Fires in Paradise
Reading about the horribly destructive fires in Maui and the victims as well as survivors who endured so much has got me remembering. Maui – a place I’ve never been, although I’ve been to Oahu – is often thought of as a kind of Paradise.
And the place I’m remembering is another Paradise, which was just a town. Five years ago, as most of you know, it was destroyed by fire. Most of you also probably know that Gerard had lived there and escaped that morning. But I’ve never written about my own experiences in Paradise, before that fire and after.
Gerard moved there from Seattle in 2014 to help take care of his mother, who was still in pretty good shape despite being about to turn 100, but who needed more help than before. He’d had it with Seattle, and decided to return to the part of California in which he’d grown up. I helped him move.
Initially, he thought maybe he’d live in Chico, where his mom lived. But rentals there were more expensive than in Paradise, which was a smaller town about twenty minutes away. The road from Paradise to Chico is called Skyway, and it’s aptly named, passing by a lovely canyon for most of its route is it moves from the higher elevation – and slightly cooler clime – of Paradise down to the flat heat of Chico. The house he rented in Paradise had a relaxing yard and deck, three bedrooms and the usual comforts, and it suited him just fine.
I, on the other hand, would have preferred Chico. Paradise was somewhat dull, and almost every time he needed to buy anything more than groceries, or wanted to go to a restaurant, we’d haul ourselves off to Chico. But I had to admit that the Skyway views were beautiful, as were the vistas from a park there. I spent somewhere between two months and four months living there each year during the four years Gerard rented that house, and so I got to know the town very very well and found my own rhythms within it.
I wasn’t there for the fire. But on November 8, 2018, I got an uncharacteristically early call from Gerard. It was about 1 PM my time, 10 AM his time, and he started out by saying, “Well, I’ve moved in with my mother.”
I had no idea what was going on. It sounded like a joke, or maybe his mother had taken ill – but no. He explained that he’d woken up around 6:30 AM and it looked a bit hazy outside, and then he smelled the faint whiff of smoke. As someone who’d grown up in that area, he knew that he probably shouldn’t mess around. So he grabbed the cat, the cat carrier, his computer, his hard drive, and a few shirts, and drove down the Skyway. Just to be safe. He expected to return in a couple of days.
He had left before the road became a corridor between two walls of flame. You’ve probably seen the videos; people who left just a while later encountered a harrowing journey and some didn’t make it. But for Gerard, although there was a lot of traffic, it wasn’t yet too bad. And when he spoke to me, he had no idea the town was no more.
About an hour or so later my phone rang again. It was Gerard. This time he said, “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Paradise,” he said. “It’s completely destroyed. Everything. Gone.”
Then of course I followed the news and spoke to him daily, and I arrived there about three weeks later shortly after he’d managed to get a tiny apartment in the same apartment complex as his mother. The day I got there, there were two things in that apartment: a couch and a chair. Three things I guess, because to me Olive the cat was a new addition. For the next month or so, I went with Gerard as he outfitted both himself and the new apartment. There were large warehouse-type places with donated clothing and household goods, there were trips to Walmart and Costco and the Dollar Tree and many others. We kept meeting other people with carts piled high, full of basic goods like brooms and dustpans and pots and Comet and everything a person might need to completely outfit a new dwelling.
Slowly but surely, the apartment started filling up. Packages arrived daily from readers who sent all sorts of things: toys for Olive, books for Gerard. At the end of November, it was his mother’s 104th birthday, and I took a few photos. Here’s one:
A short while later, the authorities let the ex-residents of Paradise return to the town to look at their homes. Gerard already knew his was destroyed. We drove up the Skyway from Chico and stopped at a checkpoint where Gerard had to show his ID, and then they gave us two Hazmat suits. It was a strangely foggy day that lent an unreal quality to an already unreal scene, as though Paradise was a mirage that had emerged from some sort of time warp.
