Tuesday was when the Santa Ana winds fully hit. Here East of Los Angeles in some of the nicer suburbs we have palm trees everywhere, and when the wind blows fast the streets and sidewalks become littered with their leaves. They’re really not “leaves” in the way you think of them. They’re more like these long sticks that are fun to pick up and play with. We had heard about a fire that was ripping through Pacific Palisades on the coast but very far away, though the palm leaves buildup was like nothing we had seen before. At one point I had to stop my car and remove a whole row of them from the road before proceeding. In the evening, however, the Eaton Canyon fire broke out and the power went off at around 9PM. I went to bed, thinking this would be over by the next morning

As sometimes happens, I woke up around 1 AM and checked my phone. There was a text from my neighbor asking whether we had fled the scene yet. It turned out we were under a mandatory evacuation order, with the apocalyptic scene of the spread of the flames of the Eaton fire in the nearby mountains visible from the driveway. We were soon out of there, all five members of the family, plus the nanny.

Palm tree leaves — The leaves of the California fan palm

We thought we’d go ten minutes southeast and find a hotel. But all the power was still out when we made it to what we thought would be our destination. It was so dark that I tried to meet Wife’s car at a restaurant to coordinate where we were going, but when I got to the busy intersection, I couldn’t tell where it was. Major roads and side streets were indistinguishable. After finally meeting at a Sprouts parking lot, the store being the only beacon of light in the area, we were able to coordinate and ended up in a town inland about 20 miles away.

The next morning, I did my prescheduled appearance on Rising from the hotel on why Trump should buy Greenland. I like to find excuses to work in situations like this, and it was a nice diversion. Doing the interview while being a fire refugee provided a sense of meaning because it made me feel like I was sacrificing for this important cause.

Thoughts on Being a California Fire Refugee