As the fire continued to rage, grief spread. Many have lost everything; the rest of us join them in mourning lives shaped by mortgages and rent checks, housework and yard work, meals and pets. Even now, smoke, flames and barricades prevent us from seeing the extent of the disaster. That terrible reckoning is coming.
Home will rise again. Hard networks for urban and suburban infrastructure will be replaced. But we have to do more than simply copy what’s out there. We cannot stop at buildings and power lines. Many other threads in the intricate web that connects us that provide meaning and foundation for our daily lives have been lost. Rebuilding our soft infrastructure, the web of social connections that bring people together, must be given as much attention as wires, wood and steel.
In situations of heightened panic, evacuation orders produce different response patterns. Catch the dog. Bring your prescription and laptop. Find deeds and titles, passports and credit cards. If you have time and space, bring a photo album. If they were gone, history would be burned. We’ve seen images of family photos blown away from their place of meaning to people. But there are always only a few: all others perish in the fire.
The fire destroyed our home and our connections outside of it. I live in Pasadena. Just north of my home, our neighbors in Altadena lost a church, a mosque, and a temple. Firestorm’s operating efficiency is unknown.
The veins die in flames, our common bond shared past. We hear this in the chronology related to their losses: hardware store It has been in business for 80 years and was originally a grocery store during the First World War. Community parish active since before World War II. A beloved restaurant known for its “Noah’s Ark” breakfast pairing (two eggs, two pancakes and two slices of bacon), its roots date back to the mid-1950s. A 25-year-old quirky museum dedicated to rabbits. In the ashes of the Palisades fire, Bungalow “Car Court” The building dates back a century, along with a 1920s ranch home and stable built by Will Rogers.
Repair and replace roads and water lines, yes. Fill the reservoir. Repair energy and communications networks. Helping people build lasting shelter. But also to reweave our charred urban fabric, making big cities meaningful and manageable places for everyday life: businesses, parks, houses of worship, schools, libraries. Part of the task of reconstruction must include marking and remembering, trying to reconnect the threads that connect us to history and place.
When they are ready, it will come from people in communities that have been hit and burned, but those of us outside the zone of flight and flames can help. Mark the location where this or that beloved local institution once stood. Find meaningful ways to remind people of what once was, to remember and to commemorate through memory. Eventually, when the pain subsides, tell what happened, interview friends and neighbors who lived through it, and create archival spaces to preserve these memories. Local government or charities can help support people at the grassroots level. Shared history is powerful; it can be restorative. Those of us who survived have a special obligation to serve.
We have the example of Southern California to look to. exist China Massacre of 1871500 Los Angeles rioters murdered 18 Chinese men and boys in a horrific incident of racial violence. Apart from a mandatory plaque on the sidewalk, it has been forgotten for too long and is currently the focus of a coordinated commemoration campaign that will mark the site of violence with stark sculptural beauty and didactic interpretation. This collective effort will ensure that even anonymous victims are not forgotten. More hopefully, a perspective on historical pain will offer possibilities for social repair.
this Civic Memory Working Group The recent push to further this effort leaves the city with a host of other historical obligations that have yet to be met and challenging issues from the region’s past that remain unresolved.
Now, there’s one more task added to the list.
The past is behind us. Not so with history. Lincoln said “The mysterious chords of memory“It will help bring affected communities and neighbors together and, over time, help build connections beyond roads, pipelines and grids.
This should be your first priority before fires happen again, because they will. Obligations to community, place and history should have no geographical or catastrophic boundaries.
William Deverell is a historian at the University of Southern California and co-director of the Huntington-USC California and the West Institute.