When we got to the town, I was surprised to see that, because many of the thick trees were now gone, the views were far more spectacular from many more places. Other than that, though, what we saw was grim even though we expected it. Here are a few of my photos. The first is the moment of our arrival at his house, which is directly in front of us:
It was almost completely reduced to ashes, except for a few metal things that were twisted but recognizable. Here’s Gerard’s ironing board, minus its padding and cover:
Here’s the Safeway where we used to shop. The carts are still all neatly lined up:
As we drove around, we saw many sights like this one: entrances made of fire-proof material such as brick, now leading to nowhere instead of their former homes:
Here’s Gerard talking to his neighbor; she’s in a Hazmat suit, but he never wore his. Those are her kids’ tricycles:
This is what the road back to Chico looked like:
And then, about a week later, I was walking near Gerard’s apartment and I felt a sinking feeling when I saw a neighbor of his mother’s running fast towards me. He asked me urgently which apartment Gerard lived in. Gerard’s mother had fallen and it turns out she’d sustained a concussion and went to a rehab facility for a few weeks. This was the beginning of a cascade of events that signaled the end for her; she died about six months later.
What a year.
Gerard returned to Paradise two more times after that with me, and I’m pretty sure those were the only two times he ever went back. The first time was for a benefit concert. The second was at my urging, perhaps a year later. I wanted to see what had been rebuilt, but he didn’t want to go. I decided to go myself and was okay with that, but he suddenly decided he’d go with me. He was very quiet on the trip, and on the way home he said, “That’s it. I’m not ever going back.”
And that was that.
I remember Gerard’s online account of leaving Paradise quite well, including the way he ended his last post before arriving in Chico with a cryptic note about grabbing his bug-out bag and “outta here.” ghostsniper and I and the other AD cat folks who knew that Gerard had just adopted Olive were glad to know that he got her to safety along with himself, and that they got out before the Skyway became a firetrap. I think it was ghostsniper who commented that Olive must have been riding shotgun.
I plead guilty to being a cat enabler– I sent Gerard some catnip toys for Olive (along with a book), and suggested that he put up a cat tree for her when he moved into his own apartment in Chico.
Given what’s happened to Seattle in the past few years, I sometimes wonder whether Gerard thought he got out of there just in time too. As terrible as fire is, humans have many other ways to destroy a city.
Given what’s happened to Seattle in the past few years, I sometimes wonder whether Gerard thought he got out of there just in time too.
I’ve been to Seattle a few times since the 2020 unpleasantness. There are large parts of it where everything is mostly as it was. There are parts of it I have not attempted to visit, as they were sketchy before, and I imagine they are much worse now, so I don’t have any horror stories to balance out with. I’m ready to cautiously and judiciously visit it more often, throwing my hat in first…
I haven’t seen anything there like I saw in Portland, but neither have I gone looking for it. In Portland you did not have to go looking for it, because it was everywhere and would come right up to you…
The parts of the Seattle metro area where the real money is never had a scratch. Things are not what they seem. Bellevue and Everett seem willing to learn from Seattle’s bad example and they’ve been seeing more development there since 2020, but partly it’s because property values still kept rising up until late last year and people are priced out of Seattle, that and remote work.
The Tri-Cities, about 4 hours away on the desert side of the state, have been booming. Every time I go there I see acres of new construction… lot of West Side people moving there but probably Californians too. I don’t know of a good survey.
I always wondered about the house, insurance, and rebuilding, but the fact that he was renting answers all that. At one point, reports were that the death toll would be much, much higher than it ended up being (which was bad enough). I don’t think Maui is going to be so fortunate. In Paradise, as I recall, they finally whittled down the “missing” list by publishing the names in the local (Chico) paper. People identified themselves as living. Besides all the residents in Maui who are unaccounted for, evidently there were also tourists.
Lovely photo of Gerard and his mother.
Sad. I can understand why he did not want to go back after seeing all the old that was lost. Sometimes you just want to remember a place like it was, and once it’s gone, you don’t want to see it again. Too painful.
