On the very windy afternoon of Tuesday, January 7, I was driving up the hill to our Altadena home with a car-full of daughters, some mine, some newly acquired in my July marriage. Maeve and Livia were telling us about a 2006 Christmas romcom, The Holiday, in which Jack Black’s character tells Kate Winslet’s, “Legend has it that when the Santa Anas blow all bets are off. Anything can happen.”

And we all laughed about how ridiculous it was to suggest that Southern Californians have any, like, magical superstitions associated with Santa Ana* winds. I was born and raised here and everyone just thinks they’re weird hot winds. I said, “Yeah, the thing that happens because of the Santa Ana winds is wildfires. I hope she likes wildfires.”

The Evacuation

A couple hours later, just after dinner, I went upstairs to check on the sick-in-bed husband and spotted fast-moving flames on the San Gabriel Mountains out our bedroom window. About a half an hour after that, he and I and twelve kids were piling into four cars with overnight bags and a few irreplaceable possessions, fleeing the approaching flames as flashing fire trucks raced past us towards them.

Gus had come to me from our home chapel with our first class relics of Saint Junipero Serra and Saint María de las Maravillas and our borrowed Saint Gerard. I asked him, “Hmm, should we leave them here to look after the house while we’re gone?” Gus replied, “Mom. You said to get the irreplaceable things.” I agreed.

The kids grabbed a few old photos, things that belonged to their late father, and their school backpacks. We had time to pack medications and laptops and important paperwork, but that was it. I stood in the dining room and looked at all the beautiful engraved silver serving pieces and antique cut glass I inherited from my grandmothers and thanked God in that moment for the gift of detachment. Those things fill me with memories of loved ones every time I use them, but in that moment they would have been an encumbrance, and I knew I would be okay if we lost them. 

We ran out without doing the dinner dishes.

If you want the long version, God bless ya, keep on reading, it’s all there. Writers gonna write, ya know?

But the short version is that our historic 1920 Altadena home has survived with minimal damage to the exterior, an unburned but very sooty, smoky interior (wait until you get to the Instant Pot part), and significant damage to the property and outbuildings. Our home is accessible as of yesterday, but still uninhabitable and will be without water, power, and gas for weeks. Our neighborhood and town are destroyed, and many families in our Catholic community have lost everything.

In our small school (seven miles away and not in the path of the fire), with just three hundred students in grades 1-12, seven families have lost their homes and all their possessions and about that same number were displaced by the fires and are still unable to live in their homes.  

Among those families are the Halpins, who stood in the ashes of their house and sang the Regina Caeli. My friends Sarah and Fatima, both widowed mothers of four children. Another friend, a single mother of six, lost the home they were renting and all their possessions. The Bulgarini family lost their home and access to their restaurant, a true jewel of a place, and the family’s only source of income. One of the homes on our block belonged to another family at the school. Nothing remains of it but a few flower pots and the burned out shell of their Dodge Charger. We have friends who lost their home in the Eaton Fire, after losing everything in a house fire two years ago. Read more about the families here.

There were so many offers of help, but in many cases it was overwhelming to the families who most needed assistance, and often came too soon to be useful. Some families still don’t have long-term temporary housing, and so weren’t able to take donations when they were available.

Beauty from Ashes (Isaiah 61:3)

My friend and Fiat Conference co-founder Micaela, along with the CAY and Fiat teams wanted to come up with a way to help our community with prayer, direct financial assistance, and connect affected families with families who want to help. Beauty from Ashes: a Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Effort by Catholic All Year is our four pronged response.

