When disaster strikes: On the ground amid LA wildfires

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1:22Hey everyone, Bob Safian here. multiple wildfires have torn through the city of Los Angeles over the last week, destroying whole neighborhoods. Thousands of Angelenos have lost their homes and their businesses. At least 24 have died, and 100 ,000 have been forced to evacuate. Today, we bring you a special episode focused on the Eaton Fire that's ravaged Altadena and Pasadena, with stories both harrowing and heartening from one of the most impacted corners of L.A. Plus, on-the-ground perspective from aid organization World Central Kitchen. The interviews were recorded today, Monday, January 13th, so they are very fresh.

2:01With heavy winds expected in L.A. over the next two days, the situation, which has already been likened to Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans, could continue to evolve. To those impacted by the fires, all of us here at Rapid Response offer our thoughts and prayers for easier days ahead. For now, let's get to the show. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

2:33Our first guest is Guillaume Patard, the owner of Pambour, a small French bakery in Altadena. He and his wife moved to the U.S. from France less than a year ago with a dream to create a local boulangerie. They have two small daughters, three years old and nine months old. Here's Guillaume.

2:56We just moved from France to start this bakery and to offer French bread and brioche in the Alta Dina community. And it used to be a very nice little project. It's hard work to start a new business, especially in a new place. I put all my energy we put all our saving and since July honestly I'm working constantly to try to do something with this business it's maybe one of the hardest things for me now because I was 100 % focused on trying to develop this business and trying to to make something nice for the community and I was trying to think all the time of what can we do next during Christmas Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve period, I guess I slept maybe on average of three hours per night because I was just baking all the time.

3:50And it's, yeah, it's kind of hard suddenly that everything stopped. How did the fires, when did you first hear about it? How did it unfold for you? When we put the girls to bed around 8 p.m., my wife told me, oh, there is a fire which started in Altadina, but everybody was telling, oh, yeah, you know, it can happen but it's pretty far away and no worries but get ready just in case you can prepare a bag with important paperwork and your passport and this kind of stuff so we just prepared a little bag and we were just thinking with my wife, we don't want to wake up the girl if it's not important, let them sleep and then the night was going on around 3 I went outside and I saw a police car and I went to speak with the policeman and asking him if there is an official order of evacuation because we didn't have any good connections so we didn't know if we were missing something or no and he told me no, so far your area is not officially evacuated but it's going to happen pretty soon so when he told us that we left and we left thinking we're going to come back.

5:12That's the crazy part because honestly, we could have brought way more things than what we took. We just took a few things. We took the stuffed animal of our girls and we could have brought way more souvenirs and some jewellery for my wife and some things for us, but no, we didn't. And when we woke up on Wednesday morning, we just realized that it was a real nightmare. The alta dinner completely disappeared. Were you working out of the house or was your bakery in a different place? No, the bakery was in the house and it burned as well. Everything burned. We were not able to go back to the oven, my big mixer, all my fridges.

6:01And the other thing is, I bought for more than, I don't know, six or seven hundred dollars of flour on Tuesday. So my bakery was full of flours and stuff like that. I might be crazy, but I brought my starter with me. So I still have my starter. I don't know why I said that. It seems completely insane, but it shows, I guess, how important this business was for us. It was my life so far. It was just... Well, you described it before as your baby. So you were preparing that baby to evacuate too, I guess. Exactly. It's completely that. So far, I don't know what we're going to do with this business.

6:40We were baking for the alter-diners community. That was the idea. That was a small business for a small community. In France, you have bakeries everywhere. And you just have your bakery in the little neighborhood where you live. And that's the bakery where you go buy your bread. And I was always thinking this Pound Bear Bakery to be like that, to be a small thing for a small neighborhood. And that's one of the most difficult things to accept. We cannot recreate that because almost all customers, they lost their house and we lost the neighborhood. So even if you want to restart something, it's going to be something new.

7:18And that's what I cannot really accept so far because I just want to go back in Altadina and I just want to do the same thing that we were doing. And actually, it's just not possible. You moved from France to open this business because you had a dream. And now it sounds like you have to decide, do you keep following the same dream or do you have to come up with a different dream? That's the thing. We had this dream, we had this plan. Even if it was super hard, it was clear. We wanted to come here and we wanted to develop this bakery. And now we have to rewrite everything and we have to rethink about everything.

