Palisades Fire - Los Angeles

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is a fire storm of mass destruction and will only get worse over the night.

Iconic landmarks like the Getty Villa and Palisades HS are on fire. 0% contained.

I grew up in SoCal and this is a disaster. People had to abandon their cars in traffic and run.

30,000 people evacuated but the Getty staff say the museum is very secure. My LA friends left their home before the gridlock. I have been through three fire evacuations in the last few years in the Rocky Mountain West, and several friends lost their homes with minutes to get out. The trauma of losing everything you have is unimaginable, especially for children. I have totally changed how I arrange everything. My heart goes out to anyone who has to evacuate, and wait and wonder what is happening to their home. The wind forecast looks terrible.

If you don't mind sharing, I'd like to hear what changes you made. I live in LA and have several family and friends sheltering in hotels right now.

I am glad your friends made it out, and I hope their homes make it.

We had 15 minutes in our first evacuation, many of our friends had literally two minutes. Here is what I’ve done

-Reorganized “must have” paper and objects so that they exist in one grabbable plastic file box stored in the front closet. This means that the overall organization is disrupted. Obviously it has passports, banking, emergency cash etc., but it also has my favorite drawings from each child, original genealogical documents, love letters. This is the box that is first out. It’s what you need and what you feel like you will die without. I sharpied symbols on the box to remind me to close windows, doors, and shut off power/gas. We don’t have propane but if you do you should try to remove it. This is where you put the things that you take if you have two minutes. I also have a small box of charging equipment. This is totally an emotional crutch for me. I learned the first time that slinging chargers into random places made me feel out of control and panicky, but I really wanted to take them.

-The front closet also has flat boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, scissors that are not used for anything else. They are there primarily for art and books.

-I have packed a box with one or two pieces of each of the multiple sets of china and crystal that are family things.

-I have a packed box of our most treasured Christmas things.

-Jewelry is stored in a box with trays and I am religious about putting it away

-Books are shelved so that high priority keepers are together. Old photo albums are there (yes they are scanned, but some photos I want if I can have them).

-Every bedroom has a box of big black trash bags. You can stuff a ton of clothing, stuffed animals, special blankets, etc. in really quickly and the bags will squish into vehicles efficiently. Kids can do this while you do something else.i will never forget holding my kid’s quavering friend who barely escaped with her family and did not have a single thing left. Not one stuffed animal, baby toy, pillowcase. Nothing.

-Scanning and photographing. Pretty much everything that can be scanned is scanned, if it can’t be scanned it’s photographed. I have thumb drives here and send copies to my mother and cousin. This serves two purposes. Whatever we can’t take out, we will have a memory of, and we will get the max for our contents insurance (start scanning receipts for things as you buy). Insurance for build cost is usually not enough, and they’re only obligated to pay a % of contents unless you can document it all.

-Priorotized lists. We know approximately what can go out in 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes. We know what fits in our vehicles and what we can add if our friend comes with a trailer. This is all written in order and stored in an envelope taped to the must go box. Be sure to include a device list. No matter how prepared you are, it’s scary. It’s not a time to make decisions. You don’t want to be in the basement staring at your sorority memorabilia and your grandmother’s ice skates and wondering what to take. This also means someone else can pack if you put locations and ideally a photo on the list.

Overall, my house is no longer organized for maximum efficiency, but for maximum evacuation efficiency. It doesn’t change much or look weird. It just means some extra steps and discipline here and there. Everyone will have different priorities and choices. The key is making those decisions before the crisis and organizing so you don’t have to think or search for things when you evacuate.

This is insane. I agree about people, pets, important documents, and chargers. Laterns/batteries is a good idea too. The kids have a few favorite toys/stuffies. But I don’t care about anything else you mentioned - even if I had a week to prepare I wouldn’t bring China or Christmas decorations or kids artwork. Now if Google and Amazon photo BOTH lose all my digital storage, THEN I’d be devastated. But the stuff is just stuff.

You do you. You have no right to judge anyone else. I had to leave grabbing what I could with no planning the first time. Then we watched and waited for three days. It sucked beyond belief and yes, if I can safely prevent my family from going through what our friends have, I will do it. Now we’re prepared. My best friends lost every single thing. It’s all “just stuff” until it happens to you. Make your own decisions and don’t judge other people as long as they are obeying safety orders.

