AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In a part of Altadena, where a single block and a half separates the home of Jennifer and Ed Barguiarena from complete destruction...
ED BARGUIARENA: Yeah, just down this block, to the next...
JENNIFER BARGUIARENA: Lincoln Avenue.
E BARGUIARENA: ...Stop sign, which is Lincoln Avenue...
CHANG: Yeah.
E BARGUIARENA: ...Just across that border, it's completely devastated.
CHANG: And right behind us are rows of intact houses.
J BARGUIARENA: It's unimaginable, the devastation and the number of lives that have been impacted just down the road.
E BARGUIARENA: Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Obviously, we're - we value having our home, but you also feel a little bit helpless because you know that there are people just down the block who need help. There's nothing we can do at the moment, and that's really hard.
CHANG: This community is hurting so deeply for the ones who lost everything. But for families like the Barguiarenas, the seemingly lucky ones, whose houses survived, an altogether different ordeal is just beginning. The water here still isn't safe to drink, cook or wash with. There are fine layers of ash and dust in their homes and yards. And many are also worried about what they can't see - the possibility that toxins like lead and asbestos might have drifted into their homes.
E BARGUIARENA: Part of our concern is making sure that, you know, what we're coming back to is a place that's not just whole but safe and stable for our family.
CHANG: You don't know what you don't know yet.
E BARGUIARENA: Exactly. And you can't see - like, not every toxin is obvious.
CHANG: Jennifer and Ed share their tidy, green home with their two boys, who are now 11 and 14 years old. Their front yard opens to a soaring view of the San Gabriel Mountains. And as we stand on their driveway, I ask Jennifer, how did you feel when driving back to your house for the first time since the fires?
J BARGUIARENA: Nervous and then amazed - everything was still standing. Everything looked relatively normal. As I came around the corner, many of my neighbors were also just coming back, and for - that was joyful - hugging everyone, just knowing that they were safe, that their family was safe. For me, that was probably my biggest takeaway from coming back (crying) because I think, in the end, this house is not our home. This community is our home. I'm a bit of a crier.
CHANG: No, don't worry at all. Home is bigger than this structure...
J BARGUIARENA: Yes, yes.
CHANG: ...In front of us.
J BARGUIARENA: And then I will say, then when we went into our house, I - it is - it's both eerie and amazing. It smells like a campfire. There's ash and soot around doors and windows. But in general, it looks normal.
CHANG: Well, do you mind us walking in for just a little bit...
E BARGUIARENA: Sure...
CHANG: ...To get a sense?
E BARGUIARENA: ...We're happy to do that, yeah.
CHANG: OK. Oh, your wreath hook is still there.
J BARGUIARENA: (Laughter).
E BARGUIARENA: OK, so here we are. You can see we accidentally left a couple lights on.
CHANG: Oh, your Christmas tree is still here.
E BARGUIARENA: Christmas tree is still up.
J BARGUIARENA: (Laughter).
E BARGUIARENA: Here's the card game we were playing on the table before we left.
CHANG: Oh, my God. It's like...
E BARGUIARENA: And we just left everything. We said, it's time to go now, and we just walked out.
CHANG: Wow, it's like a freeze-frame.
Jennifer leads me to the kitchen window and pulls up the shade.
J BARGUIARENA: You can see...
CHANG: Oh, yeah.
J BARGUIARENA: ...When you look up there, it's just...
CHANG: ...All along the windowsill, the window frame...
J BARGUIARENA: So all of this, I think...
CHANG: ...Against the glass.
J BARGUIARENA: ...I think we probably - we closed all the windows. And all the old windows, all the old doors - that's where we see there's visible evidence of soot. I'd say our biggest concerns are - do you want to go to the back of our house?
CHANG: Absolutely, sure.
She leads me to her son's room, where the winds crack the little door to the attic.
J BARGUIARENA: That is where - what we're understanding is where a lot of ash, soot and toxins will settle. And I believe that's part of remediation, is that that will all be cleaned and replaced. And that's probably where a lot of the smell came in.
CHANG: And, you know, there's also stuff that we can't see right here just standing in a room. I'm thinking about the insulation, I'm thinking about your HVAC system, all the stuff that still has to work years from now if you were to live in this house still.
E BARGUIARENA: Right.
J BARGUIARENA: Absolutely. Absolutely.
E BARGUIARENA: So there's the - you know, those systems need to be checked and cleaned and verified. And, you know, you can look at just - it's just the amount of tiny things. My son has a lifetime of Legos there, and it's like, wow, who's going to clean all that? So...
CHANG: Right.
E BARGUIARENA: ...It's just the process of making sure that every surface is safe...
CHANG: Yeah.
E BARGUIARENA: ...So that when you touch something and you - in the future, you're not worried about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR OPENING)
CHANG: They lead me back outside, and I ask them what sort of timeline their insurance company has given them on next steps?
J BARGUIARENA: Our - at the moment, we're on hold until they can physically send an adjuster to our site. When I spoke with the person assigned to our claim yesterday, they could not give me a window of time. So us, like tens of thousands of Angelenos at this moment, are scrambling to find temporary housing. But are we looking for short-term temporary, long-term temporary? How do we settle our family in a way that stops making this an emergency for weeks and months, moving ahead?
CHANG: Yeah. I guess, given all that you've been going through, you know, I can hear how much you love this community, you love the people who live around you, but do you actually see a real future for yourself in this neighborhood long term?
E BARGUIARENA: That's a complicated question, and I think part of it is it's maybe too early to know that for sure because I don't think we have taken in the true devastation that's happened here. I think one thing would be for sure, though. If we were to leave, I think we would take Altadena with us, and we would try to make that sense of community come to life anywhere we go because we know it can work, and we know this is kind of, you know, one of those American ideals that we maybe think we've lost, but it's still here. People still care about each other. I can still borrow eggs from my neighbor. I can go further down the street and borrow a truck if I need to go get mulch. It's like, that kind of living and that kind of connectivity and that social bond is still something that is worth fighting for and building. So whether we stay here or not, I think Altadena lives on in the places that we move to next.
CHANG: You've learned how to build and hang on to community.
E BARGUIARENA: Absolutely.
CHANG: Fires did not destroy that.
E BARGUIARENA: Yeah.
CHANG: I just want to say thank you to both of you so much for coming down here from your Airbnb and meeting with us on your driveway to talk about something so painful and frustrating. Really, thank you.
E BARGUIARENA: We appreciate that. Thank you for helping us tell the story that represents an entire community.
J BARGUIARENA: Yeah. Thanks for speaking for our neighbors.
CHANG: Ed and Jennifer Barguiarena, reflecting on what the future holds for those still left in Altadena. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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