1. PRAY: We are grateful to be teaming with Annie at PrayMoreNovenas and Kristin at Novena Cards in a beautiful novena, to be prayed from January 24 to February 2, the feast of Candlemas, for those affected by this crisis. We are asking for the intercession of Our Lady of Champion and Saint Florian. It begins NOW! Sign up to get daily email reminders here. Learn more about Our Lady of Champion here, an American apparition of Mary in Champion, WI in 1859, whose intercession saved her shrine and the people in it from the most devastating wildfire in American history: The Great Peshtigo Fire.
2. DONATE: Get to know some of the Catholic families affected by the fire here, and consider making a donation to help them rebuild their lives.
3. CONNECT: Do you have housing, transportation, a job opportunity, or special products or skills you can offer to affected families? Could your school, parish, or business adopt a family to help with their needs? Fill out this form and our team will work to connect offers of help with families who need them.
4. SHOP: C’mon. You know you want to. Our Catholic All Year family of artists, including Tricia (Providential Co.) and Jamie (Marigold Catholic Goods), have teamed up on a darling array of apparel and home goods. 100% of the profits will be donated to affected families. See the whole collection here, featuring Our Lady of Champion, Saint Florian, and the California poppy, symbol of hope and resilience!

Have you signed up for the Novena? Yes? Okay, then, back to the story.

We grabbed some stuff and evacuated.

In San Diego

Fortunately, we had a place to go. My parents live a couple hours south in San Diego, and when we showed up at 10 pm, they had beds and air mattresses ready for ten of us. (Jack and Bobby decided to stay up at their apartment near USC, an area of LA not threatened by the fires.)

We spent Wednesday feeling like we were existing in two timelines at once. We were in sunny San Diego, sitting by the pool in my parents’ yard. We were also getting a near constant stream of texts from friends who had evacuated and friends still in LA, full of information and rumors about whose homes had burned, and texts from far-flung friends and loved ones asking how we and our home were doing. We could tell them that we were together and in good spirits, but we had no way of knowing whether our home was burning.

The thing is, California has always had wildfires. Other places have blizzards and thunderstorms and hurricanes and tornadoes. We have earthquakes and wildfires. The former really isn’t worth worrying about. Everyone in LA the day after an earthquake: “Hey, did you guys feel that earthquake?” The big urban ones seem to happen about every hundred years, and the last one was 1994, so . . . <shrug>. 

Wildfires happen often. They come with signs and warnings so it’s easier to worry about them, but also we’re pretty used to it. There’s a fire season. We get “fire weather” alerts on our phones. Each year, we’ll usually know a family who has had to evacuate. During the Thomas Fire, which burned 1067 structures in 2017, we took in a group of displaced TAC students. Our family was under an evacuation warning once before, in the 2020 Bobcat fire which burned 87 homes. But we didn’t have to leave. The firefighters got it under control.

So that’s what we expect. And that’s what was so different about the Palisades and Eaton Fires: Giant. Out of control. Blazing through neighborhoods. Over 17,000 structures lost. That’s not how this is supposed to go.

Finally, at 11:15 am, the producer of my TV show (and other, more important things as well) who is also a friend and neighbor, braved the winds and embers to send us a quick proof of life video, showing that the house had survived the night. But clearly the fire had raged right up to the brick wall in front of our property and it wasn’t out yet.

We went to In-N-Out for lunch . . .

and met three UCSD students who had just found out that their homes and church had burned down, all just blocks from our home. 

An hour after the first, we received a second video. Another friend/neighbor jumped the wall and recorded a speed tour of the exterior of the house and the property. It was WILD.**

Good news: The house and garage were still standing and appeared to have sustained exterior damage to the walls and windows of the south side only. Bad news: The house behind the neighbor to the south of us was still entirely engulfed in flames. Bad news: Our backyard fence and outbuildings had burned. Bad news: Of the twelve houses on our block, only three were still standing. Bad news: There was no running water, the hoses were dry, and there were no firefighters fighting fires on our block. 

When Jack (22) and Bobby (19) saw the video, they dodged the evacuation barricades to get back to the house to cut branches that were near the house. Friends joined them to spend the afternoon dumping buckets of water from our pool on the burning house adjacent to ours. They stood in the ashes of one of the burned homes behind us, and watched the house across the street from it ignite. A fire truck was there and the firemen watched it too. But there was no water, and they got back in their truck and drove away.