+1 I’m so sick of people coming for this woman after they ASKED HER how she organizes to get out with all her stuff.

NP. I think the PP is amazing and am so grateful she took the time to post at length. It gave me ideas I wouldn't have even thought of, i.e. Christmas ornaments.

I'm inspired to not just put together a "go" bag with essentials/docs but also a box of most treasured items.

I'm also going to use the snow day tomorrow to have my teenager scan the photos from old photo albums so we have everything in the cloud. I have all my children's photos saved digitally but not the ones from my own childhood.

Scanning photos can be highly technical if you want archival quality. Make sure that teenager knows what they are doing.

Great point. I'd bet there are quite a few of us starting this process now. If you know much about it, could you post something in the tech forum with a few hints? I'd love any advice.

Thanks again for mentioning this.

DP but it’s really not that technical.

There are great phone apps today that make it super simple to get good scans.

I’ve scanned in photos for decades and the apps produce much better results in a fraction of the time than the old scanners.

Sorry but you are wrong about that. I am a graphic imaging professional by trade. Understanding resolution, file formats, color calibration and data management are all crucial.

No, your phone cannot do this job. Photos are not replaceable and if you lose the master photo and all you have is an iphone pic then you have lost image detail forever. There is no way to recover lost image data from a bad scan or poor format choice or lack of color calibration.

Please just take your special photos to a proper professional or at least use one of those online archives services.

if you insist on doing it at home this scanner is what you will need:
https://epson.com/For-Work/Scanners/Photo-and-Graphics/Epson-Perfection-V850-Pro-Photo-Scanner/p/B11B224201?cq_net=g&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD244qrbodEp4ZYkd3C6BAyK1e02B&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuaqUq5vpigMVD3RHAR3wzgwEEAQYASABEgL4U_D_BwE

Perfect is the enemy of good.

I have snapshots from 1910, which are not great and certainly not the quality I can take with my cheap smart phone. However, having anything at all from that time is precious allowing me to see what my ancestors looked like.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is it bad that I don't really care? These people are millionaires and billionaires.

+100

Also remember that many of these rich people had incredibly consumptive lifestyles. Private jets, limousines, world travel, massive homes. They used a disproportional amount of energy, much of it carbon based, and they had a disproportionate impact in creating global climate change which caused this fire.

These people were some of the biggest earth-killers, and now earth is having it’s say.

They are discussing well-known people who have been affected in the news, but 180,000 people have been evacuated. There aren't 180,000 millionaires and billionaires in the area - the majority are everyday folk.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s related to global warming (drought + higher temps longer)
I’m very surprised they didn’t or haven’t brought in federal forest fire crews sooner. Why not bring in national guard or military to truck in water?

Seems eerily similar to what happened in Hawaii.

Yes, fires like this occurring in January is related to a hotter planet. And we should expect to see more and more incidents like this in the coming years and decades.

I posted above a link to John Vallaint's "Fire Weather" which talks about the Fort McMurray fire but also provides a lot of insight into the complexity of fires like these which are essentially wildfires occurring in urban areas. Fires like this make their own weather, and fighting them is extremely complicated. In many instances, things that seem like they make sense to seasoned firefighters can have unexpected and counterintuitive effects. And almost no one has expertise in fighting these fires. Nothing about fighting them is simple or straightforward, and they move an unimaginable speeds, changing course unpredictably.

There will surely be years and decades of analysis into what happened and what went wrong. It will probably be possible to point to pretty much anyone with a modicum of power and blame them for something. But in reality, the world's climate is changing very fast, and we are unprepared for the consequences.

California has always had a volatile climate including years long droughts. The difference is that now we’ve put millions of people in to an entire that is literally adapted to deal with frequent fires (chaparral). It is irresponsible for people to ascribe these fires to climate change. https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/amp/

It's easier to whip out the climate change card than practice forest management and clearing dead underbrush and trees like many countries do. We prefer to lecture from a keyboatd while mischarging our employer for the time spent doing it and claiming it as "work".

Another idiot thinking none of this was done. "Forest Management" would not have prevented this. Clearing dead underbrush? Are you f'ing serious?

Drought, high winds, heat = this. Climate change has exacerbated these.

