her third grader asked about returning to the school, the mom said she was unsure, and the girl curled into her mother’s leg and began sobbing.

“They have their ups and downs,” the mother said, adding that she’s still planning to come back: “It’s the best community.”

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