Getting Back Home

On Thursday morning, Gus (17) and the husband headed back up to LA. Gus was scheduled to head out of town. They stopped at the house to survey the damage. The fire next door was out except for a little “eternal flame” at the gas valve. The husband shut the gas valve off there and at other houses on our block. Our cats and all the chickens were doing well. Gus fed and watered them. The plan was for me to get them once we had stable housing.

(Our Guardian Angel Prayer Cling is here.)

I was still with the rest of the kids in San Diego, and we realized that this was not going to be resolved quickly. I was contacted by our insurance adjuster. I told him we didn’t want to stay in San Diego, separated. The husband needed to work. The older kids’ school was set to open again on Monday. He asked me how many hotel rooms we’d want. And, I was like, oooh, THAT is not going to be great for us. Fortunately, I had found the last family-sized Airbnb on the 210 freeway corridor, and they were able to approve that for us for a month, it will likely be more. The remaining eight kids and I headed back up to LA on Friday.

Our first stop was going to be the house, but by Friday the National Guard had arrived in Altadena. To keep looters (and home-owners) at bay, they were stationed at every single intersection, complete with weapons and tactical vehicles. The first couple days after the fire started, the main roads were all blocked, but it was possible to get in by back ways. That was no longer possible. We gave up and went to get settled at the Airbnb.

Early Saturday morning, the husband and I went back to Altadena. We tried to find an opening to drive in, tried to talk our way in at a dozen check points, tried to find a place we could sneak past on foot and walk the mile and a half, planning to hike the animals out in packs, but nothing doin’. Every single intersection was manned. It was really something. I am genuinely grateful that they were keeping looters out (and not sure how we’ll defend the house now that they’re gone), but wow, there were so many people who couldn’t get to their pets and medicine and who didn’t even know whether their home made it.

Then I called an old homeschool group friend, whose husband is employed in a city job. I woke her up at 8am on a Saturday, and she said give me five minutes, I’ll get in touch with him and call you back.

He’d been working twenty-four-hours-on-eight-hours-off for three days, but she got ahold of him and said he’d be in touch within an hour or two. The husband and I ran a couple errands and then he called and we met up. Our friend only had one seat in his city van, and there was some concern that they’d be checking IDs, but I went with him and we were waved right through. It was surreal driving up our long street, past all the businesses we have used for a decade. It really looks more like a bombing zone. Some places are fine, some are just GONE. Since the fire department ran out of water and left, there really aren’t any partially consumed buildings. They’re either pretty much intact, or a heap of smoldering rubble.

We had to be quick, because there were lots of other official vehicles around, and I didn’t want to make trouble. But we were able to put the hens four-each into lidded plastic storage tubs and the cats into their carriers. I grabbed the animal food and feeders and put the lid on the dirty Instant Pot still partially full of rice and picked that up, because it was right there, and a few toys and shoes from the yard, but that was it. 

Then we came back to the rental, and got the animals settled. Our backyard at this place is about the size of the chicken coop at home, so the chickens have the run of it. We arranged stuff in the closets and kitchen. The husband opened the Instant Pot to clean it, and a little puff of smoke came wafting out. It hadn’t seemed all that smoky in the house, compared to outside, but, turns out, it was pretty smoky in the house. 

Then we went to our first charity distribution place. That was hectic but really amazing. We got toiletries, snacks, books and a few toys, and some clothes. May God bless the people who rallied so quickly to provide basic necessities to reeling families. We still needed socks and underwear and school uniforms and alarm clocks and a bunch of random stuff I hadn’t even thought of yet, but we were really grateful to be doing it all together, and in a wonderful supportive community.

I know this has not been the experience of all affected families, but I really can say that my kids have seemed entirely unfazed throughout. Maybe they’ve just become accustomed to a certain level of upheaval? I have to say, I was not expecting to add “wildfire refugee” to the squares I’ve already got on my internet sympathy bingo card, but there you have it. God’s will, not mine. I’d like to think that the resilience that they learned from Jim, and the eternal outlook of our Catholic faith, has allowed them to find joy in choosing what possessions to take from the house, in an unexpected visit to Nana and Grandad’s house, in picking rooms in the rental house, in finding something cute in the enormous piles of donated clothing at the Santa Anita race track. We got this.