Prescribed burns in a suburban neighborhood? People already try to clean up their yards. They know the risks.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PS - if you know people looking to buy in SoCal, they should sign an offer TODAY. I predict nice beach cities that are not fire prone - Manhattan Beach, Redondo, Long Beach, Seal Beach, etc - are going to SKYROCKET in price as all the Pac-Pali rich folks look to buy another home ASAP.

Please don't relocate to the Midwest

I'm going to guess that someone looking to live in Manhattan Beach isn't thinking about Des Moines as a backup.

Indeed. Many of us fled the Midwest the second we could.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s related to global warming (drought + higher temps longer)
I’m very surprised they didn’t or haven’t brought in federal forest fire crews sooner. Why not bring in national guard or military to truck in water?

Seems eerily similar to what happened in Hawaii.

Yes, fires like this occurring in January is related to a hotter planet. And we should expect to see more and more incidents like this in the coming years and decades.

I posted above a link to John Vallaint's "Fire Weather" which talks about the Fort McMurray fire but also provides a lot of insight into the complexity of fires like these which are essentially wildfires occurring in urban areas. Fires like this make their own weather, and fighting them is extremely complicated. In many instances, things that seem like they make sense to seasoned firefighters can have unexpected and counterintuitive effects. And almost no one has expertise in fighting these fires. Nothing about fighting them is simple or straightforward, and they move an unimaginable speeds, changing course unpredictably.

There will surely be years and decades of analysis into what happened and what went wrong. It will probably be possible to point to pretty much anyone with a modicum of power and blame them for something. But in reality, the world's climate is changing very fast, and we are unprepared for the consequences.

California has always had a volatile climate including years long droughts. The difference is that now we’ve put millions of people in to an entire that is literally adapted to deal with frequent fires (chaparral). It is irresponsible for people to ascribe these fires to climate change. https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/amp/

It's easier to whip out the climate change card than practice forest management and clearing dead underbrush and trees like many countries do. We prefer to lecture from a keyboatd while mischarging our employer for the time spent doing it and claiming it as "work".

Question: have you ever actually been in the chaparral forest? (Clearly not.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it bad that I don't really care? These people are millionaires and billionaires.

I don't think you understand who lives in those Altadena neighborhoods. I grew up in Pasadena but south of the 210, which was the richer area. There are some rich parts of Altadena, but the parts I've seen burning on TV are not all those.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is it bad that I don't really care? These people are millionaires and billionaires.

No because when something bad happens to you no one will care about you either. Dog eat dog.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:To me, I think just living in CA - the Palisades is asking for trouble. Given the context of wildfires these days wrecking havoc in dry conditions, goodness, you really have to be in serious denial not to recognize the potential danger of living there. It's one thing to accept that risk and continue but another to act all shocked and surprised it's happening.

100000% this is a tragedy of epic proportions that I wouldn't wish upon anyone but on the other hand, from a very sensible perspective, given enough time, this is going to happen. I'll tell you what else will happen in time - a major earthquake. It's science and logic.

It's not that you need to avoid all danger all the time, it's that people need to respect how the earth works and be cognizant and practical about their choices. Be prepared. Be aware and informed. Be realistic. Just know that if you live in one of the most beautiful paradises on earth daily, around dry conditions with brush fires and Santa Ana winds - you will see a day when you might experience a wildfire burning your neighborhood down. It's not some fantasy situation - it's a real risk and it's OK to take that risk but you can't say you never saw it coming.

The other thing I hate about it is that in choosing that reality, they hike up premiums for the rest of us who require home insurance which sucks for me.

Where do you live out of interest? Where is the right place to live?

Not in DC. Not in Florida or the Gulf coast (hurricanes). Not in Tornado Alley. Not on the Pacific Coast (tsunamis and volcanoes and earthquakes). Not on the Outer Banks (hurricanes and rising sea levels). Not in New Zealand or Japan or Indonesia or anywhere on the Ring of Fire or Iceland or Italy or Greece or on any coast (earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis). Not near the Himalayas (earthquakes). Not in Hawaii (volcanoes and tsunamis). Not in Australia (drought and bush fires). Not in Ashville, NC (floods). Not along the Mississippi. Not in the Caribbean.

Why not DC?

