On the afternoon of January 7, I was thinking that the next day January 8 was Elvis Presley’s 90th birthday.
Maybe I would write a piece about it.
The winds were picking up outside, but I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I did not hear my daughter come in the front door.
“Mom, the windows are blowing open,” she called down the hall to my office in an alarmed voice.
I heard her slamming shut the casement windows and clicking the locks.
“Don’t you know that we’re having bad Santa Ana winds?” she asked as we met in the hallway.
“Of course, I know,” I replied distractedly. My mind was still on the story I would write about the King.
My daughter’s face was now turning red as she told me that I needed to go home with her for the night. The winds were predicted to get worse.
I’ve been through a lot of wind storms at my house. Since George died, Sara has come up to ride out many of them with me in my Altadena house.
“Are you going to spend the night here protecting your mommy?” I asked jokingly. I thought we could make brownies and sub each other keeping watch in the night. But her face was resolute as were her words.
“I just don’t think it’s safe here.” She said. “Please come home with me.”
When I declined, she told me to call her if I changed my mind and she would come get me. She didn’t want me to drive in the winds.
I don’t think I actually thought she would leave until I heard the front door click shut.
About a half hour later, she called to see if I had changed my mind. “Please, please, Mom; just do it for me,” her almost-tearful voice pleaded.
She explained the winds were not predicted to be as strong where she lived as they were in Altadena.
“I’m on my way, “she said excitedly when I finally agreed to spend the night at her apartment.
When we left my house at about 4:30 that afternoon, fires were not on our minds. Yet approximately an hour and a half later Altadena was ablaze. The Eaton fire had started in Eaton Canyon barely two miles from my home.
Later, I would see that the whole block had received a group email from one of our neighbors at about 5:30 p.m. saying, “Fire closing in. Leave now.”
My house, I’d later learn, miraculously survived.
As Sara and I huddled in front of the TV news all night watching the fire nightmare unfold, I asked her how she knew that I wouldn’t be safe in my house.
“I just knew, Mom. I felt it so strongly.”
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