I don’t know which is worse, fires or catostrophic floods. Perhaps fires are worse on people but the aftermath of floods are messier. Both fast moving fires and sudden floods from something like a dam breaking can lead to massive loss of life. And they both leave a terrible mess of property, though I think the flood damaged is just nastier to clean up. Been there with a church member’s house after a big flood in 93 in Houston. After slow moving floods, that leave structures largely intact, you have to go in and gut the interior and get nasty, wet sheetrock, carpet, furniture, etc out.
Both are stressful on survivors.
Here in Eastern WA the danger from wildfires is vastly amplified by invasive plants, chiefly Cheat grass, aided by tumble weeds (Russian thistle, tumble mustard, etc.) The native plants don’t cope as well with massive range fires as compared to the alien species.
The off road fire trucks (big, big 4x4s) aren’t electric.
1. Refresh my recollection. What was the proximate cause of the Paradise fire? Negligence of PG&E?
2. Did Gerard’s insurance company pay? A fair amount?
3. Did Gerard or someone else rebuild in Paradise?
Frederick says, “I’ve been to Seattle a few times since the 2020 unpleasantness.”
An update on life in Seattle: “BREAKING: Seattle police and fire will no longer be answering to mental crisis calls. ‘Crisis responders’ or social workers, will be dispatched instead. They are not allowed to be armed.”
https://twitter.com/KatieDaviscourt/status/1694072347790295377
The Paradise fire versus Lahaina? The didn’t have the power of Big Brother like today – only a misdirected but compliant media.
BREAKING – “FEMA Order Surfaces for Media ‘Blackout’ of Maui Disaster Images” via Trending Politics https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/fema-order-surfaces-knab/
Biden’s Thought Controlling machinations continue. And the corruption of the Democrat Deep State is a cancer that’s metastasised, killing transparency and accountability.
PS This is quite moving, Neo. Gerard’s mum — AMAZING! — only the late James Lovelock (“Gaia” hypothesis originator) comes close to her healthy super-seniorage, in my recent memory..
@Pa+Cat:An update on life in Seattle:
Yeah, I live here, so not news to me, though it may be to you. And I can look out my window and see the weather here before someone reports it where you’ll read it. I assume you’re in PA because of your handle, but if you like, tell me where you live and I’ll send you links to national media who will tell you what’s going on where you live.
Like I said, large portions of Seattle are no worse than they have ever been, and I can say this from my direct experience, not because I saw people talking on Twitter. The parts that are probably worse are the ones where they’re getting the mental health crisis calls that, as you point out, the cops are not responding to anymore. And those are the parts of Seattle I’ve been staying out of, not being an idiot, and so I can’t say of my own direct experience that they’re worse than 2020 but I would presume they were.
Neo:
Forget about #2. Gerard was renting.
Paradise fire blamed on PGE (power company) being unprepared for high winds and dry vegetation.
Now, PGE will shut down electricity for the area when wind blows hard. Might be a day, might be a week.
Bureaucracy slowing rebuilding. Of 11,000 destroyed, 2,000 built.
Fullmoon:
The story in Maui is that Hawaii Electric only spent $245k on burying power lines and managing vegetation. HE was too focused on Green Energy.
HE will file Chapter 11.
The shocker about Maui is that so many people are unaccounted for so many days latter. And many are kids. How can this be unknown?
If there are 100 dead children, the wrongful death claims will force HE into BK.
Nature is cruel at times. It is made more so, when humans don’t respect it.
My older daughter lives between Sacramento and Tahoe.
To be prepared for instant evacuation, she keeps her horse trailer hooked up to her big pickup throughout the summer.
Over the past couple of years, they have had a number of major fires in the vicinity. Yet neither the Power company, whose fallen wires are culpable in some instances, nor the state that won’t do, or permit, house keeping in the forests, seem to have the will to take serious preventive/mitigating actions.