Lots of reasons. But read Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen for a start.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:To me, I think just living in CA - the Palisades is asking for trouble. Given the context of wildfires these days wrecking havoc in dry conditions, goodness, you really have to be in serious denial not to recognize the potential danger of living there. It's one thing to accept that risk and continue but another to act all shocked and surprised it's happening.

100000% this is a tragedy of epic proportions that I wouldn't wish upon anyone but on the other hand, from a very sensible perspective, given enough time, this is going to happen. I'll tell you what else will happen in time - a major earthquake. It's science and logic.

It's not that you need to avoid all danger all the time, it's that people need to respect how the earth works and be cognizant and practical about their choices. Be prepared. Be aware and informed. Be realistic. Just know that if you live in one of the most beautiful paradises on earth daily, around dry conditions with brush fires and Santa Ana winds - you will see a day when you might experience a wildfire burning your neighborhood down. It's not some fantasy situation - it's a real risk and it's OK to take that risk but you can't say you never saw it coming.

The other thing I hate about it is that in choosing that reality, they hike up premiums for the rest of us who require home insurance which sucks for me.

Where do you live out of interest? Where is the right place to live?

Not in DC. Not in Florida or the Gulf coast (hurricanes). Not in Tornado Alley. Not on the Pacific Coast (tsunamis and volcanoes and earthquakes). Not on the Outer Banks (hurricanes and rising sea levels). Not in New Zealand or Japan or Indonesia or anywhere on the Ring of Fire or Iceland or Italy or Greece or on any coast (earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis). Not near the Himalayas (earthquakes). Not in Hawaii (volcanoes and tsunamis). Not in Australia (drought and bush fires). Not in Ashville, NC (floods). Not along the Mississippi. Not in the Caribbean.

You left out St. Louis and a lot of the midwest that is actually on a major fault that is due for a major quake anytime. Most people don't know about the New Madrid fault. Earthquakes are common in certain areas of the midwest and because of the properties of the land east of the Rockies quakes there are felt much further all the way to the east coast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it bad that I don't really care? These people are millionaires and billionaires.

and you get to vote...

sigh

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

No. They will remain single family homes. People rebuild. There’s no way pacific palisades, Malibu or anywhere near the Ocean front will be anything less than multimillion dollar property. This will not affect anything. These people love their lifestyle and paradise there.

If anything, the mildly rich will be replaced by the very rich.

Exactly. My family was never uber rich but comfortable upper middle class and wouldn’t be able to start over in the same place. Many neighbors were regular jobs like electricians and teachers who bought in the 70s, 80s, paid off home and continued on. They will never be able to rebuild and live in the same communities. It’s sad.

My friend in Palisades lost his home. It was a multimillion dollar home but that was his main asset. He doesn't have millions squirreled away to rebuild. A lot of people end up in the position that they could never afford to buy their own home even 5 years later with the way real estate prices increase. I don't know what these people will do, there are millions of them.

Same in FL. People just won’t come back or will sell at a loss.

The real enemy here are the insurance companies. They raised rates in FL now they are cancelling CA right in the thick of the season.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:To me, I think just living in CA - the Palisades is asking for trouble. Given the context of wildfires these days wrecking havoc in dry conditions, goodness, you really have to be in serious denial not to recognize the potential danger of living there. It's one thing to accept that risk and continue but another to act all shocked and surprised it's happening.

100000% this is a tragedy of epic proportions that I wouldn't wish upon anyone but on the other hand, from a very sensible perspective, given enough time, this is going to happen. I'll tell you what else will happen in time - a major earthquake. It's science and logic.

It's not that you need to avoid all danger all the time, it's that people need to respect how the earth works and be cognizant and practical about their choices. Be prepared. Be aware and informed. Be realistic. Just know that if you live in one of the most beautiful paradises on earth daily, around dry conditions with brush fires and Santa Ana winds - you will see a day when you might experience a wildfire burning your neighborhood down. It's not some fantasy situation - it's a real risk and it's OK to take that risk but you can't say you never saw it coming.

The other thing I hate about it is that in choosing that reality, they hike up premiums for the rest of us who require home insurance which sucks for me.

Where do you live out of interest? Where is the right place to live?

