More than 1,100 homes, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed in the Los Angeles fires, and thousands more have been forced to evacuate.

For Angelenos in the midst of the fires and those watching under apocalyptic skies, this is the first act of collective trauma that will change hearts and landscapes for generations.

Unfortunately, I’ve been covering fires long enough to know that what happens after a fire is a second round of wondering how to live when everything you’ve ever known is gone. I learned that it was a longer trauma. It’s not just material things. There are backgrounds from everyday life, such as your morning coffee spot, the scenery you see while running, or your cute neighbor with a cute dog. Sometimes we don’t appreciate it until suddenly it’s gone. And won’t be back.

That is why I would like to tell you the story of Orly Israel’s escape. In many ways it is similar to thousands of others. But in one important respect, it is different.

Israel, 30, grew up on coveted Alphabet Street. The Pacific Palisades neighborhood was originally conceived as one of modest, middle-class housing, but over the years, like much of Los Angeles’ hill country, it has evolved into luxury and celebrity. His parents, a broadcaster and master gardener, bought a house there when he was 10 years old, and he recently moved back in with them for a short time.

Israel first heard about the fire when a friend texted him asking if he was OK. He told me that he had no idea anything was going on until he looked out the window and thought, “Whoa, there’s a fire really close by.”

Shortly thereafter, he said, the family evacuated with their dog in tow “when we couldn’t see the sky.” Israel grabbed what was most important to him – a wooden box containing years old hard drives, notebooks and diaries – and set off in his car.

He then spots a blonde man walking toward the fire instead of away from it. he immediately realized that this was his friend tanner charles People who make a living by chasing disasters. Charles asked Israel if he wanted to investigate the fire, to which Israel replied: This is a very scary thought. What could be wrong?”

They hiked high above the water tower above the top of Chautauqua Boulevard and watched the fire destroy the neighborhood that had come to symbolize a certain kind of sophisticated, genteel Hollywood success.

“It’s just moving and growing and just raging,” Israel said, trying to take in its vastness. “You know, the biggest fire I’ve ever seen was like a furnace or a bonfire, and all of a sudden it’s like the mountain is screaming at you.”

Israel told me that he was a lonely child who had trouble connecting with people, even his siblings. As I grew up, I started thinking about how we could change this, which led me to think about how we communicate with each other. Often it’s not that good and it does us a huge disservice. He points out that research shows loneliness can affect health. Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

He said Israel began to think of communication like a skill, something that needed to be worked on, the same way we do fitness or learning to swim. “You’ll never learn to swim unless you get in the water,” someone told him, and it resonated with him.

He broke it down into parts and understood that the first step to becoming a good communicator is to become a good listener.

So, one day in November 2011, He set up a table in the Palisades, just a folding job. We put up signs that read, “Here to Listen” to provide a connection in a town where people are often too busy to care about what others think.

And people started talking. Often about deep and painful things.

One day, it turned into a passion project. Since then, Israel has set up bleachers around the world every weekend. Initially, he recorded all of his conversations in a diary, but stopped after reaching 1,000. He estimates he may have spoken to 1,500 people.

“I had some great conversations that I never had with people I was close to before,” he said. “And I didn’t want to let it go.”

Now he began to speak for himself. He wants to share what he learned at the listening table, and he plans to give 100 speeches about it in 100 days. Wednesday was the 8th day.

He was at the top of Chautauqua on Tuesday, the seventh day, when Charles asked him to give a speech about the need for connection in a divided world. When Charles suggested that it might be time to leave as the fire drew closer and closer, he was just at the part where communication was something he had to strive for.

They returned to Alphabet Street and Israel’s house. The sky was black. It was trash day, and the wind blew the trash cans away like leaves. Coyotes were everywhere.

Israel grabbed a hose and tried to protect the house. But the embers fell like the rain we miss so much, swirling and stirring, and as soon as he extinguished one spot of fire, another was lit. His cell phone died while he was on the hill, and his parents had no way of knowing if he was safe. As a mother, I want to be serious, Orly? Your mother deserves a free smack on the head for that.

“I was faced with the reality that, ‘If I leave this house, I’ll never see this house again,'” he said. “If it matters, at least I know I gave it my all.”

He was right. The house is gone.

By the time he realized there was nothing he could do, the traffic had cleared and everyone else had left. He made it down the hill and found his family. When I spoke to him on Wednesday, he had only been asleep for a few minutes.

Like so many other Angelenos, I’m stuck in a shelter, on a friend’s couch, in my car, stumbling into a new day and a new life that I couldn’t have imagined 24 hours ago.

In the coming days we will have to begin the difficult task of counting our sorrows. Many are small and personal – burnt photographs, gardens reduced to ashes. Many people will be overwhelmed. Two people have already died.

But you don’t have to endure them alone. That is why the story of Israel is so precious.

As he says, “Community is the difference between hope and despair.”

He’s still in shock and trying to focus on the connection while processing what’s going on. People have been reaching out to check on him, including people who are his friends and people he hasn’t heard from in years.

“The outpouring of messages and love from people who are still helping me almost outweighs how cruel the situation is,” he said.

What we are experiencing is a collective brutality, but we don’t have to be alone. Los Angeles isn’t always the best place for community, kindness, or listening. But whether we like it or not, we are in this together.

And our willingness to be there for each other in the coming days will determine not just our individual futures, but the future of all of us.

And what will become of this beautiful, complex city that has long been crying out like a mountain of fire for us to listen and pay attention to more than just our own lives?

What else to read:

Must read: Two people dead, more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings destroyed in Los Angeles County fires
Next up: LA approves $1 billion Television City project amid concerns over Hollywood’s future
LA Times Feature: Column: California’s compromise — prepare to evacuate

stay golden,
Anita Chhabria

PS If you want a break from fire news, check out the latest article in my series with Jessica Garrison on police interrogation techniques. This is the story of how two victims of a brutal kidnapper featured in Netflix’s “American Nightmare” tracked down and tracked down their kidnapper. Put down other crimes and victims.

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