I started to worry when I saw flames outside of my window in the Highlands. I was not as worried as I probably should have been though. The Palisades has had a lot of fires. We had one just the week before, so we were worried but never thought it would grow to the extent it did. At first, we weren’t going to evacuate. I took my car and drove around the area, noticing people starting to panic and even evacuate. None of us really knew what to do because we hadn’t officially been told what to do. My family and I decided to evacuate and drove our separate cars down the hill. We wanted to save them just in case anything happened. But when we got to the bottom of the hill, traffic was at a complete standstill. People were abandoning their cars and running; it was pure madness. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my mom making a U-turn and she screamed at me to do the same. I made a U-turn and my sister did the same behind me. Everything was so hectic and there were so many things on the road. Something flew off of my car and hit my sister’s window. It was a mess. We drove back to the house. My sister and I wondered why my mom had us turn around, but she told us it was because of the empty cars blocking the way. At that point, there was no way out.
A few hours went by and we were all sitting together contemplating what to do. After being completely frightened from our first attempt to evacuate separately, we decided it would be safest to just all go in the car with my mom and leave the rest of the cars behind. We eventually were escorted down the hill after all the cars were bulldozed to the side. It was like Armageddon. We didn’t know that the fire had jumped to the village, we just thought it was in the hills. As we were escorted down we saw houses, buildings and cars on fire. I had never seen anything like that in my whole life. I honestly still get flashbacks. We didn’t know what to do or where to go. We ended up having to stay two hours away past Santa Barbara for a few weeks. Now I’m staying part-time in Tarzana and part-time in Santa Monica. I miss the Palisades more than anything.
Edited by Sophia Winston