I can only imagine the feeling of helplessness and despair in places like Paradise, and Maui, when a conflagration is bearing down.
Neo, as a part time cargo pilot while stationed in Hawaii back in the ’60s I flew into many outlying airports at one time or another. What a treat to see what was at the time less crowded parts of Paradise.
(I specialized in hauling the Sunday morning papers to the outer islands)
My family also spent a few days on Maui. At that time Maui was a jewel, and Lahaina was a quaint town with a relatively modest tourist industry.
“…How can this be unknown?…”
1. Bad optics and therefore must be suppressed.
2. Haven’t yet found a way to pin it on Trump.
3. Other?
Your story is quite moving, Neo.
Simple, and yet it evokes feelings of loss, family, loyalty, and love that make one think about loss, grieving, and the strength of human abilities to keep moving on after disaster strikes.
Gerard’s mother was quiet a woman. Someone ought to write a book about her. Gerard paid tribute to her with several posts, but 104 years – wow just wow.
Thanks for sharing this slice of your life.
Neo:
Very moving history. Thank you for sharing. I’m sure there are many painful memories there: about Gerard, about his mother, and about Paradise. I continue to pray for peace and healing.
Jon Baker writes above about floods. I have never experienced catastrophic fire, but we had three (count ’em — 3!) 100 year floods in two years. I’ll tell you, those were horrible events. We could watch the water sheeting across the neighbor’s field, then across the road and into our front yard. Completely wiped out our lawn. Three times. Didn’t kill the cat or my son Beau, ’cause he died from combat injuries after serving in Iraq.
Ok, ok, excuse the excess. I was never in a fire and never had a son. But Beau did not die from combat injuries, either. And Joe was willing to try to upstage the victims in Maui for a cheap moment of “poor Joe,” so I thought I’d follow his example.
Getting to the real story: Paradise was a horror. I lived just over the mountains in NV, and we were watching closely because for a while it looked like the fire would crest the Sierras and start down into our valley. We had the horse trailer hooked up and offered boarding to any horses that were evacuated from CA. I didn’t know Gerard then, but wish I had.
We did have three 100 year floods in two years, but I’m not really comparing it to what happened in paradise or Maui. You have to have a heart as cold as Joe’s to try to pull off that BS.
It appears Maui was caused in large part by invasive species of grass, strong winds, and local officials who were more interested in political correctness than protecting their people. If I read the news correctly, there are still 800 people missing, many of whom will ultimately be added to the list of fatalities. It will be a historic disaster. A lot of officials should lose their job over this. RIP.
Dear Neo:
Thank you so much for allowing us to see more of the man and his life.
My parents were burned out of their retirement home in the Paradise Mountain fire in Northern San Diego County in 2003 – this was the house that they had built themselves, over the space of six or seven years, on a knee of a hill overlooking the Guajito and the mountains beyond. Mom and Dad loved that place – and they rebuilt. Having done most of the construction themselves the first time around, they knew exactly what to insure for, although when they rebuilt, they relied on contractors the second time around. They moved right back to the site as soon as they could, and lived in an RV until the house was rebuilt. They were blissfully happy in that house, until Dad passed away, and Mom became an invalid. We have a few relics from the burned house – a teacup that my daughter found in a desert firepit in Kuwait, some pottery and things salvaged…
As for the Maui fire, I’m still horrified and disbelieving. How could the fail be so total, that more than a thousand people (including schoolchildren!!!) are still listed as missing, a week later?
Neo, thank you for this. I lived in NorCal 1977-2017, so know the locations.
In case you haven’t seen it, this was posted today on American Digest, which I checked to see if your Paradise story was on there:
https://joelhirst.blog/2023/08/11/rip-gvdl/ (Open Thread, 8/23/23)
neo:
Lovely, if bittersweet, post. You do write well. Nice pix too.
Uncle Aldous’s home burned down a couple years before he died.
