Blue State Blues: To the Anonymous Neighbors Who Saved Our Palisades House

I’m dedicating this column to the anonymous neighbors who helped me save our house.

My family and I evacuated quickly on Tuesday morning, taking two days’ worth of clothing, our essential documents, and little else. We knew right away that our home might not survive, and we made our peace with that.

As we watched updates on the CalFire website, we noticed that our home, and the one next to it, were slightly outside the burn perimeter on the map of the raging blaze.

So when I was able to return to Palisades the next day as a member of the media, with some flames still roaring and winds still howling, I checked on our house, which is situated on a corner along one of the main routes in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood.

To my shock, I found that the house was, indeed, still there, as was my neighbor’s house.

The fire was still ripping through other properties further down the street; it was too dangerous to approach them. And the closest firefighters were busy trying to control the blaze at the local public elementary school further up the street.

But my house was not burning — yet. There was smoke around the back walkway, and I decided to check out the perimeter of the property.

The picket fence — vinyl, to avoid termites — had melted in several places. The smoke was coming from an old wooden retaining wall on one side, and from the fence dividing my property from my neighbor’s.

At first, I thought I should simply leave. But it occurred to me that I might protect my house by dousing the fires — if I could find water.

I tried the faucet along the back walkway: nothing came out. I decided to try the garden hose, which is normally coiled in my front yard but can extend to the back.

The hose wasn’t there. Or, rather, it was not where I expected it to be. Instead, it was fully extended, across my driveway and into the back yard, near the melted fence.

Evidently, someone — a neighbor, or a firefighter — had seen flames by my fence, and had hosed them down, while there was still water to be had. In so doing, he or she had saved the house, or at least delayed the fire’s approach.

There was no more water in the pipes. But I had noticed that there was water running down the street — either from a broken water main, or from firefighting efforts uphill.

I remembered that my son had a bucket of baseballs in the back yard. I dumped out the baseballs and dipped the bucket into the gutter. I then doused the flames along the perimeter — first on the old logs of the retaining wall, then on the flaming fence posts. Back and forth, back and forth I went.

I had been doing that for about ten minutes when two guys in a pickup truck saw me and jumped out to help. We found two more buckets and formed a small assembly line. We also put out fires in the trees in the neighbor’s yard.

“This is Palisades!” I shouted, moved by the fact that these two strangers, and the anonymous neighbor, had helped me save my house, and my neighbor’s.

Soon, we noticed the wind change direction, and black smoke from the school began moving in our direction.

“Time to go,” one of the guys said.

It was too late to exchange contact details. “Don’t worry,” he joked. “We know where you live.”

We promised to get together again.

We left, and I continued through the rest of Palisades, dodging fires and power lines. The destruction, in almost every area, was apocalyptic. I felt terrible for friends and neighbors who had lost so much.

I still cannot fathom it — nor can I understand why our home remained standing. I could not even know whether the house would survive another night. But I knew it felt good to have tried — and to have had our neighbors helping me.

And I have learned of so many similar stories — neighbors taking risks to help neighbors.

That is Palisades, and that is why we will rebuild.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.