Sam Laganà, the stadium announcer for the Los Angeles Rams, fought to save his Pacific Palisades home from the raging inferno last week — and believes that more could have been done to save neighborhoods from destruction.
Thousands of homes were destroyed in the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, near Pasadena. But nowhere has the devastation shocked observers the way the Palisades Fire has done, both in terms of the speed and scale of the blaze.
The fire broke out on Tuesday, January 7, and the Palisades were ordered to eavcuate at midday. Laganà — much like this author, who is his neighbor — was able to reenter the Palisades, which has been sealed from the public, using his media pass.
“This street was still okay as of Wednesday at about noon,” Laganà recalled.
But as firefighters battled to control other blazes in the area, his street was soon in flames, as was a nearby public school, which burned down that afternoon.
Laganà stood outside and used his garden hose to protect his home, together with some volunteers who worked for the city council, he said.
His property was damaged slightly, in back, with part of a patio roof burned. But the front of his home looks fine, and is one of the only homes on his entire street that survived.
While Laganà is glad to have kept his home, he now overlooks what is, for the time being, a wasteland.
It may take years to develop again. For now, he is focused on the Rams, who upset the Minnesota Vikings last weekend and face the Philadelphia Eagles in Philly next weekend.
“If Detroit loses, and we win, we’ll get the [Washington] Commanders here at home,” he noted.
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.
