For most of this month, the devastating wildfires in Southern California have dominated cable news. In fact, watching that coverage is the only reason I’ve been watching the news again. After the results of the 2024 presidential election, I lived with a self-imposed news blackout. I mean, who needed all that noise about the presidential transition team? Not me. But news about the fires in metro Los Angeles demanded my attention.
I was born and raised in Hattiesburg but lived in Los Angeles during my years as a young adult, 1982-94. And although I was already in my mid-20s when I moved there, I still think of Los Angeles as “the place I grew up.” That’s because as a morbidly obese kid growing up in Hattiesburg, my life was kind of sheltered, in its way. That is, I didn’t have much of a social life or even close friendships. But that all changed after I successfully lost nearly 300 pounds. By then, I was ready to come out of my shell, so I packed my bags and moved to Hollywood.
I spent 12 years there before returning to Hattiesburg in 1994. But over 30 years later, Los Angeles will always be what I call “my auxiliary hometown,” the city that molded me into who I am today. I visit every year and, sometimes, twice a year. In fact, I spent much of last summer and the entire Christmas season there, returning the first weekend after New Year’s Day. Which means I missed, by just two days, the start of the life-altering fires in Southern California that have yet to be completely extinguished.
I suspect I would never have been in immediate danger from the fires but close enough that alarm bells would have been going off in my head. I have friends who live just below the Hollywood Hills, a small mountain range that cuts a swath through the city, dividing Los Angeles into two sections. Those friends, barely a week after I left, found themselves on evacuation notice. That’s because what became known as the Sunset Fire was getting alarmingly close to the heart of L.A., including Hollywood itself. That would not have been far from the hotel I stayed in, which means I may have very well ended up under an evacuation threat.
During last summer’s trip to Los Angeles, my best friend Michael and I made several trips to Malibu, the iconic neighborhood that traces the coastline of the Pacific. The legendary Pacific Coast Highway, known locally as PCH, defines the area, snaking its way along the Pacific, headed north to San Francisco. As it winds through Malibu, beachside homes valued in the high millions and high-end restaurants line the route.
Michael had a couple of favorite restaurants on PCH. We had dinner at two of them: Moonshadows, and The Reel Inn. I preferred the latter because it was far less formal and, to tell you the truth, reminded me more of the catfish houses Mississippi is famous for. Only difference: there was more crab and lobster on the menu than catfish. Good thing I got to visit them both last summer. Since then, they’ve both been reduced to ashes.
All the years I lived in southern California, I’d never seen Pacific Palisades, a community nestled just east of Malibu and bordering Los Angeles. On the way home from dinner one night, Michael took a scenic route, meandering through the heart of Pacific Palisades. I couldn’t believe I’d not discovered the area before. It was like a storybook village, adorned with tree-lined streets filled with an eclectic collection of locally owned gift shops, restaurants and coffee shops. All of that wrapped in neighborhoods featuring homes the majority of us could never afford. Even with the obviously high-priced homes, its charm was undeniable.
Of course, if you’ve been watching the news, you know how this story ends. Portions of Pacific Palisades now look apocalyptic, an overused description of the fire’s aftermath. But photos of the devastation reveal that description as more than simple hyperbole. Images of the fire’s aftermath could be compared to Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped on that city at the end of World War II. Block after block of homes obliterated, literally.
The Eaton Fire, near Pasadena, hits a little close to home for me. One of my dearest friends in Los Angeles’ family home also burned to the ground in the less-affluent city of Altadena, north of downtown Los Angeles. I call it less affluent, but in Southern California, that still means home prices in the $500,000-plus range.
Oddly enough, whenever I’m in Los Angeles, I often get into discussions with people about what the weather is like here in South Mississippi, with most of their questions being about our infamously hot, humid summers and, of course, the threat of hurricanes. The conversation often includes a discussion of Hurricane Katrina, the scariest natural disaster I’ve experienced.
Yes, we have our own weather threats, but as I like to remind people, any place on Earth sees threats from Mother Nature’s extremes. For us, it’s the hurricanes and tornadoes. For our friends up north, blizzards are often life-threatening. Out west, there’s the possibility of earthquakes and, as we’re now witnessing, wildfires, with this year’s firestorms on track to be the worst in California’s history.
If all that weren’t troubling enough, now come the politics. Before he was inaugurated, Donald Trump had already begun blaming the deadly fires on California Gov. Gavin Newsom. He claimed the Democratic governor’s environmental policies led to the fires that have devastated large portions of his state. Is now really the time for finger-pointing?
As of this writing, 28 people have lost their lives. And from the multimillion-dollar homes of Pacific Palisades to the more affordable homes of Altadena, the lives of countless families have been upended by this disaster. And we want to start political fights and play the blame game? This is not the America I know.
If we want to get into a political debate about the cause of the fires in Southern California, we can do that later. And you can bet voices in that fight will be making more noise. In the meantime, let’s concentrate our attention on helping those Southern Californians in desperate need. Fire doesn't care who you voted for in the last election. It doesn’t care whether you live in a red state or a blue state. And, oh yeah, it doesn’t care how much money you have in your bank account. Southern Californians from the beachfront mansions along PCH to the more modest homes in Altadena can testify to that fact.
As we know too well here in the Gulf South, Mother Nature couldn’t care less about your political affiliation. And we shouldn’t care either. The only thing we should concern ourselves with now is helping our fellow Americans in their hour of need. We can save the bickering for later.
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Elijah Jones is a proud Hattiesburg native who enjoys writing. Email him at edjhubtown@aol.com.
