la fires

[ketan]

wow - so sad to see this happen to la. electrode (and other la strutteurs), hope you can stay safe and have good ventilation.

i lived in la for 4 years bitd during grad school and fell in love with it, in no small part because of the landscapes (physical and natural) that are being down burned atm.

i wonder how cube, chuck and kane are feeling atm?

but in all seriousness, sending all the horseshoes your way, la.

 

[Electrode]

Thank you. It already hurts when I hear about people on the other side of the planet who lose everything. It hits differently when you're surrounded by a blanket of smoke. The major one is in Santa Monica, but there are two others within driving distance where my mother lives in the north near the mountains (she had to evacuate two times, both close calls, in the past fifteen years) and where I work. Everything's OK with us, but my heart goes out to those in the thick of it. Hope the Strut fam here is hanging in there.

 

[kicks79]

I hope everyone is safe. Down here in Australia we know the horrors of bushfires only too well.

 

[klezmer electro-thug beats]

Yeah I am a little afraid to look too closely at the news from the Altadena fire - my best childhood friend just lost his mom, and his dad still lives in Altadena in the house I last saw them in. It'd be a real heavy double blow for his dad if he lost the house. Given the vague area I remember it being in (it was a few years back, and in my head it feels like it was butted right up against the hills to the north), I can't think how he hasn't. I'm just hoping I misremember the geography of the place.
Not much to hope for more widely, other than safe evacuations and as limited damage as possible, whatever that means.

 

[Electrode]

That's correct. Altadena is north of Pasadena right next to the San Gabriel mountains, which runs northwest to east, in the Angeles National Forest. The strong winds, called the Santa Anas, running downhill to the southwest towards the ocean, is what made these fires spread very rapidly. I was just texted by a friend of mine who lives in Lake View Terrace, between but a good distance from the two fires, told me that she is doing fine, save for fallen trees and fences in her backyard. However, she also told me that someone we both know, who lives in Altadena, lost his house.

 

[ketan]

sorry to hear all that. i used to envision myself retiring in altadena!

 

[Yemsky]

I now live in London but can’t help checking https://app.watchduty.org/ several times a day to see how the fires are developing as we lived in Westwood on the other side of the 405 freeway from the Palisades. Even two decades after having left LA this feels like it’s hitting too close to home. I used to go mountain biking through Brentwood and into Will Rodgers State Lark which is now on fire, just North of Pacific Palisades.When we moved to LA at the beginning of July 2002 we were invited to a 4th of July party by colleagues of my wife who lived on 17679 Camino De Yatasto in the Palisades. We have to assume that this house is gone now. Our weekly church group met at a villa on 1648 San Onofre Drive which is currently seemingly just a few houses away from total destruction. Coincidentally, the couple hosting the group, Peter and Cynthia Olmstead, were from the family whose ancestors designed the Pacific Palisades Village as well as New York’s Central Park.
We have friends in Santa Monica and further South and so far they are safe but I can imagine that you can not escape literally feeling and smelling this nightmare at the moment: one of them lives approx 50 miles South in Huntington Beach and said on Friday that he can smell the fires. I remember being in Fountain Valley, Orange County a few years ago when the Yorba Linda fire was burning 20-25 miles to the North-East but the winds carried the acidic smoke all this way down and made breathing in the open almost impossible. Even if you don’t know people in the affected areas, I am sure that in the coming weeks you will hear stories that resonate strongly, like freestyler Harry Mack confirming that he’s lost everything: https://www.instagram.com/share/BAGsAdIT1q

 

[Jimster]

It's scary seeing the footage from here in Wintry UK. The wind looks like a blowtorch on the palm trees. And there's always the odd house intact when everything else around it is cinders.

Wishing you the best out there. Stay safe LA Strut.