7:57We have to rethink about the new dream. We have to find a stable situation for girls. We don't want with my wife to just move from one Airbnb to another, trying to find a new situation. We have to find a new dream and we don't know what it's going to be. We try to be strong because we have two girls and we cannot be completely devastated. It's really reassuring to be surrounded by so much love. But I guess in a couple of weeks, when we're going to be, I guess, on our own, trying to figure out what we're going to do, I'm afraid it's going to be way harder in a couple of weeks than now. And I'm curious, do you have insurance for the business?

8:39Will you have resources if you decide you want to start again? I took an insurance when I launched the business, but it was mostly to protect myself. if someone want to sue me when I filled the firm there was this question do you want to insure your material against fire? And I say no I don't need that because I don't know it was maybe$100 more and I say no that's okay I can save$100 So far no I don't have any insurance for the business but I was working with a bread oven called Simply Bread Oven they launched a GoFundMe for us trying to be able for us to restart something. So they're going to apparently offer us a new oven, which is the main investment in the bakery.

9:26And they're going to also try to gather money for us to be able to restart. So far, I'm just so tired that I'm not even sure I can find the strength to restart something. But we will have to do something anyway. It does sound very hard. Even if you get an oven, even if you have a place, you're not sure where that place should be or even if it's what you want to do now. Yeah. we can go in another neighborhood, but it's not the same. And honestly, the only thing so far I would like to do, I would like to bake for my community. I have this kind of fantasy or dream. I don't know if we go back in LA, if I am able to bake somewhere really, really, really soon, I would like just to prepare some sweet things, to settle a table somewhere, and just to say to my former customers, I mean, and all the Altadena community, please come and grab a piece of brioche come and grab a cinnamon nut come and grab a baguette and for free just try to it's nothing but it's the only thing I can do I just can bake because it's my job but it seems to be just a crazy idea you can have at one in the morning when you cannot sleep I hope some of our listeners I'm sure will be touched by your story and you know want to find ways to help And so I hope those feelings and those impulses come your way and help sustain you.

10:50Thank you. Thank you, guys. It is so hard to start a business, especially when you've just moved to a new country. Yet Guillaume was on his way to making his dream a reality. And now, well, you can hear the despair in his voice. The practical obstacles to restarting the bakery are real enough, but it's the emotional toll that may be the hardest of all. In our next segment, I turn the mic over to Rapid Response executive producer Eve Trow, who lives nearby to the Eaton Fire devastation. Her home wasn't damaged, fortunately, but she was on watch as the flames grew closer and closer. It drew even nearer to a dear friend's business.

11:31Home State is a Tex-Mex cafe with eight locations and a workforce of about 350 people. Here's Eve on the ground at the Pasadena home state, less than a block from where the roads close and the fire zone begins.

11:52I am here with Andy Valdez, the director of marketing for Home State. Andy, thanks so much for talking to us for Rapid Response. My pleasure. Thank you for being here. I'm used to seeing this patio full of families of all generations. of customers happily waiting in line, you know, line sometimes out the door to just experience the hospitality of home state. As the fires were growing last week, what was the response from the company as a whole and specifically around this location? Safety was the first priority of the organization. So we were monitoring the weather, the winds, the air quality, making sure that they had time to get home to their families in a safe place.

12:36We have just seen a lot of outpouring of support, but also, I mean, it's just been really scary. We all watched the fires come really close to this location. They came about two blocks from here, and we didn't know if the restaurant was going to survive or not. So we were checking cameras. We were checking the fire maps actively, just not knowing what was going to happen. So the fact that the restaurant is still here and standing, even though we can't open due to the water contamination, we can open and activate as a community center. You've transformed this into a station where people in need can come and pick up essentials.

13:19If you had to just look around right now, help me understand what the offerings are and where these offerings have come from. Yes, as soon as we were able and the evacuation zone was lifted, that same day we activated, we partnered with our neighbors, a local skate shop. We wanted to make sure that we showed up in a way that people needed. We have a lot of friends who have lost houses, unfortunately. So calling them and saying, what do you actually need? How can we actually support you? So if you look around, you'll see things that, again, we're hearing people really need right now. Blankets, towels, dog food, toiletries, new shoes, clothes in really good condition.

14:05Presentation organization is the name of our game. When people walk in, I want them to feel like it's beautifully presented and it's thoughtful. It's not just a pile of things. Like it's on a human level, I think psychologically, that really, really matters. And people like this one woman started crying when she saw that all of our clothing is on racks. It's not on the floor. It's on racks. It's organized. She was like, it means so much that you took the time to do that. Val Surf, the skate shop who we've partnered with. They have great relationships with New Balance. New Balance just delivered 50 pairs of brand new shoes.

