President Trump repeated falsehoods about California’s firefighting efforts on Friday and blamed Democratic officials for a wide variety of issues affecting the response to wildfires as he toured areas of Los Angeles damaged by the disaster. In a meeting with state leaders in Pacific Palisades, a community that was heavily damaged by fire, Mr. Trump … Read more
Firefighters north of Los Angeles were racing on Thursday morning to contain a brush fire that had exploded the day before, quickly burning more than 10,000 acres and forcing the temporary closure of parts of Interstate 5. Red flag warnings, indicating dangerous fire weather conditions, were in effect for much of Southern California on Thursday. … Read more
I kept clicking refresh, looking for the house on Revello Drive. I scanned the Los Angeles County recovery website for a week for any word about whether a house in Pacific Palisades might have survived the fires. I searched online for nearby landmarks — ones that survived, ones that succumbed — to convince myself the … Read more
This is the place where an Anita Baker ballad slips through the speakers and the smell of bacon floats in an irresistible fog. Regulars (and who isn’t?) push through the glass door and sink into a red folding chair hankering for their usual order. The salmon croquette and the catfish are favorites, but the grits … Read more
Dozens of vehicles sit abandoned, covered in ash, along a stretch of Palisades Drive near Sunset Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. There’s a pair of black boots beside a gray Subaru Crosstrek. Down the street, a pink backpack with the name Sonya on it has been left in a Tesla Model … Read more
One of my favorite things about making reporting trips to Los Angeles is that I always get to visit my uncle and his family at their condo in Pacific Palisades. Last week was different. They are new evacuees, bouncing between a friend’s apartment and a relative’s house in the suburbs, traveling across the city with … Read more
The Push and Pull of Los Angeles: Beauty and Danger By Somini Sengupta Somini Sengupta is a climate reporter who has lived across Los Angeles. Often when you’re visiting Los Angeles, you walk up the 282 steps to the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook. You pass the sagebrush and the primrose. The high rises of downtown … Read more
Donna and Bob Williamson call the strange souvenirs pulled from the ashes of their home their Museum of Misery. There is the green wine bottle that melted, its glass neck drooping, that looks like it was pulled from a Salvador Dalí painting. Silver forks that fused into a thick, lumpy utensil, its prongs fanning out … Read more