OPINION: L.A. in embers: Coming soon to a theater near you

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again

-- James Taylor, 1970

There was nothing pre-ordained about the flames we saw spreading from the hills of Tinseltown. After all, we know the tinsel of Los Angeles to be highly flammable. And what of the deluge that consumed the hills of North Carolina and Tennessee? These uninvited, drunk and menacing guests, seem to be showing up with added frequency. We project onto these tragic heroes our stories.

Once upon a time, there was an errant spark in search of a strong wind, or a pregnant cloud whose water broke without warning. The story of fire and rain.

For the believers among us, citations from scripture are hoisted with the certainty of the Supreme’s displeasure, while the unbelievers gaze into the ice cores taken from miles below and interpret those tarot cards with a certainty that holds up to proof. Then the media arrives to mediate, donning their latest Land’s End sustainably sourced wardrobe to echo our fears in conciliatory language: “This is unprecedented.”

Whether the handywork of impersonal natural forces or an omnipotent Overseer, the fiery embers riding the Santa Ana winds have no regard at all for the children and their schools, for the infirm and elderly, for places of worship, or even for modern society’s showcase: real estate values.

In the posh neighborhood of Pacific Palisades alone, over a thousand homes were reduced to ash; each with a pre-ash average selling price of $4 million. I held that thought at arm’s length as I listened last night to residents, tell their story, relate their state of mind, as media crews meandered through the orange cinders to reach them.

I listened to those fleeing, pausing to type:

“I am going to break down again; it’s my whole life."

“My daughter is on the way to help. They went from Pheonix to Prescott, then to Las Vegas where she said she won $600.”

“I keep going from not crying to crying again; I know a lot of these people and they have lost everything. It’s pretty surreal to see all this. It really hits you hard.”

“Calamity brings people together. We are all one; we are all humanity, and peanut butter and jelly connects you to your child heart, so I have all my children here and my wife and these new friends.”

“I grew up in the Palisades and all of my friends have lost their homes.”

“My kids asked me, ‘Where are we going to live? Where are we going to go to school?’ and I don’t have answers to those questions right now.”

“This is a flashback to COVID and this is a very concentrated area. This is beyond devastating; this is the moment we will all remember. Yet I have to think: There is no creation without destruction. We have to learn how we can grow from this. This is not the breaking of us, this is the making of us.”

Then I typed what the media was telling us to think about it all:

“It is a sickening thing to watch the strategy of the fire; not that it has thought.”

“Really hard and devastating to see. This was a residential community. The memories that have turned to ash. I don’t know what else to say. Except it is just sad, heartbreaking.”

“Heading down Sunset Boulevard the loss was worse than any fire we’ve ever seen. It looks like the apocalypse here. And when firefighters were able to make a stand and save a home, there was no victory, just a brief reprieve from the helplessness of fighting fire against the wind.”

“Oh, my goodness, praise the Lord. We saw people crying in their cars; we saw people praying in their cars.”

“This is a tragic time in our history in L.A.; a time when we are tested to see who we really are.”

More and more, it seems to me, we are seized in a prolonged state of shock as these events unfold. We lack an overriding mythology to explain any of it. Sure, communities are renewed in a sense; they do come together and help one another, but is witnessing death and devastation what it takes to make this happen?

After years of globetrotting, Todd J. Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Resist News: https://www.usresistnews.org.