14:41You think about it, like people who left their house, they have the shoes that they're wearing. That's it. So things like that, like, it really does, like, have an impact on people's lives. And it may hopefully help them start to feel a little bit normal and very much taken care of. One of our vendors, Vital Farms, reached out and asked how they could support. So they have donated a$10 ,000 fund that we are able to use to provide tacos. We're working with World Central Kitchen to provide tacos for various groups. Tomorrow we have an order for Pasadena Humane Society for people who are going to go out to the field and look for animals who are wounded and need of help.

15:28So we'll be feeding those people tomorrow. There's so many different needs, but if we can be focused on our restaurant teams, our neighbors, and the firefighters, I think that's where our focus is right now. And we know we're just at the very beginning of this. It's going to be a long-haul effort, so we will evolve and show up and try to find ways to provide support as the needs reveal themselves. Is there any particular story among the many I'm sure you've heard? I see you talking with people as they come and want to find out more about what's available at the station. I see you have a hug station here set up.

16:07We're standing right by the hug station sign. Are there any stories that have just stood out the most to you? Yeah, we met a family yesterday, a multi-generational family. They live in one house. I guess they called like the little greenhouse in Altadena. They've been there for about 40 years. Grandma, parents, children. They're all now displaced. They were very angry. There's a lot of anger. The feeling is that they were abandoned by the city. So they're really strong, but the mom had to literally pull the dad out of the house. He didn't want to leave. So she thankfully was successful. and getting him to leave.

16:52Everyone got out safe. But now they are staying in different houses. So the family is broken up and they don't know what their future holds. They stayed here for probably an hour and a half, just sitting, sharing their story, crying, hugging. They have two younger daughters. The youngest, before she left, just gave me and my sister a hug and cried in her arms for about five minutes. I think people just are feeling very deep emotions and are in need of any type of support. Sometimes they're going to find it in their family. Sometimes they're going to find it at a restaurant who is associating to community drive.

17:36So as much as we can show up and be here, we'll do that. And a lot of our team members who work at this location are here right now volunteering. volunteering. We're also working on making sure that they continue to receive paychecks. That's a big part of it. We're not selling tacos, but we still need to make sure that our team members are taken care of. Obviously, lots of small business owners are not able to provide this kind of a service. They lost their businesses. They themselves may have lost their homes and schools and be displaced. What have you learned over the many years of being involved in Home State about what the role of business can be in society and community.

18:19It's interesting to see how restaurants specifically show up in times of crisis. The idea of nourishment is, of course, extends to food, but extends like so much beyond that. At the end of the day, we have to make payroll and we have to figure out ways to ensure that we can do that. A lot of people have been asking, how can we help? Is it bad to order from you right now? Is that putting your team in danger? Well, the answer is we need your orders. By you placing orders, that means that we will continue to be a business and be here for the community. Thank you. Thank you so much.

19:02My thanks to Eve for managing and producing that conversation to extend their impact even further. Home State has partnered with Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen to provide food for evacuees, volunteers, and other Angelenos in need. After the break, we'll hear from the emergency operations leader at World Central Kitchen, who's been on the ground in L.A. So stay with us.

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20:29aws.amazon.com slash activate and start building. Expanding your business in the U.S. can feel like a maze. Every state has its own payroll, benefits, and compliance rules, which can pull your focus away from growth. That's why founders use Deal. Deal is the professional employer organization, or PEO, that gives you a dedicated HR expert plus Fortune 500 level benefits for your team. The National Association of PEOs says businesses can grow twice as fast if they use one. So if you're scaling, make it simple with Deal. Go to deel.com slash mos and get up to three months free. Welcome back to Rapid Response.

21:17Before the break, we heard how two businesses were impacted by the LA wildfires, including Tex-Mex Cafe Homestate, which is partnering with World Central Kitchen to feed volunteers. Now we talk directly with World Central Kitchen's project leader on the ground in LA, Wendy Escobedo. Let's take a listen.

21:39I'm here with Wendy Escobedo, Emergency Operations Manager for World Central Kitchen, coming to us from somewhere in Southern California, dealing with the wildfires. Where are you, Wendy? Currently, I'm in Burbank. This is where our sort of headquarters office is. But we're obviously out in the field as well. So I'm overseeing the project. So what we try to do in situations like this is getting our scouts out in the field as quickly as possible. So we were able to engage some of our team members that are here in L.A. and they were able to head out Tuesday and actually start seeing what what the situation was.

