Having grown up in California and now living in New York, I know that the unthinkable can happen anywhere. Still, I never imagined I’d wake up to a disaster in Southern California surmountable to the devastation experienced by Hurricane Katrina.
On Tuesday, January 7, I started my day like any other. It was my last week visiting family in California before heading back home to the East Coast. The winds were blowing strong, and there was talk of a fire in the Palisades. At the moment, I brushed it off. It’s California—small fires happen occasionally.
I spent the day as usual, running errands, researching stories and preparing for the next EBONY cover release, when around 7 p.m., the power went out.
Without Wi-Fi, cellphone service was terrible, so we decided to call it a night early. However, on Wednesday, around 5 a.m., my childhood best friend Ashley called, and I immediately knew something was wrong. She asked if I had checked on my grandmother, affectionately known as “Nana,” because the fire had spread into Eaton Canyon, Altadena, and parts of Pasadena—where my Nana lives.
Because of the power outages, we hadn’t seen a news update and had no idea how bad things were. Panic set in as we immediately called Nana, who reassured us that she had packed essentials—documents, clothes—and picked up her younger sister and her husband just in case they needed to evacuate.
After that sleep was impossible.
I tried leaving the house to find a coffee shop where I could work and charge my phone. But everywhere I looked, the entire city was plunged into darkness, and it became clear that this wasn’t just a minor inconvenience—it was a crisis engulfing the whole community.
By 10 a.m., our phones wouldn’t stop ringing. The horror was unimaginable. Friends and family texting updates, each message more devastating than the last: “My mom’s house is gone.” “My grandma’s house is gone.” Nana’s youngest sister and husband lost their home. My dad’s first cousin’s son lost his family home. Another family friend lost her house, and this was just a mere fraction of the tragic updates.
Later that morning, we drove to Pasadena to witness the impact of the fires. As soon as we exited the freeway, ash and smoke filled the air like a thick, suffocating cloud. Police barricades and blockades prevented us from reaching some streets, but we could clearly see the devastation. Entire homes—gone. Institutions that held several childhood memories were now unrecognizable. The cemetery where our loved ones are buried was consumed, and the church where we were expecting to have a family member’s funeral that Saturday was on fire. They say, “When it rains, it pours,” but it wasn’t the rain we needed.
When we finally made it to Nana’s house, I grabbed the garden hose and soaked the roof, the yard and the shrubs, praying the water would protect it if the fires crept closer. After hours of pleading with her to leave with us, Nana reluctantly agreed. Like many elders who moved from the South decades ago, she was tied to her home, and many have been unwilling to leave despite the danger.
This wasn’t just a loss of property that one would hope to be recouped by insurance claims. For my family, this is personal. Like Nana, many of our friends’ parents and grandparents came to Southern California during the Great Migration, fleeing the Jim Crow South in search of better opportunities. These homes weren’t just where they lived—they were symbols of perseverance and sanctuaries of love, history, and culture, built with their own hands.
While the flames consumed this community, they didn’t just destroy buildings. They erased decades of Black generational wealth and heritage. Family photos, heirlooms and prized possessions vanished in the smoke. These homes represented equity, stability and the promise of something to pass down to future generations. That promise is now gone.
The loss in Altadena and Pasadena is not an isolated tragedy. It’s part of a larger, alarming trend: the erosion of Black generational wealth. Across the country, Black families are losing the homes that have served as their financial and cultural anchors. Gentrification, predatory lending, rising property taxes, and now climate disasters are wiping out the legacies that were painstakingly built.
What’s particularly devastating about the Los Angeles fires is how sudden and irreversible the loss is. In just hours, my grandmother, like so many others who spent decades creating a home that embodied her dreams and sacrifices, saw it taken all away.
As I reflect on this, I can’t help but think about the bigger picture. What does it mean for our community when the physical symbols of our history—our homes—disappear? What happens to Black wealth, pride, and identity when the very foundation of our legacy is reduced to ash?
This isn’t just a call to rebuild; it’s a call to protect what remains. We need policies that prioritize disaster preparedness in vulnerable communities, support for those displaced by climate change, and initiatives to preserve Black generational wealth. Greedy insurance companies dropped fire coverage from countless homeowners’ policies overnight, only to reinstate it after intense backlash.
But even with the promise of funds to rebuild, many are saying they might not bother—opting to buy a condo somewhere else in California. If that happens, it raises a chilling question: Is this exactly what the government or those in power want? To strip Black families of generational wealth, force them out of LA County, or even out of California entirely, continuing a pattern of displacement and erasure?
For now, I’m grateful my Nana and loved ones are safe, but the pain of what’s been lost will linger for years. Rebuilding isn’t just about bricks and mortar—it’s about reclaiming a history that’s been burned but not forgotten. The fight to preserve Black homes is the fight to protect our future.
