Along with the personal devastation of homes lost and lives disrupted, Pacific Palisades must accept the vast scale of destruction in its beloved business district – its cozy downtown now in ashes.
The Palisades Fire obliterated the affluent community nestled in the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce is already working on how to help bring downtown Palisades back to life.
Chamber CEO Barbara Bruderlin is in touch with other chambers, and she said, “We are meeting with a grand scale of chambers that will be planning how to roll out and distribute information to everybody.”
A newsletter is the first hopeful step and she is also sending messages to 1,000 people in the database of the chamber, which recently renamed its organization Palibu Chamber — a streamlined name that includes both Malibu and the Palisades.
“I’m asking anybody in the area to please check in and let me know what happened,” Bruderlin said. “It’s so sad. Downtown Pacific Palisades is virtually gone.”
She listed a range of destroyed businesses there and in Malibu, including historic places such as Moonshadows on Pacific Coast Highway, and the many businesses now gone in Palisades including Gelson’s, Lululemon, Chanel, Angelini Ristorante & Bar, and a U.S. Bank Branch.
“The loss of a family home is enormous, almost unfathomable,” said Diana Daniele, an author and publicist whose family is holding hope that their Palisades house was spared. “But loss of community is yet another integral piece of this evolving, devastating story,” she said. “Sunset Boulevard resembles nothing more than a war zone.”
“Our childrens’ elementary schools have both burned to the ground,” Daniele said. “While the Chabad on Sunset was one of the first structures to go, it has been followed by churches, grocery stores, restaurants and more.”
Daniele, a member of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, said, “We contend with loss of our community as well as our sense of safety.”
Chamber CEO Bruderlin shared the disquieting experience of receiving panicked phone calls from elderly Palisades residents when the fire started — people who could not reach anyone else so they phoned the Chamber of Commerce.
“I’ve tried to call them back and their phones aren’t working,” Bruderlin said, noting that not everyoneunderstood the directions for downloading an app for emergency warnings — and some residents might not even have had the technology at hand.
“We need to make sure that every older person has something on their phone, and that it’s working,” she said. “It’s not enough to say, like you’re talking to a 20-year-old person, ‘Oh, download this app.’”
The new chair of the Palibu Chamber, Ramis Sadrieh, a tech and computer consultant who grewup in the Palisades, said, “I have to stay strong,” because he has two teenage daughters. “If I could, I would just crawl under a rock and cry … but I’m holding these thoughts at bay right now.”
He said rebuilding the town will take a long time. A year from now, “That’s when we’re going to start to see some development taking place,” Sadrieh said.
“There are the people that have cash in their accounts, that are ready to rebuild immediately … Tom Hanks and others are more likely going to rebuild immediately, as soon as we’re able to go back into the town — but not the majority of residents,” he said.
“I don’t know how businesses are going to survive during the redevelopment, if you will, because there are no residents,” Sadrieh said. “This is going to be a tough year, but one thing is sure — we’re all united. We’re all standing together in the sense that we want everyone to thrive.”
Carole White, a Pacific Palisades Community Council member who also volunteers with local groups including Palisades Friends and Newcomers, has lived for 30 years in the Palisades where she raised two sons.
She saw videos of their house burning down, and is still struggling to believe it’s real. “My heart hurts,” she said. “I so want to go and see it for myself.” When she heard from friends offering their care and concern it reminded her what made her community a special place.
White, who grew up in Massachusetts, said, “It felt like back East, because you had a center of town,because you would go into the market, and you would probably see someone you know and youwould say hello.”
“I have just found such kindness and community,” she said, noting that the now-destroyed shops likeRonnie’s Market were part of a fabric that made Palisades a small town.
In the aftermath of the fire Bruderlin said it is important to take small steps.
“Each person lost their lot and each person, one by one, can rebuild. … Many want to rebuild and it can be rebuilt (and) look exactly like it did, if you want that,” she said. “We’re gonna do our best to keep everybody marching forward.”