After the devastating fires, neighborhoods pledged to build back stronger and better than before. A year later, they’re still untangling issues
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og shrouded the ruins still standing at the center of the Pacific Palisades on a morning in December, a once-vibrant Los Angeles community decimated by flames. Melted newsstands that distributed the Palisadian-Post, an almost century-old paper that ceased operating in the fire’s wake, sit on crumbled concrete. Weeds spread over an expanse of emptied lots, painting the blackened foundations and chimneys with swaths of green.
It’s been a year of recovery and reckoning in Los Angeles since the unprecedented wildfires erupted in the parched southern California hillsides and cascaded into the surrounding suburbs with shocking ferocity, killing 31 people.
More than 16,000 structures – vibrant homes, businesses, churches and schools – were reduced to ash and toxic debris. While rebuilding efforts are underway, progress has been slow. Thousands of displaced Angelenos remain in limbo.
