Burt’s Eye View: We’re hurting 

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Burt Ross

We’re hurting. Just as many who live here in Malibu we’re finally recovering from the Woolsey Fire, if you can ever fully recover, we have been hit again in just a few weeks by the Franklin Fire, followed by the even more devastating Palisades Fire. And as horrible as it has been for our community, some of our neighboring towns have fared even worse.

Horrific, terrifying, surreal, brutal, depressing, overwhelming, discombobulating — these are just a few of the adjectives which have come to mind since the fire’s inception. We have not only lost family homes and the memories in those homes, but we have lost the precious lives of several of our neighbors. Unlike physical possessions, those lives can never be replaced.

Just as some of our friends have never moved back to Malibu after the Woolsey Fire, so this time more of our friends and neighbors may leave Malibu never to return again. Their loss is incalculable.

It is time to come together as never before. We desperately need hugs and kindness. Although the range of losses we in Malibu are coping with is vast, from the loss of power, to the loss of communication, to the loss of business, to the devastating loss of homes and neighborhoods, to the unimaginable loss of loved ones, it seems that so many of us here share a sense of vulnerability, a loss of our sense of security.

It may take a long time for some of us even to start the healing process, and to adjust to the new normal — a world of more drought along with our high winds. Let’s hope that as we face these challenges together, we support each other with empathy and compassion.