They are hurting but managing to find hope in ‘tomorrow’ – the residents who have lost everything in the LA fires | US News

They are the displaced and there are tens of thousands of them, 600 in an evacuation centre we visited.

from elderly people who fled without their medication, to pregnant mothers desperate to escape the smoke, they had nowhere else to go.

Jim Mayfield, who has lived in the northern suburb of Altadena for 50 years, wept as he told me his dogs, Monkey and Coca, were all he had left.

He said: “The fire was coming down, a ball of fire, it hadn’t made it to my house, but then I woke up and I seen it so I had to start evacuating.

“I had to grab my dogs, I didn’t have enough water and my house is burned down to the ground.”

Sheila Kraetzel, another elderly resident, relived the sense of terror as homes were engulfed by the flames.

She said: “I smelt smoke, I was sleeping, and my dog alerted me that there was trouble.

“When I looked outside, there were embers floating across my yard.

“My whole neighbourhood is gone.”

“It was a beautiful, unique place,” she added, smiling.

Asked how she could smile, she fought back tears and replied: “Well, there’s tomorrow you know.”

How anyone could find hope amid the destruction we have witnessed here is beyond me.

There are people handing out food and water, medical staff doing what they can. Volunteers have rallied from far and near.

One of them, Stephanie Porter, told me it felt “heavy” inside the centre.

“You walk through and see the despair on people’s faces, not knowing what their next step is, not knowing if their house is still standing,” she said.

“I had to take a few moments… and kind of cry, and then you go back to serve.

“It just breaks your heart.”

Three miles up the road, Altadena resembles a war zone, but residents have not been allowed to return.

When they finally do, they’ll discover there’s nothing left of the material lives they left behind.