“Trial by fire.”
It’s a cliché, but Los Angeles has a way of validating clichés — riots, earthquakes and fires are part of life here. One waits for locusts.
More to the point: When a crisis most tests our faith and confidence, do we trust bonds of community, and can we rely on the arms of government to protect us?
Even for this battle-tested city, the events of the past few days have been hard and heartbreaking. Fueled by dry conditions and high winds — bitter reminders of the climate future that awaits — fires swept down on the region, cutting through the Pacific Palisades and Pasadena with terrifying ferocity.
Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate. Thousands more trembled at home waiting for direction, frantic and afraid.
The government urged residents to obey: to leave homes and neighborhoods and trust that firefighters would do their best to protect them. That’s a hard order, and a reminder that government matters. Elon Musk won’t save your house in a fire.
Leaders are judged in these moments, and not all of them will be remembered well. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was out of the country when the fires ignited. Her absence was palpably felt, reminiscent of Gov. Pat Brown in Greece when the Watts riots erupted in 1965 or LA Mayor James Hahn being out of town on Sept. 11, 2001.
The former helped end Brown’s governorship, when an up-and-coming actor named Ronald Reagan made hay of it during his campaign for governor. And the latter gave a spotlight to then-City Council President Alex Padilla, who garnered the spotlight in 2001 and has done well for himself. He now sits in the U.S. Senate.
Reporters demanded details of Bass’s schedule, and she took pains to insert herself in the response. Her communications staff made sure that she had things to say about the wind or the fires, and Bass coordinated from a distance. Still, it was from a distance, and noticed.
Officials step up
But being out of position is a misstep — not a failure — and the response of the city and region is to be commended overall.
Directions from local leadership have been mostly clear. Regular press conferences have directed displacedpol residents to shelters and advised them of road and school closures. Officials are giving guidance on classes and pets, the areas where real life meets public policy.
Yes, it’s tiring to hear elected officials use the moment to make speeches. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvarth seems to have mistaken this catastrophe for a campaign event. ”This morning, we woke up to a dark cloud over all of Los Angeles,” she offered at a news conference otherwise intended to give guidance to residents. “But it is darkest for those who are most intimately impacted by these fires.”
Oh well. It’s fruitless to ask politicians to refuse a spotlight. There are few more dangerous places to be than between a candidate and a camera, as Horvath proved again.
The point, though, is the public and its safety — and considering the stakes — the results have overall been good, at least so far.
Evacuations have generally been smooth and well-executed, despite the enormity of that task. Astonishingly, in the first 24 hours of a regional conflagration, just five people were reported to have died. But considering how many people inhabit these densely built communities, things could have been so much worse.
Police officers and firefighters have cleared escape routes, and responders have risked life and limb to protect neighborhoods in the face of wind and fire. To an amazing degree, they have succeeded, saving lives by the thousand, combatting explosive danger with calm resolve.
A great equalizer
This has been an unusual disaster in one respect, in that its victims are generally the well-to-do. The Palisades and Pasadena are enclaves of the rich and close-to-rich, so the losses being suffered are different from earthquakes, which tend to hurt those in under-built homes and apartments.
That also affects the public response, sensationalizing the television reporting and democratizing the outcry. There will be questions, as there should be, about fire hydrants that did not have water, or decisions to let this house or that burn in order to save others. Those debates will, inevitably and sadly, conflate with conversations about class.
What this tragedy will not raise is the accusation that government failed those most in need. In this case, it is a reminder that all of us, regardless of wealth or station, require the services of each other and our government.
That’s a real-life concern, not an abstraction. When the conversations move to examination, it will not be enough for Bass or Gov. Gavin Newsom to pontificate about mutual aid or pre-positioning assets before a fire. Those who lost property and memories will demand answers, and deserve them.
The bottom line of a catastrophe such as this is not political or demographic or sociological. It is personal.
These days have been a test of community and resilience, of the protection that government offers and the limits of that protection.
These tests are about human beings, fighting for their homes, watering their roofs, talking to each other, planning escape routes, sharing food and water, rallying to urgency. They are a test of government in its largest sense — the understanding and compassion that we invest in each other and the help that comes from that.
Ghastly as they are, these fires also might serve as a reminder: The myth of individualism is just that. We need each other.
Jim Newton is a journalist, author and teacher who worked at the Los Angeles Times for 25 years. He wrote this column for CalMatters.