Many remember a beautiful sky last year on Tuesday morning, Jan. 7. Just after eleven, Kathy took this picture of wind-whipped clouds over the snowy San Gabriels. But then, like the temple curtain in the gospels, creation was torn asunder. An hour later, I was talking by phone to a colleague from St. Matthew’s Episcopal School in Pacific Palisades who was fleeing on foot with her two children, having abandoned their car among hundreds whose drivers had been trying to make their way to the sea.
When the sun rose behind the smoke on Wednesday morning, historic Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church and School in Altadena was gone and whole swaths of St. Matthew’s School, including the lower school. Many hundreds of members of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles lost their homes, including half the vestry of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Hotels and friends’ and relatives’ homes brimmed with refugees.
The wind blew so hard Tuesday night that you had to put all your weight against it to stay standing. It drove the fires onward mercilessly, like a line of tanks rolling across a battlefield. First responders never gave up. They labored until they collapsed. At 1 a.m. Wednesday I drove on oil-dark streets, past fallen power lines and trees, searching for a fire the LA Times website said was blocks from our home. It had been there, but firefighters found it and put it out.
It is impossible to convey the comprehensive extent of the tragedy. In our far-flung diocese, for those in the midst of it, it was an epochal experience, for others, a story that kept them glued to the news. I won’t forget seeing friends sitting on cots and wrapped in blankets at the evacuation center at the Pasadena Convention Center. The dazed eyes of friends and colleagues made homeless.
Everyone had their evacuation stories. What they packed and left behind. The awful blow of the lost home or torture of waiting for news, or waiting for months to get back in. Recovery slowly gave way to rebuilding. Our community, The Episcopal Church, and the whole world rallied with messages and donations. For working so closely and collaboratively with the Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy, Episcopal Relief & Development are our heroes.
In Altadena, worries persist about real estate speculators. Questions remain about westside neighborhoods, where so many of our neighbors of African descent lived, getting the evacuation order too late. December rains had the virtue of quickening everyone’s hope that something besides fire would be this year’s emergency.
Some will live with the trauma forever. All wildfire is local; so too our diocesan remembrances. I’ll have the blessing of joining St. Matthew’s friends Wednesday evening for a compline service and concert; St. Mark’s School and the MonteCedro Thursday morning for their chapel services; and St. Mark’s Church at its wilderness outpost in Eagle Rock on Sunday morning.
On Sunday at 5 p.m., all are welcome to join us at A Climate Evensong at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, organized by Dr. Lucy Jones and sponsored by the Commissions on Climate Change and Liturgy & Music.
Those who need help with recovery needs are invited to reach out to Grace Wakelee-Lynch, diocesan missioner for disaster recovery and resilience, at gwakelee-lynch@ladiocese.org.
Let us pray:
God of sun and rain, winds and fire, we pray that a climate of comfort and healing will prevail these next few days as our diocese remembers the first anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton fires. We pray hardest for neighbors who lost the most, especially beloveds who perished. Since a hotter planet makes fires worse, inspire those in power to do all they can to keep the people they serve safer by mitigating climate change. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.