One tries one’s best not to be attached to things. But I do have a great appreciation for our 1920 built home, and for its beauty and functionality, its lovingly hand-painted home chapel, and that, ten years after we moved in and started fixing it up, it still doesn’t have door knobs on all the doors. It’s a work in progress. I am so so grateful that we will have it to go back to. When everyone I run into tells me how happy they are for me and my first reaction is, ummm . . . are you?, it is a good reminder of what we still have, although life otherwise feels rather upside down.

Praise God, our interactions with our insurance company have, so far, been positive. They were willing to be flexible on housing and approve an option that would save them money and be better for us. As soon as the checkpoints began allowing owners with ID to enter, we met with our insurance adjuster at the house. He came with a team of six, including an industrial hygienist who was taking air samples from all the rooms and the HVAC system, a guy who evaluated what it would take to clean the house and its sooty window sills and smoke-infused clothing and furniture, and multiple VERY disgusting refrigerators which were chock-full of food and hadn’t had power for weeks. For the exterior of the house, two adjusters went around with a contractor and us to determine what the burned up outbuildings and property had been, and what it would cost to replace or rebuild them.

Our tennis court has hosted years of Fiat Conferences and high school dances and senior dinners and scooter races and games of H-O-R-S-E and funeral and wedding receptions. It angered a subsection of internet commenters when the fire video of our property went viral (“Oh no, not the tennis court!”). But, hey, you can’t please everyone. It has, unfortunately, suffered quite a bit of damage to the surface and the retaining wall alongside it at the property line.

The insurance policy we have is split into multiple sections, each with its own coverage and payout limits. For better and worse, the damage to the property was concentrated on the section with the least coverage: exterior structures. The little pool house structures (“cabanas”) burned, as did the wooden fence around the whole property, the pool pump and irrigation equipment, the wooden deck and stairs to the tennis court, the tennis court wall and surface, and all of that counts as exterior structures. So we have significantly less coverage than the amount that the adjuster would have approved for the damage. And that’s a bummer. But we do have some coverage and we’ll be able to make repairs slow-and-steady, as we always have.

The damage to the house and to our possessions and the cleaning required to make the home habitable again should be covered in full.

Amid the visits to donation centers for wardrobe and home and hygiene items, phone calls to friends and the insurance company, and trying to get kids to and from school and sporting events as if life wasn’t one big question mark, we started taking stock of the devastation around us. Our neighborhood is rubble, as far behind us as we can see. Eighty percent of our town has been destroyed. The post office, the grocery store, our two favorite pizza places, our favorite coffee shop, the brunch place, the hardware store, the office of the hundred-year-old company that had installed our (now burned up) fence two years ago, are ALL gone. It was a quirky, historic town with unique homes and unique charm. It’s a town that embraced its identity as “Unincorporated LA County.” Mom and pop stores, vintage cars, crowing roosters, and guys on horseback were part of our every day.

It’s hard to imagine what it will be like when we can go back. Will anyone else be there? Will they rebuild? Will a developer come in and build a bunch of cookie cutter Santa Clarita tract homes? Will the local businesses survive?

But then I remember about waiting to worry, and TODAY, we are okay. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers!

AMDG,

Kendra

*Note for Catholic nerds like me who wonder why Saint Anne is getting dragged into this wind situation: The name Santa Ana winds comes from the canyon, river, and town of Santa Ana in Orange County. All are so named because the Portolá expedition entered the river valley on Saint Anne’s feast day in 1769. Newspaper references to the name Santa Ana winds appear as far back as the 1870s and 1880s.

** The video has about 3 million views on social media and thousands of comments. Those went, in chronological order:

1. Oh no, Kendra, we are praying for you!
2. That statue of Mary saved your house!
3. That’s what you get for living in a blue state.
4. That’s what you get for having a tennis court.
5. Gaza stuff.

Intermittently, people opined that if they were us, they’d have had a pool fire pump. 

Here is our pool fire pump. It lived in the cabana. The cabana burned up.