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Rebuild:LA is marking the 60th episode and announcing a brief hiatus, before we begin our third season and bring you more stories of the efforts to recover and rebuild in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. We'll return on February 3, when we bring you an update on the extraordinary work being done by the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, including the status of their efforts to investigate the insurance industry, as well as legislative initiatives to help fire survivors.

Until we return, check out a few of our past episodes:

• Episode 29 - Delay, Deny, Discourage and Underpay with Joy Chen of Eaton Fire Survivors Network
• Episode 12 - Build Back Better with Alexis Revas, the co-founder of Cover
• Episode 051 - 70% Of Survivors Can’t Return Home with Department of Angels’ Andrew King and Angela Giacchetti

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With Us, an immersive art exhibit in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles, has opened, and it is a compelling experience for anyone who visits. Extreme Weather Survivors and the Department of Angels collaborated to produce the installation, which brings together video, still photography, original art pieces, and the compelling survivors’ soundscape you’ll hear in this episode. Our anniversary show was recorded directly from the exhibit. We collected short interviews with those who’ve spent the last year helping fire survivors, and we’ve added them to the soundscape graciously shared by the With Us collaborators. This episode of Rebuild:LA pays tribute to the thousands of Angelenos who survived the fires, and the tens of thousands of people who have stepped up over the past year to help.

The With Us exhibit is open to all for free, from January 4th through the 7th, from 12 noon to 7:30 pm at the City Market Social House in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles. If you stop by, bring some food donations for the organization, Support and Feed.

Resources:

• With Us
• Department of Angels
• Extreme Weather Survivors
• Project:Camp
• Eaton Fire Survivors Network
• Team Palisades
• Palisades Recovery Coalition
• Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
• KCRW Love Letters
• Support and Feed

Items Needed:

• canned corn/peas
• cereal like oats
• dry pasta
• plant-based pasta sauce
• rice
• canned and dry beans
• nuts
• canned/preserved fruits and vegetables
• nut butters and tahini

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Sierra Kos tells us about the exhibit, With Us, an immersive LA fire experience, in this special bonus episode of Rebuild:LA. The event is on Sunday, January 4, from 12-4 PM and is free to attend. You can get your tickets here:

With Us Tickets

Kos and her collaborators wanted to bring the first-hand accounts of surviving the Palisades and Eaton Fires to the people of Los Angeles. The exhibit uses sight and sound and offers visitors a chance to hear from survivors in their own voices and through their own images.

Organizers have partnered with the Department of Angels to present social data in context with fire stories.

Department of Angels

Project Camp will be on-site to provide child care with special, trauma-informed care providers.

Project Camp

And the event is also taking food donations through Support and Feed.

Support and Feed

They’re asking for:

• canned corn/peas
• cereal like oats
• dry pasta
• plant-based pasta sauce
• rice
• canned and dry beans
• nuts
• canned/preserved fruits and vegetables
• nut butters and tahini

Support the show

Send us a text

In this, the second part of our special two-part holiday edition of Rebuild:LA, host Cameron Barrett sits down with an Eaton Fire survivor and the president of an organization that lent him a hand. Both guests happen to be Los Angeles Fire Department Captains. In part I released last week, Captain Jerry Puga told the story of turning his back on his burning home, knowing he couldn't save it. And his friend, Captain Chris Stine, the President of the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Association (LAFRA), talked about the work his organization did in the immediate aftermath to help Jerry and many other LAFD members impacted by the fires. In part two, we hear about the Puga family's struggle to return home, and the Relief Association's work not only providing financial support but also emotional and spiritual help.

Resources:

• LAFRA's Fundraising Golf Event
• Jerry Puga's Fire Story in Pictures
• LAFRA's Official Charity
• LAFRA
• JM Eagle
• Gary Sinise Foundation

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The first of our special two-part holiday edition of Rebuild:LA has host Cameron Barrett sitting down with an Eaton Fire survivor and the president of an organization that lent him a hand. What makes the conversation unique is that both guests are Los Angeles Fire Department Captains. Captain Jerry Puga lost his home in the Eaton Fire, evacuating with his family just minutes before the fire took out his whole neighborhood. And his friend, Captain Chris Stine, is the President of the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Association (LAFRA), an organization that's been helping those who help others for nearly 120 years. In this season of giving, we hear from Jerry and Chris about the power of helping others.

