Pillar: Earthquakes and fire always stalk la, but our greatest danger is rejection.

If you buy into stereotypes and myths, the climate in Southern California is great and the people are laid back.

Lie.

Conditions are harsh, with crazy winds and parched terrain cooking up one calamity after another, and anyone who doesn’t suck is either in denial, sedated, or a tenant.

Until January 7th, when Fires began destroying thousands of buildingsS and at least 28 lives, my biggest fear of living in California was earthquakes, thanks to a trip to the San Andreas fault with Dr. Lucy Jones from 2017.

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001.

I tagged along As Jones tried to convince two busloads of Southern California officials that the big officials were coming, they had to update building codes and take other measures in anticipation of a historic disaster.

If a 7.8 hit, Jones and other seismologists said near Palm Springs that day, the ground beneath us would shift and within 10 seconds people would be face to face on opposite sides of the fault up to 30 feet apart. Buildings would collapse in Los AngelesLives would be lost, the economy would be shattered, and millions of people would lose power and water for months.

I went home and hired a seismic safety engineer to strengthen my house and I’ve had earthquake insurance ever since. None of these give you complete peace of mind.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, only rubble remains at the intersection of the 5 and 14 freeways.

(Los Angeles Times)

Last week I purchased a motorized pump with a 50 foot hose so I could use swimming pool water to defend my home during a fire. I did it after I met a police officer in Altadena who took me to his backyard and showed me his pump, which he used as embers to fall to protect his own home and those of his neighbors.

It took me three hours to force the hose onto the pump nozzle, but I couldn’t get it together safely. I have visions of not starting the engine as flames approach and when it finally catches the hose flies off the pump and the gas tank explodes taking out the entire block. Do I feel safe? Less safe?

To sleep well in Los Angeles, you can’t think about these things. You have to push away the reality of the risk.

And that is the real threat.

Human nature is ultimately our Achilles heel.

I’m talking about denial, a comfortable balm in a living laboratory for natural disasters. I’m talking about a lack of preparation and planning, whether it’s an earthquake set in the ready or the clearing brush.

California is not alone in this regard. The Florida coast, for example, can’t wait to rebuild as close to the water as before every time. And as a nation, the role each of us plays in the connection between climate change and calamity, and on television about our national leader’s call to “Drill, Baby, Drill.”

In this aerial view taken from a helicopter, Malibu is seen from above on Jan. 9

(Josh Edelson /AFP via Getty Images)

Jones and I recently talked about this complicated relationship between danger and the human psyche, which she has studied for years and falls into “all the research in psychology and behavioral economics – about how people make decisions about risk.”

Too often they decide not to make a decision.

Of all the cities where emissaries were sent to this San Andreas debt in 2017, many have not yet acted on the required seismic security upgrades. Jones estimated that about 6 million residents live in Los Angeles County, where adequate protections exist, and about 4 million do not.

Jones hasn’t limited her public education campaigns to earthquakes. In 2023, Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society published a guide entitled “From Recovery to Resilience: Facing the Challenge of Boosting California.

In it, she examined the dynamics of the Camp Fire in Paradise, the Dixie Fire in Greenville, the Bear Fire in Butte County and the Woolsey Fire in Ventura. The lesson was that communities facing disaster strikes must act like communities, considering the needs of the most vulnerable residents and holding the right people responsible.

“Emergency management is not just one answer,” Jones concluded in that report. “It develops resilience beforehand, responds efficiently during and recovers quickly after a disaster.”

We have already learned over the last two weeks that we need improvements in each of these areas, despite the great work of so many firefighters and others.

Jones uses the Wui letters as shorthand for the wildland-urban interface that Los Angeles has from the thousands of acres, including the Palisades and the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Construction at Wui sites can be safe if done correctly, Jones said, but should be done without “really thoughtful discussions… because our fire risk has expired.”

Yes, the risk is so high after months of drought that these fires will break out for hours.

The thing about earthquakes, however, is that they don’t wait for Santa Ana Winds or drought. This threat is constant.

Crushed vehicles at a soft story apartment building that collapsed during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

(Roland Otero / Los Angeles Times)

“My worst nightmare is putting the two together,” Jones said. “An earthquake if we have Santa Anas.”

Now I’ll never sleep.

For a day or two early on, as the fires spread, I thought it might be time to pack everything up and move to a safer location. But I’m not sure such a place exists in this world, and when the Tribute of the Eaton and Palisades fired, I became more deeply rooted.

The Resilience Lucy Jones talks about it and writes eloquently about it – The DNA of Community – was on display Jan. 8 at the Pasadena Convention Center, where evacuees invoked the strength to deal with loss and uncertainty while service organizations rose and volunteers deployed.

My social worker Friend who lost his home In Altadena, after years of sheltering the homeless through grief, he vowed to recreate what he had lost, giving me a deeper sense of connection and humility. Anthony Ruffin bought this house from his stepfather, who moved to West Altadena in 1972, when much of LA was closed to black people. He misses this house and the neighborhood and plans to rebuild in this exact spot.

The selflessness of Nursing home staff who bravely evacuated patientsAnd the generosity of the Altadena family in sharing the love of their home and neighborhood made me all feel more connected to the real Southern California – the one that transcends myth and stereotypes.

And to be attached is to be aware of taking responsibility for the land, the planet, survival and each other.

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