Not in DC. Not in Florida or the Gulf coast (hurricanes). Not in Tornado Alley. Not on the Pacific Coast (tsunamis and volcanoes and earthquakes). Not on the Outer Banks (hurricanes and rising sea levels). Not in New Zealand or Japan or Indonesia or anywhere on the Ring of Fire or Iceland or Italy or Greece or on any coast (earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis). Not near the Himalayas (earthquakes). Not in Hawaii (volcanoes and tsunamis). Not in Australia (drought and bush fires). Not in Ashville, NC (floods). Not along the Mississippi. Not in the Caribbean.

Just saying - it's proximity to danger. And again, you can't be safe 100%. But these people live in paradise. You understand how beautiful the Palisades is? There's a price to be paid for that paradise. I read articles that suggested a number of residents appreciated this fact. Again, lots and lots of sympathy for this tragic event but just a lesson - there's no free lunch and there's a price to be paid for living in such boundless natural beauty. It could be inconvenience and it could be natural disasters that are more frequent. Same goes for putting your house directly on a beach. Same goes for living in a valley. ESPECIALLY with climate change.

Sounds like you're doing great on your ugly mountain of superiority.

Hey - common sense isn't that common I know. I'm not suggesting this isn't a sad day for a lot of people but even residents there echo my sentiments. They know that this is a risk they signed up for. Sucks but gotta accept and learn from tragedies or it will happen again and again.

You're the type to tell people "I told you so" rather than offer condolences. It's not about common sense, just simple empathy. No person in LA needs your "wisdom".

F Y and your disingenuous virtue signalling

You're the one doing that here, not me: " Again, lots and lots of sympathy for this tragic event but just a lesson".

Its awful but it was also most likely preventable.
You can be sad and mad at the same time.

and you get to vote too.

We are so dumb and only get moreso.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born and raised in LA and I could care less about these fires.
LA is grown so much in last 40 years there are people over consuming the water of 5 states and building in geographical areas that are nearly inaccessible for a response by heavy equipment.

Let it burn and limit rebuilding to 1 out 10 homes.
Maybe people will move from a freaking natural desert not sustainable for mass
Human populations.

At least 5 people are dead. Thousands are suffering trauma you can’t imagine. Try to act like you at least have cognitive empathy.

Check your water statements. Do you want California agriculture to stop? That’s where the majority of the water goes. It’s not a population issue.

I kind of disagree about the population issue. There are too many of us. This is why we have shortages of homes in many places. We are encroaching on every wild area that exists in our need for housing and stuff. It is, in part, a population issue.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is a fire storm of mass destruction and will only get worse over the night.

Iconic landmarks like the Getty Villa and Palisades HS are on fire. 0% contained.

I grew up in SoCal and this is a disaster. People had to abandon their cars in traffic and run.

30,000 people evacuated but the Getty staff say the museum is very secure. My LA friends left their home before the gridlock. I have been through three fire evacuations in the last few years in the Rocky Mountain West, and several friends lost their homes with minutes to get out. The trauma of losing everything you have is unimaginable, especially for children. I have totally changed how I arrange everything. My heart goes out to anyone who has to evacuate, and wait and wonder what is happening to their home. The wind forecast looks terrible.

If you don't mind sharing, I'd like to hear what changes you made. I live in LA and have several family and friends sheltering in hotels right now.

I am glad your friends made it out, and I hope their homes make it.

We had 15 minutes in our first evacuation, many of our friends had literally two minutes. Here is what I’ve done

-Reorganized “must have” paper and objects so that they exist in one grabbable plastic file box stored in the front closet. This means that the overall organization is disrupted. Obviously it has passports, banking, emergency cash etc., but it also has my favorite drawings from each child, original genealogical documents, love letters. This is the box that is first out. It’s what you need and what you feel like you will die without. I sharpied symbols on the box to remind me to close windows, doors, and shut off power/gas. We don’t have propane but if you do you should try to remove it. This is where you put the things that you take if you have two minutes. I also have a small box of charging equipment. This is totally an emotional crutch for me. I learned the first time that slinging chargers into random places made me feel out of control and panicky, but I really wanted to take them.

-The front closet also has flat boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, scissors that are not used for anything else. They are there primarily for art and books.

-I have packed a box with one or two pieces of each of the multiple sets of china and crystal that are family things.

-I have a packed box of our most treasured Christmas things.

