Can We Stop the Madness - People Just Lost Everything

Why must we politicize tragedies?

You know what?

I'm tired.

I've spent the last few days working in the Altadena community and at the evacuation center in Pasadena. I've talked to and helped people who stayed, I've held a woman as we looked at the damage assessment maps and she just learned everything she loved was gone and broke down, I've looked hundreds of people in the eye and told them it will be weeks before they can go home.

I've watched tremendous heroism as I've chased hotshots up canyon walls, listened to the stories of firefighters assigned initial attack, and engine crews working behind homes removing brush and vegetation in anticipation of Santa Ana wind events. As law enforcement diligently kept looters out of the areas (a special hell awaits you) and utility workers operating in the worst of conditions busted ass to restore basic services. As search and rescue conducted their vital but grim work of verifying the loss, or not, of life.

I've listened to the radio traffic as fire crews in the neighborhoods jumped on any flare up, doused any shrub or home that flared up or maneuvered media away from the search and rescue teams sifting through the rubble.

But I'm not tired for the work. I'm exhausted for the madness behind me, the news cycle and social media nonsense that fuels the flames of division.

Can we stop? Can we stop with the wild nonsense and rumors? Can we stop with the single point cause - climate change, DEI, reservoirs not there or any of the other nonsense filling the social media echo chamber?

Can we just stop for a minute and remember that a HUGE number of people just lost EVERYTHING. Can we open up our empathy channels and let them flow? Can we remember at the end of all of this is a mom, a dad, sister, brother, a grandpa or grandma who doesn't have a favorite orange tree to tend to anymore? A beloved photo album to whisk through, a cherished memory... I have a box of keepsakes in my home full of love letters my love wrote me when we first started dating ... I don't know what I would do if those were no longer there.

Look around you, what are your touchstones in your home, what are those things that define you, that are your existence and try for a minute to imagine they no longer existed.

Stop.

Stop the madness and open your heart. These folks just lost everything.