this weekend Southern California is in a State of Shock grappling with damage and Devastation after fires that almost randomly ravaged neighborhoods from the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena here's leean we have a potential for structures being threatened in the next 20 minutes first it was one then two the two became three and then four and five and on it on it went fires burning from the mountains to the ocean Sparks rode the hot breath of the Santa Ana winds all across LA County what some described as a hurricane without the rain my heart is in my
my throat pray but God doesn't stop this this wind terrible choices had to be made in an instant stay or run what to take what to leave what about elderly neighbors pets and livestock and then the us the relative lucky ones who were looking in from the outside from the safe side of the fire lines left to wonder about our friends and our families I'm at the end of the hose my CBS News colleague Carter Evans was in the heart of the palace fire not reporting the story he was the story saving his own house
as well as others trying to help the firefighters who they asked me for help cuz he couldn't get over the gate this is what my cousin saw when he he was evacuating his home there's the drop and this is what another dear friend of ours saw when they returned to theirs will they rebuild that's hard to say their neighborhood is no longer the place it was all the things that make up a community schools doctor's offices nursing homes barber shops grocery stores gas stations recck centers Parks neighborhoods need that kind of infrast structure and Everywhere
You Look it's all gone places residents count on for prayer and counseling during moments of grief like this like the Altadena Community Church the alaa mosque and this Pasadena synagogue they all seemed forsaken there is so much loss that many don't even realize what's gone until they need it can you think of a place more useful during a massive cleanup than the local hardware store they're gone too of course this is also home to those we know from stage and screen people like Billy Crystal Eugene Levy Ricky Lake Mandy Moore Paris Hilton Fame didn't block
the Flames from their homes either misery for all the realin a wonderful Fish Shack along the Pacific Coast Highway was a place for countless family get togethers our kids loved its California quirkiness food was great too 's nothing left but the sign moonshadows was another island of Tranquility it's where my wife and I toasted buying our first home now I can barely tell where it was the personal landscape and certainly the business landscape they're going to be changed forever but so is California's cultural landscape old California architecture like the clapboard Ranch House of the Beloved
cowboy and humorist Will Rogers it didn't survive neither did The Rustic row of cabins that was once the Tanga ranch motel built in 1929 by newspaper Baron William Randol Hurst the worst might be over but the idea of any La Phoenix rising out of the ashes seems like a distant mirage at best [Music] [Music]