-Jewelry is stored in a box with trays and I am religious about putting it away

-Books are shelved so that high priority keepers are together. Old photo albums are there (yes they are scanned, but some photos I want if I can have them).

-Every bedroom has a box of big black trash bags. You can stuff a ton of clothing, stuffed animals, special blankets, etc. in really quickly and the bags will squish into vehicles efficiently. Kids can do this while you do something else.i will never forget holding my kid’s quavering friend who barely escaped with her family and did not have a single thing left. Not one stuffed animal, baby toy, pillowcase. Nothing.

-Scanning and photographing. Pretty much everything that can be scanned is scanned, if it can’t be scanned it’s photographed. I have thumb drives here and send copies to my mother and cousin. This serves two purposes. Whatever we can’t take out, we will have a memory of, and we will get the max for our contents insurance (start scanning receipts for things as you buy). Insurance for build cost is usually not enough, and they’re only obligated to pay a % of contents unless you can document it all.

-Priorotized lists. We know approximately what can go out in 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes. We know what fits in our vehicles and what we can add if our friend comes with a trailer. This is all written in order and stored in an envelope taped to the must go box. Be sure to include a device list. No matter how prepared you are, it’s scary. It’s not a time to make decisions. You don’t want to be in the basement staring at your sorority memorabilia and your grandmother’s ice skates and wondering what to take. This also means someone else can pack if you put locations and ideally a photo on the list.

Overall, my house is no longer organized for maximum efficiency, but for maximum evacuation efficiency. It doesn’t change much or look weird. It just means some extra steps and discipline here and there. Everyone will have different priorities and choices. The key is making those decisions before the crisis and organizing so you don’t have to think or search for things when you evacuate.

This is insane. I agree about people, pets, important documents, and chargers. Laterns/batteries is a good idea too. The kids have a few favorite toys/stuffies. But I don’t care about anything else you mentioned - even if I had a week to prepare I wouldn’t bring China or Christmas decorations or kids artwork. Now if Google and Amazon photo BOTH lose all my digital storage, THEN I’d be devastated. But the stuff is just stuff.

You do you. You have no right to judge anyone else. I had to leave grabbing what I could with no planning the first time. Then we watched and waited for three days. It sucked beyond belief and yes, if I can safely prevent my family from going through what our friends have, I will do it. Now we’re prepared. My best friends lost every single thing. It’s all “just stuff” until it happens to you. Make your own decisions and don’t judge other people as long as they are obeying safety orders.

+1 I’m so sick of people coming for this woman after they ASKED HER how she organizes to get out with all her stuff.

NP. I think the PP is amazing and am so grateful she took the time to post at length. It gave me ideas I wouldn't have even thought of, i.e. Christmas ornaments.

I'm inspired to not just put together a "go" bag with essentials/docs but also a box of most treasured items.

I'm also going to use the snow day tomorrow to have my teenager scan the photos from old photo albums so we have everything in the cloud. I have all my children's photos saved digitally but not the ones from my own childhood.

Scanning photos can be highly technical if you want archival quality. Make sure that teenager knows what they are doing.

Great point. I'd bet there are quite a few of us starting this process now. If you know much about it, could you post something in the tech forum with a few hints? I'd love any advice.

Thanks again for mentioning this.

DP but it’s really not that technical.

There are great phone apps today that make it super simple to get good scans.

I’ve scanned in photos for decades and the apps produce much better results in a fraction of the time than the old scanners.

but wouldn't it be a great topic for the tech forum? You and the other poster would probably help a lot of us get going on this endeavor. Thanks for the info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it bad that I don't really care? These people are millionaires and billionaires.

I don't think you understand who lives in those Altadena neighborhoods. I grew up in Pasadena but south of the 210, which was the richer area. There are some rich parts of Altadena, but the parts I've seen burning on TV are not all those.

PP is an idiot. Lots of middle class people's homes have burned down in Altadena, including that of a family member and someone else I know professionally. And I mean true middle class not "DCUM middle class".

What is broken in some of your brains that your hear news like this and your response is to say things like "they deserve it", "I don't care", and/or proceed to lecture everyone on climate change, fires, forest management, or whatever else you think you have such important thoughts to share? Are you all on the spectrum? I hope you get the same response back when something tragic happens to you.