LA Disaster Relief Navigator connects wildfire victims to resources online
Mayor Karen Bass along with the Mayor's Fund launched the comprehensive site for personalized action plans, tailored to individual needs, based on fire zones.
"This action plan is meant to provide you with valuable resources and tips to guide you through the wildfire recovery process. We've organized the information to make it easier for you to get the help you need," the LA Disaster Relief website reads.
The online click-through process starts with, "What fire impacted you?" listing Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, Hughes, Hurst and Other as options.
Prompts continue to determine needs from housing and food to income loss and ID replacement.
"Angelenos are continuing to navigate grief and shock. My commitment is to do everything we can to get people the help they need as conveniently as possible," Mayor Bass said. "The Disaster Recovery Centers have already helped more than 5,000 families get help in person, and now the LA Disaster Relief Navigator will help Angelenos get help wherever they are."
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Los Angeles Times
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- Los Angeles Times
Prepare to say a frond farewell to Los Angeles' palm trees
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Time Magazine
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- Time Magazine
What the L.A. Wildfires Couldn't Take From Me
Sifting. A new word in my vocabulary. Or at least as used in this particular context. I was used to sifting flour into cheesecake batter and powdered sugar over freshly baked cookies. I did that a lot in my beloved butter-colored kitchen. Now that kitchen was gone, lost with the rest of my home to the fires that devastated Southern Carolina, including my sweet little town of Altadena, in January, and I was standing in a hardware store looking for a KN95 mask, googles, a pair of rubber boots, and extra thick gloves. It had been three weeks since we'd left, and while I'd heard stories from those who had returned, including my husband, I had not gone back myself to survey the damage. I had been hunkering down in a friend's parents' place, on nonstop calls with insurance companies and banks, all the while trying to keep a big goofy smile on my face for my 7-month-old son, but also, and most importantly, I couldn't muster the courage. It was a special house. 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Though I thought I had a sense of what to expect, you can't really picture what a barren, burnished, houseless piece of land will look like until you witness it firsthand. The whole of Altadena flattened, dry, and lifeless. It's such an unimaginable sight that your logical brain comes to a screeching halt. I marched straight into the rubble. I think subconsciously I wanted to feel something, and I knew that if I thrust myself inside the now wall-less boundaries of what was once a place I called home, I would. Silently, I walked through the house clocking melted, misshapen remnants that helped me find my way. Through the garage, past the metal frame of my old Mercedes, up into the kitchen where singed cast-iron skillets oriented me, and finally into our bedroom and bathroom, which made itself known thanks only to a pile of still intact but discolored tiles that had once lined our shower. I knelt down, overwhelmed at the task ahead and started to gently brush away the ash. There it was. My cloudy, tarnished, flattened engagement ring. No more than three seconds into the sifting, exactly where some deeply intuitive part of my soul told me it would be. Since the fires, I'd been overwhelmed by expressions of love. My husband turned a sorrowful moment into a joyful one when, on a trip to the mall to buy socks because my only pair had become brown and ragged, he reminded me that we'd always said there is no greater luxury in life than a fresh pair of socks. My blissfully ignorant son learned to sip out of a straw and then immediately upon mastery of the task, reached out for me to share his delicious juice. Less than 24 hours after we evacuated, my brother drove back to our still smoldering home to salvage the few remaining discernable items, then quietly cleaned them and kept them safe until he knew I was emotionally ready to receive them. A woman I'd never met DM'd me offering to drop off a bag of groceries and a quart of home-cooked lamb ragu. 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