___________________________________
When one of those hellish Southern Californian brush fires destroyed the home where Aldous Huxley was living with his wife Laura they escaped with their lives, but Aldous’s manuscripts, his precious collection of letters from great people of his day, and a library that had taken years to assemble were all reduced to ashes.
I was in New York when I heard of the disaster, and hurried to phone Aldous my sympathy. ‘It was a hideous experience,’ he exclaimed. I could visualise his quizzical smile when he added, ‘But it did make me feel extraordinarily clean.'”
–Anita Loos
https://anecdotage.com/anecdotes/when-aldous-huxleys-house-burned-down
___________________________________
The Huxleys lived beneath the first “O” of the iconic “HOLLYWOOD” sign.
Anita Loos was a Hollywood writer friend of the Huxleys. She worked on a great many projects. She is most famous for “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” as the original book, then play, then movie.
Not Maui nor Paradise but an exceptional book:
Young Men and Fire
Norman Maclean, 1992.
Gerard’s mom is amazing in the photo at age 104. May she Rest in Peace.
Thank you so much for your post Neo. Love the photo of Gerard and his mom.
I, like so many here, miss Gerard and his writing. Again, thank you so much for sharing your insights. You two created a paradise of sorts for yourselves, at least it seems that way to me.
Sad, and crazy times of late. So much pain and suffering all around.
Maui county had a meeting, not sure what purpose, but the audience pretty much had had it with all the BS from the state, county and feds. Every single speaker was angry, and let the council know it.
The only thing coming out of all this is what we already know. The government is incompetent, and expensive. the Red Cross is a pathetic joke. and politicians use our deaths to advance their own power, and grab more money.
Neo,
A very moving post.
For me it is impossible to even imagine the devastation wrought by a horrible fire.
Lahaina was a beautiful old town set in a location in paradise. We were lucky enough to visit it 6 years ago during our “dream vacation” to Hawaii.
VV–
Thank you for the link to Joel Hirst’s tribute to Gerard.
Cicero:
Gerard’s mom was indeed amazing at any age, but especially considering her age. Sharp as a tack, wise-cracking, incredibly well turned out always, courageous, loving, kind, friendly. She played tennis till she was about 94, and only bad knees made her stop.
Gerard’s maternal grandmother died at 99. The day she died she had played bridge and won. Afterwards she didn’t feel quite up to snuff, so she went to the doctor. He told her to change into a gown and he’d examine her. When he came back to the room a minute or two later, she had died.
I live in the foothills above the San Juaquin Valley. I know nothing about Gerard or his mother, nor Paradise in particular.
My contribution is geographical and sociological only. Paradise is something like 1700′ elevation. While it may be a bit cooler than Chico, which is barely above sea level (the entire San Juaquin Valley is at or barely above sea level) the higher you go, the cooler it is. The Sierra Nevada mountain range bounds the valley to the east.
There is little reason for retired people to live in the valley as opposed to the foothills. Go too high, you are snowbound in the winter. Chico is a college town, with a CSU located there (California State University), with a lot of young people living there for the duration of the college year.
As Neo said, there is little variety in the dining choices in the foothills. My little town has one true restaurant, and a couple of options that are not the sit-down-and-be-served variety. A pizza joint and a burger joint, and more recently, a burrito joint. I would never even consider driving down to the valley for dinner; it is a difficult and dangerous drive, because it goes through a beautiful river gorge. I will go only if I have multiple errands to take care of there.
The cost of living is lower in the foothills. There is little crime, certainly nothing like in the valley, which is filled with Hispanic gangs, second or third generation offspring from farm laborers from Mexico, and now, a large influx of illegals from central America.
Things are quiet in the foothills, and that is what retirees most desire. I read every day about multi-car crashes on the 99 (the main highway in the valley), home invasions, child neglect and abuse (very common), shootings of police officers, and now mass shoplifting events.
Us retirees look down on the valley and think (WTF is going on down there?).