Next week, part two will delve into the Puga family's struggle to return home, and the work the Relief Association has shouldered, helping more than 30 families of LAFD members affected by the fires.

Resources:

• LAFRA's Fundraising Golf Event
• Jerry Puga's Fire Story in Pictures
• Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighters' Fund
• LAFRA
• JM Eagle
• Gary Sinise Foundation

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This week on Rebuild:LA, host Cameron Barrett talks with Erica Peng, a lecturer at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, who teaches leaders about how our fight-flight-freeze neurobiology shapes and undermines behavior and performance. Peng has partnered with the National Fire Protection Association to teach a unique approach to crisis leadership, explaining how our neurobiology can actually get in the way of us doing the right thing when we’re faced with a disaster like a wildfire, or even when we resist doing the right thing in making ourselves and our homes safer from the risk of wildfire. Peng knows what she’s talking about. She experienced this phenomenon first-hand in 2019, when she decided to evacuate from her home north of Berkeley, California, as a wildfire approached. In our conversation with her in this week’s episode, Peng will explain why we often react in direct opposition to our best interests, and even more helpfully, how we can control those reactions to be more resilient and better prepared.

Resources:

• Erica Peng
• The Blog Post that Started it All
• What's Missing in Wildfire Mitigation 
• David Rock's NeuroLeadership
• "How Emotions Are Made" by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• Brene Brown on Empathy
• Brene Brown on Blame

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Imagine a rocket launcher…that shoots water balloons. Inspired by the defense technology known as Iron Dome, a group of Israeli entrepreneurs has developed a defense mechanism against wildfires they're calling FireDome. In host Cameron Barrett’s conversation this week with FireDome’s co-founder and CEO, Gadi Benjamini, we learn about a cutting-edge technology created to save lives and property.

Resources:

• FireDome
• FireDome in Action VIDEO
• Contact Gadi Benjamini
  
  

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We know that the Palisades and Eaton Fires left devastation in their wake, devastation that wasn’t just burned structures and displaced lives, but dangerous contaminants that remained in our soil and groundwater. How far-reaching was the contamination, and how concerned do residents need to be? Thanks to the University of Southern California’s CLEAN Project, there is now a way for anyone living in Los Angeles County to get answers to those questions. And the help is free! This week, host Cameron Barrett found out about the testing and resources the CLEAN Project is providing residents when she sat down with Dr. Seth John of the Department of Earth Sciences at USC, and Sujeet Rao, the Director of Health and Well-being at USC’s Dornsife Public Exchange.

Resources:

• University of Southern California’s CLEAN Project
• Submit a Sample of Your Soil
• CLEAN Project Contamination Maps
• USC’s Dornsife Public Exchange
• USC’s Department of Earth Sciences
• Lead Poisoning Fact Sheet

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Dr. Nicole Maccalla spent the first two days of the Eaton Fire on the ground, fighting to save her home. She thought that if she could just keep her house from burning, she would be okay, and when the fire was finally out, she could return to the place she and her children had called home for the last 11 years. But what she found was a house that might have been still standing, but could not be lived in. Everything inside was covered with ash, and she soon found out, other things more dangerous things that you couldn’t see, like lead, asbestos, and other heavy metals. Since then, Nicole has been trying to navigate insurance, federal aid, and state loopholes to make her house a home again. She and several fire survivors formed Eaton Fire Residents United and have created a website filled with invaluable resources and hard lessons they’ve had to learn firsthand, in their efforts to recover and rebuild. Cameron Barrett talks to Nicole Maccalla this week about her work.

Resources:

• Eaton Fire Residents United
• Share Your Testing
• What the Eaton Fire Left Behind
• Contamination Map

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In the second of our two-part episode with Eaton Fire survivors Andrew King and Angela Giacchetti, host Cameron Barrett asks the two about their work on the Department of Angels' quarterly survey of fire survivors, Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report. The research is uncovering some difficult truths about the recovery and rebuilding efforts in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. 70% of those surveyed say they can’t return home. Nearly that many report struggling with their mental health, and the majority of survivors say they have run out of savings and are taking on debt. King and Giacchetti are not only administering the report, but have been instrumental in the development of questions, knowing that their first-hand knowledge as fire survivors makes them uniquely qualified to ask the questions that matter.

Resources:

• Department of Angels
• Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report
• Palisades Long Term Recovery Group
• Palisades Recovery Coalition
• Eaton Fire Survivor’s Network
• Eaton Fire Collaborative
• Disaster Case Management

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