 

[ppadilha]

We live in South Pasadena, Tuesday night got crazy and by Wednesday morning the smoke was really heavy and the evacuation zone was just a few miles north of us. I didn't want to sit around waiting to see if we'd get an evacuation order too, so we drove down to my cousin's house in San Diego and stayed there until Saturday.
The smoke has cleared on this side of town, but it's hard to process the devastation. The wind just blew like a blowtorch straight into Altadena and parts of Pasadena. My daughter's elementary school teacher lost her house. Keep hearing about others who lost theirs as well, and there's some more people I know who live up that way that I'm just scared of asking.

 

[dj_cityboy]

oh man… i dunno what to even say about all of this, its crazy shit, completely gutted to hear about Harry Mack. the videos that we have seen have been unbelievable, whole entire communities burned to the ground. i have never experienced anything like that way up here on the Atlantic Coast of Canada…we have had forest fires but nothing at all like what we’ve seen in LA and surrounding area’s.
i just dont even know how you manage to pick up the pieces after whats happened so far…. its kinda left me speechless like Sept 11th…i read about this lady on reddit the other day, she lost her house, her daughters school, the business that her husband worked at is gone and the restaurant she worked at is gone, i mean thats crazy shit! literally everything gone. theres nothing you can say to that person..
i am sorry for anyone going through that shit right now..i hope some how you can begin to rebuild after whats happened.

 

[Yemsky]

I happened to be on Maui this August 2024, staying just North of Lahaina. We arrived a day before the anniversary of the fire that wiped out the town and killed 102 people on Aug 8 & 9 2023. One year later, there was a constant flow of debris removal trucks carrying away the ashes from the almost 2000 properties, 141 boats, 3500 cars that were destroyed in the fire as well as the contaminated toxic soil left by the fire. The trucks have to cross the Lahaina bypass to get to the landfill location and they seemd to be doing this every few minutes on every day. I think this clear up operation started in Jan 2024 and is supposed to complete in Feb 2025 earliest.
If you look at a map, especially around the Pacific Palisades with pretty much all canyon roads leading down to PCH, the logistics of clearing up LA will be a tough challenge for years to come. Lahaina was 2170 acres, the Eaton fire is over 14,000 acres and Palisades over 23,000 acres as of today.

 

[Jimster]

Some amazing pics by strangevictory on insta here

https://www.instagram.com/strange.victory?igsh=Z3l5c2wzOW5tNmEz

 

[Gibbo]

The whole thing is tragic and my heart goes out to everyone affected.

I just saw this pop up on Instagram. I imagine the loss of all that music must be incalculable.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DExf4kMJR-7/

 

[para11ax]

Can we get a roll call of all LA and area Strutters?

How are you guys doing?

 

[ppadilha]

We're doing fine. Trying to clean up our place right now, and volunteered at the local YMCA for a bit yesterday lugging cases of water that were going up to people in Pasadena that don't have any drinking water right now.

 

[Electrode]

Madlib's collection?!? I know how passionate he is, like all of us, about everything funky, weird and fun. I remember something similar about Q Tip's and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's collections being destroyed. I live in Glendale and I can deliver water.

 

[kicks79]

I hope all the LA strutters are safe and well.
I saw the Madlib thing as well. Aside from the devastating fact that your home is gone, the loss of all that music, records and equipment being destroyed is heartbreaking as well. At least all his family seem safe and well. It brings things into perspective.
It's nice to see people like House Shoes on IG donating clothes and helping.
I recall that Q-tip lost all his records in a house fire in the mid to late 90s.

 

[ketan]

kicks79 said:

I saw the Madlib thing as well. Aside from the devastating fact that your home is gone, the loss of all that music, records and equipment being destroyed is heartbreaking as well. At least all his family seem safe and well. It brings things into perspective.
It's nice to see people like House Shoes on IG donating clothes and helping.



It's still pretty crushing to think of the physical loss of music-related "stuff" that must be gone forever. Glad there's such a nice outpouring of support. I was thinking how nice it would be if ppl from around the world just spontaneously started mailng Madlib records from their personal collections to help him start a new collection. Everyone sends him a couple of heaters... :bonus: (Selfishly praying for backups as an athiest.) Hope it's getting better for everyone affected by the fires. I really hope people have good access to masks etc. Stay ventilated!