22:16Right. So me and a few of our other team members drove up Wednesday morning to kind of continue the work. Is there a consistent playbook that World Central Kitchen uses, like, with every activation? Is there anything, sort of how did this unfold? And is there anything that's distinctive to LA and to these fires that impacted how you activated? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that's always the question, right? What does the playbook look like? And every disaster emergency is, of course, unique and different in its own way. I think our biggest playbook is adaptability, right? We just tend to mold in the way we need to for what needs to get done.

22:59I think that's what makes the team that we have really incredible. You know, we've done everything from building kitchens from scratch to building community kitchens for people to cook in, from doing farmer's market to produce boxes. And so it all depends on what the need is. And obviously, L.A. has a very large hospitality community, right? And it's honestly been incredible. The tremendous outpour of people wanting to volunteer, of volunteering their staff, their kitchens, making meals for us. part of what we do, and especially after COVID, when we started partnering with restaurants was Jose's idea to really stimulate the economy, right, and to stimulate the local economy.

23:40And so it didn't make sense here for us to build a kitchen when we have all these amazing food trucks and restaurant partners that were just, you know, trying to support us. And so for us, it made the most sense, especially because the fires were pretty spread out in the beginning, to just engage with local partners, food trucks, restaurants. And food trucks for this one particular were really helpful because we were just able to send them out to various locations where we needed to feed people. So, you know, in terms of this response, I think that was the unique part of it, right? Sort of plugging in and being able to quickly send food to an area.

24:18The goal is to always feed people as quickly as possible. But the situation, like in some of the disasters, there isn't food there, so you have to get it there. Here, there's enough food around for folks. It's just getting it to the right places and prepared in appropriate ways. Yeah, I mean, I think that the bigger thing on this is like the logistics, right? We will set up a distribution site in a community or in an area that we know there are recipients that need food. I mean, on the logistical side, it's just making sure, you know, things change quickly. Obviously, with fires, a lot can change very, very fast.

24:51And so we wanted to be as flexible as we could. So if I knew that there was an area that needed food, you know, I can have a food truck there in 30 minutes and we can start serving, right? Like that's the ultimate goal. And how do you know where food is needed? Yeah, so that's – we have a whole team, our community outreach team, and they are our scouts. They are the people that are going out to these places. we're not doing anything over the phone right we're all getting out in the community in fact Tuesday night when the fires happened our scouts went and picked up sandwiches and burritos and we're out in the field you know with with food we don't want to go somewhere empty-handed we try to show up with meals engage with the community start asking questions getting to know them too right just sort of establishing that relationship of like hey we're here to help you know no one knows their community better than the community itself, right?

25:43They communicate, they share the information to each other. And we found that that often is more helpful and moves faster than, you know, social media or things like that. Are there any memorable experiences that you've had so far? I mean, you've been doing this, it's been now almost a week, right, that you've been engaged with trying of trying to deal with these fires. As devastating as this has been here, it's been incredible to see how the community has sort of showed up for each other. And to me, I was able to go out in the Altadena area this week, where there's still obviously several places that people perhaps didn't lose their home, but they still don't have power.

26:30You know, obviously, there's a lot of damage in the surrounding area. And, and I was able to go to a community hub that was that just a gentleman set up at a gas station, right? He was friends with the guy that on the gas station. He said, Hey, people want to bring donations. Can I set it up there? You know, we we were able to to get to know him a little bit. We were able to send a food truck. And then we said, Hey, what else do you need? We're setting them up with lights, you know, power, trash removal, just making sure that they can continue to help their community. And that's been really great to be able to do and to experience.

27:04I think that's probably pretty memorable to me in terms of this response. And for you as an activation director, like when you get up in the morning in a situation like this, do you know what you're going to do that day? I mean, I think, you know, overall, the I think the first 72 hours, right, are sort of our semi chaotic hour, right? And it's because we're we're just going right. We're like, all right, let's get food out. That's our first priority. And then, you know, after the 72 hours, we kind of are able to take a step back a little bit and look at the bigger picture, you know, sort of get more in line and organized.

27:41We have a better understanding of what the need is, where the need is, and how we can fill that. To be honest with you, I have a really incredible team, and that makes this work so much easier. I think as we keep doing it, we get better at it, and it feels smoother. Do you know what you're going to do tonight, tomorrow, after we get off this call? Yes, I do. One of the things that I would like to do is try to just get out into the field more, just check in with everyone. You know, we have sometimes so many restaurant partners and food trucks and I always like to go and visit them and thank them and just see how the community is doing.