Everything Is Fine :(

Big wind, fire, devastation, and kindness during the pre-inaugural apocalypse

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Each time I check my phone, another friend has lost everything.

I don’t have a television but the images of devastation still make their way into my consciousness. Friends who understand my post-traumatic news syndrome gently ask: “Is it okay if I show you something crushing?”

Being a veteran newsie I, of course, say yes, and then learn that a historic church where writers once gathered, gone.

When I was a campaign manager in 2022, part of our district was the Pacific Palisades. The lush rolling hills above the ocean was devastated in an apocalyptic manner. 1000 structures gone.

On Tuesday night, I had volunteered to bring dinner to my recovery group in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Driving on the 210, I could see the Eaton fire in Sierra Madre to my left, and to my right I could see dry lightning. The winds were as fierce as I had experienced in 2021 in Navajoland, what the Navajo called the Big Wind. While staying in Monument Valley, a surreal wind whipped up that felt like it would sweep the earth of all its sins. That’s what Tuesday felt like.

To drop off the dinner, I had to drive adjacent to the driveway — a tree had given up the ghost and friends were trying to clear it away. Right after bringing in the food, I learned about a fire in my neighborhood so I turned around and drove back home. Another friend who also brought food, turned around to leave. He said, “Gotta go! I’m being evacuated!” I gave him a hug and said, KIT.

I took surface streets back to my home and on Huntington Blvd, tree after tree after tree had given up the ghost — like fallen soldiers in an environmental war, they lay splayed out in the street, corpses in an ecocide crime scene.

Looking for downed power lines, and driving serpentine around tree tops and branches, I thought about my urban naturalist friend who told me in 2015, after a drought cycle: “Gonna be a lot of fallen trees.”

A decade ago, I had to add beloved trees to the list of things I fear. I scan tree-lined streets for openings before parking. I gauge which way they might fall, and choose to park where it’s least likely to be crushed. Nearly four years ago, I came home from a hike and a tree had fallen on my block and annihilated two cars on its way down — a revenge suicide against fossil fuel.

In a final image of gore before I made my way home on Tuesday, a decapitated palm tree had taken out a signal light. Its giant corpse lying in the middle of the road.

Earlier in the day, I had been admiring the endurance of palm trees, how they go with the flow during windageddon.

Not this one — it had enough of our failings. Its hari kiri a reminder of what we are losing at devastating speed.

I am thankful for big things and small. I haven’t lost electricity yet, not once when seemingly everyone is without power. Across the street, up the street, down the street, no power but in my corner of battered paradise, I am warm, and my family is safe so far.

I get alerts from news junkies across the world telling me to boil my water and to wear a mask, and they tell me where the next fire is blazing. I am still trying to do my work. I have book reports to write for you and RadPod Eps to film. I am rarely on social media, but check in to find a new campaign targeting me on Twitter. This one, a cabal of stalkers pretending to be Normal Joes make up memes of fake quotes they attribute to me that are porny and racist. My podcast partner Jim Stewartson tells me I should be honored. My work important enough that people are paid to denigrate me. So many fronts, and so little backup. It looks like a Wagneresque operation run out of Nigeria. I send light to those who do that work. It’s gotta be soul crushing.

I see the politicizing of SoCal’s tragedy by the incoming regime and wonder if Robert Mercer is handing out matches. The regime will come for California and California better be ready.

My sister calls. She was at a restaurant where Kevin Bacon was also eating. They got evacuated and the restaurant burned down. She dropped off her friend whose house then burned down. Six degrees of separation from devastation… I am in the process of deaquisitioning. I will give everything to my sister’s friend. She won’t need a thing.

The Bette community continues to check up on me. I continue to reassure them.

Everything is fine. It’s fine. I’m fine.

:(

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Related:

A Climate Crime Scene in the Sonoran Desert

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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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Begin each day with a grateful heart.

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