The lack of dining facilities is annoying, but not a deal-breaker. I know how to cook. I’ve got mountains, rivers, and a lake to enjoy in my retirement. I am familiar with the postmaster, the restaurateur, the barber, the liquor store vendor, and my immediate neighbors, amongst others.
There is an inverse relationship between the population of a community and their friendliness.
Gerard was correct to move his elderly mother into the foothills from an objective viewpoint. I am happy he was able to evacuate with his mother when he did.
Erronius
I think Lahaina will get more “official care” than did Paradise. for one reason, there are enough native Hawaiians that the bleeding hearts will open their purse strings to help the People of Color. For another reason, there are enough Coastal Californians who have / had vacation homes there to shell out money. Both will pressure the state and the federal government to shell out money.
It seemed to me that Paradise was largely forgotten not long after it happened. We do live in a “Look! A squirrel!” culture now, where people have the attention span of a gnat. Secondly, the squeaky wheels lefties just thought of it as a bunch of old white people who largely deserved anything that happened to them. I saw it and thought, “Therefore but the grace of God…” There are not a lot of places retirees can go in California, and Paradise was one of the few.
Back around the time of the Camp Fire, there was a company just starting out building 3D-printed houses, a non-profit. I thought helping the retirees in Paradise would be an excellent opportunity for them. However, although based in California, they apparently only build in third-world countries. (I know one reason is permitting and wheel-greasing is MUCH easier. The French company that wanted to work on the high-speed rail in California gave up and worked on a project in Morrocco because it was easier to deal with the Moroccan government than the California government.)
To follow up on Jim’s post @9:47 last night: Jim said, “The only thing coming out of all this is what we already know. The government is incompetent, and expensive.”
The locals are understandably angry about the cushy lodgings of the FEMA staff members: “Pain and suffering have turned to anger for some residents after national news reports showed FEMA workers staying at luxury hotels on Maui.
‘FEMA booked themselves in the five-star luxury resorts,’ said Fox News Host Jesse Waters in a segment on Tuesday after Daily Mail posted the photos the same day. The photos appear to show FEMA workers relaxing in luxury resorts at the cocktail bar. Another photo shows FEMA workers on their laptops at the Fairmont Kea Lani. The images are rubbing devastated Lahaina residents the wrong way.”
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/08/24/anger-grows-fema-workers-stay-luxury-hotels-amid-maui-wildfires-disaster/
not_a_lawyer:
To clarify: Gerard’s mother lived in Chico, and had lived in Chico for 50 years or so. She didn’t evacuate from anywhere.
A high school classmate, a lifelong bass player in mostly C&W bands (tell- he was in the Folk Club in high school, in addition to tuba in the school band.), moved to Austin in the misplaced hope that he could jam with Willie. Lacking Willie, he joined up with lesser names and continued his music. His house got burned up in a fire during the 2011-12 drought. Unfortunately, he didn’t have insurance for his house.
He didn’t fall into despair, but figured out a solution. He got a day job that paid better than being in a band, and rebuilt his house. With insurance, this time.
I was teaching in San Marcos the year there was a massive flood, the result of 25 inches of rain in 24 hours. The house of one of my students got washed out.
The government types in Hawaii didn’t exactly show that we should depend on them in crisis times.
BTW, there are some incredibly beautiful photos at the current American Digest. Neo, did you choose them?
Gringo:
Yes, I chose all the American Digest photos since Gerard’s death. Thanks. They are all free of copyright restrictions, too.
Neo, thank you so much for this post. Sharing one’s private life is difficult, but there is healing as well as sorrow in our remembrances of loved ones.
I have talked with several people about the Maui fire, and usually the Paradise fire comes up, and how similar they are.
Apparently, the lessons in California did not cross the ocean, which is true of so many things.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” shouldn’t include as “history” what happened just a few years ago!
I haven’t looked at American Digest lately (had to cut down on my internet time, now that I have a “day job” at the mission site), and missed the pictures.
They are stunning!
Thanks for keeping both this site for beautiful thoughts and that site for beautiful images.