Days after a devastating wildfire, residents of Pacific Palisades have started sifting through the ruins, and their memories.
Hi, I'm Billy Witts and I'm a correspondent on the national desk for the New York Times.
I live in New York,
but I happened to be visiting Los Angeles when the fires broke out on Tuesday night.
When I woke up Wednesday morning, you could see clouds hovering over the Santa Monica Mountains.
They were darker and very familiar to people who live in Los Angeles as clouds that came from fires.
By midday Wednesday,
there was a growing realization across Los Angeles of just how devastating these fires had been.
People who lived in the Palisades and had gone back
and seen the damage had described it almost universally like a war zone.
I mean, with house after house, block upon block just wiped out.
In recent days, the winds have died down,
giving firefighters and residents of these hillside communities a bit of a reprieve.
But as we record this on Monday,
the area is bracing for another round of extremely high winds that could kick
up the fires once again
and spread them to other communities.
I grew up not far from Pacific Palisades.
As a teenager, I used to go to the beach at Will Rogers State park,
which is just down the hill from Pacific Palisades,
and I would drive down Sunset and Temescal Canyon Road.