PACIFIC PALISADES, California — On Sunday afternoon, I ventured behind the LAPD, LAFD, and National Guard lines to visit this embattled town, including my alma mater Palisades Charter High School.
Deroy Murdock stands in the Quad at Palisades High School (Source: Deroy Murdock)
Pali High, as we called it before charter schools became necessary, is largely in great shape, despite widespread, mistaken news reports. The bungalows burned in the back of the campus, as did a building that once featured shop classes. Everything else — the remaining 85 to 90 percent — is pristine. Pali mainly appears as if the students went home as usual and would return in the morning. The only sign of distress was a shrill alarm that shrieked relentlessly during my 20-minute walk-through.
He’s buying the stairway to Hell: Deroy Murdock surveys limited, but severe, damage at Pali High. (Source: Deroy Murdock)
Please join me in underwriting the 10 to 15 percent reconstruction that Pali High needs. You can do so here.
Beyond my old school, however, the local damage is extensive, severe, and heartbreaking.
Before and after photos of Palisades Presbyterian Church. (Source: Before – Google Street View; After – Deroy Murdock)
Just one example: Palisades Presbyterian Church sits just above Pali High, at the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and El Medio Avenue. The previously attractive house of worship is now just a smattering of metal beams. The steel steeple also survived, complete with a cross near its peak. The faithful might call this a sign of Divine omnipotence. Religious skeptics might respond that the demolition of the rest of this church and much of the surrounding community fortifies their worldview.
Before and after photos of a home at 579 Toyopa Drive (Source: Before – Zillow; Source: After – Deroy Murdock)
That said, more of Pacific Palisades is unscathed than I expected. Between Corona del Mar and Pampas Ricas Boulevard, Toyopa Drive in the Huntington Palisades is the same as it ever was. On that stretch, I discovered exactly one burned house. When that homeowner returns from evacuation and notices that every other residence within sight was spared, he likely will wonder: “What have I done to deserve this?”
Very broadly, at least from what I observed, properties south of Sunset and east of Chautauqua boulevards tended to fare better than those north and west of those streets. Also, at least along Sunset, everything I saw east of Amalfi Drive in the Riviera Palisades looked perfectly normal.
Among the noteworthy phenomena on display are the randomness and capriciousness that governed which structures stood and which succumbed to the flames. Much less like the nearly holistic damage that beset New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, this fire selected its victims somewhat more randomly, like a tornado that bludgeons some buildings and breezes past others.
Undamaged house at 538 North Almar Ave in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Source: Deroy Murdock)
Along Almar Avenue, near the actual palisades that plunge toward the Pacific and give this beautiful community its mellifluous name, No. 538 is not made of stone, stucco, or any other obviously flame-resistant material. Instead, this home was built from dark, exposed, raw wood. It looks as rustic and untreated as a frontier Army fort. It also is packed with leafy trees that swaddle this property in shade.
For embers, this would be The Breakers in Palm Beach. And yet, somehow, this three-bedroom lumber yard was fit for an open house on Sunday. So were all the homes on this thoroughfare’s south side.
A damaged home at 507 North Almar Ave in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Source: Before – Google Street View; After – Deroy Murdock)
Just across the street: Total annihilation. Every home burned to its foundation.
Go figure.
A couple pulled over beside this road. While the man watched from inside his car, the woman sifted through what was left of her best friend’s home.
As she stepped gingerly from the torched site to the SUV, she said bittersweetly: “I got the baby books.” They were singed around the edges but were more than cinders.
A before and after view of 15301 Antioch St in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Source: Before – Google Street View; After – Deroy Murdock)
On Antioch Street, near Swarthmore Avenue, I hopped out of my rented Volkswagen Taos and photographed a once-lovely two-story, Spanish-style building. It’s now as hollowed out as a Dresden grocery store in 1945. The Bank of America branch that faced Sunset Boulevard is gone, as is the adjacent Casa Nostra Trattoria.
Just around the corner, a Department of Water and Power worker urgently insisted that I move my vehicle.
“Those light poles are burned and could fall onto your car,” he said. Indeed they were torched, bent, and barely hanging on, thanks mainly to the power lines in which they were entangled. This was one precarious picture.
“Look up, think, and live,” the West L.A. lineman advised, sounding more than a little exasperated.
I swiftly scooted.
Wildfires devoured the Songhorian family’s Malibu residence. (Source: Parham Songhorian)
Parham Songhorian accompanied me through this entire experience. This Iranian-born Jew escaped the ayatollahs as a young man and moved to Los Angeles, where he and his family have prospered as home builders. While his Palisades house made it, his parents’ and brother Damoon’s places in Malibu did not.
Evacuation orders prohibited Songhorian from driving home. So, he waved me down on California Incline, as I approached Pacific Coast Highway en route to the Palisades. He asked me for a lift. I agreed, provided that we first survey this devastation. “Sure,” he told me. “I have nothing else to do today.”
As dusk approached, I delivered Songhorian to his one-story house above Sunset Boulevard. With electricity off throughout the fire zone, his neighborhood grew darker by the minute. Traffic and people were nowhere. An eerie silence pervaded. A dark green, vintage VW Bug guarded his street, right in front of three homes that were erased.
Songhorian noticed that his front gate was open. “I closed it before I left,” he said, his voice rich with worry. He approached his front porch, discovered a window screen out of place, and began swearing up a storm.
“They tried to break into my house!” he screamed, amid a cascade of expletives.
Songhorian discovered that someone used a ladder to climb atop his garage, drop into his backyard, and then attempt to enter his home. His sliding glass door seemed tampered with, but nothing was stolen.
Songhorian pondered his next step atop the horns of a dilemma: Should he stay, or should he go?
Before and after glimpses of Gelson’s market on Sunset Blvd (Source: Before – Google Street View; After – Deroy Murdock)
If he stuck around, he would have been alone and could have faced these vile criminals if they returned.
But if he departed with me, he could not come back that night due to the 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew, which officials imposed specifically to combat the filthy, sadistic vermin whom police caught looting this battered area.
Songhorian came with me and I dropped him off at his car, parked on Santa Monica’s gorgeous Ocean Avenue. I suggested that he secure a shotgun, invite some friends and a big dog or two to his place, barbecue with them, and maintain a highly conspicuous presence overnight. That might repel these revolting villains.
(“Unfortunately, we are still unable to get back to our homes, and it doesn’t really matter what time of day,” Songhorian updated me Friday morning. “Now, we have even more restrictions than on Sunday, when we went together. Residents cannot even get passes to check on their homes. It is a big mess, and the police cannot tell us when we can return to our homes. I am very concerned about another break-in.”)
North Mount Holyoke Ave as seen from across Temescal Canyon (Source: Before – Google Street View; After – Deroy Murdock)
With sunset now more than a boulevard, Pacific Palisades was pitch black. No street lights. No stop lights. Only car lights pierced the darkness. This was a very sad evening in a once sunny place. Many days and nights will pass before this delightful community restores anything resembling normalcy.
Meanwhile, my über-organized sister Lorna sent me a link to the official LAFD Watch Duty website. It includes a highly detailed and oft-updated map of the Palisades and Eaton fires, and other blazes. This resource is incredibly reliable for checking the status of specific addresses.
For what it’s worth, I lately have delivered several broadcasts on these fires. They are available here, here, and here.
Let’s cross our fingers and hope that the Santa Ana winds stay light, and things only get better.
Finally, those who have lost cars, homes, other property, and loved ones in the Palisades Fire and other conflagrations deserve America’s profound sympathies and sincerest hopes for the future.
Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Source: Google Maps)
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
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