Fire

Luck and Privilege

As Friday night became Saturday morning, a fire broke out at the apartment complex where I live.

I can’t find anything official about it online, but a reporter from the local CBS station, News Channel 5, posted to his Facebook page. And the station itself ran a follow up story. Once the Fire Marshall and investigators file their reports, these will be public record and I most definitely will be looking them up.

This is not my first experience with a house fire. I have had the luck and privilege to have been able to walk away unscathed from all of these fiery events. It’s humbling, and it’s also unnerving - but so I don’t invite bad luck, I am going with the idea that I am a cat with 9 lives.

I am not bragging about my good luck or supernatural privilege. I am grateful to what or whomever keeps me safe.

There were two fire incidents in 1979 at the apartment complex where I lived in West Hollywood - 1140 North Clark St., Apartment 306. I provide the address for those rock and roll trivia buffs, as three out of four members of Motley Crue lived in the apartment directly downstairs from me. I moved there just about two years before they did. They were the loudest, rowdiest neighbors I ever had - and I subsequently lived across the street from the Hell’s Angels in NYC’s East Village (I was in the same building as Richard Hell, and no, I never saw him. I did see the Angels all the time - mostly from my window.)

The first fire was the work of the West Hollywood Garage Arsonist. Members of The Avengers were staying at the apartment- the entire living room floor, from fold-out couch to the actual floor was a mass of sleeping bags. We’d probably all just fallen asleep when there was a strident knocking on the door. A sheriff’s officer asked where the owner of a VW Beetle (he gave the license plate) was. That was my sister and she was asleep in her room. What a terrible jolt. Her car was new - she’d had it maybe a year. The officer said a cloth was stuffed into the gas slot, a match was lit, and the car was gone.

She spent a week getting around town on the bus and one day, on Santa Monica Blvd., rolling past Westwood Porsche-Audi, she saw a pre-owned burgundy colored Porsche 914 Targa with a price tag NOT out of her reach. Because the insurance paid her pretty much the full value of her new VW, she actually had enough money to buy that Porsche. And she did.

The car fire was in January. In the middle of June, as I was puttering around in the kitchen, I heard an explosion, and I saw flames out the kitchen window emanating from the kitchen directly above. I ran out the door, leaving it wide open, and went straight to the Licorice Pizza store on the corner of San Vicente and Sunset - about a 30 second dash from the apartment, and called the Fire Department. They responded in no time, and prior to hosing down the apartment above, they went into our apartment and covered EVERYTHING with tarps, so the only things that suffered water damage was the food in the cabinets. It was wild when the insurance adjuster came to determine the value of the salt that was left in the container and things like that.

We decamped to the Beverly Hilton, about 10 minutes away, as our apartment was being restored with new carpet, and all-day-for-several-days industrial fanning to get rid of the smoky odor. It turns out that the members of Rod Stewart’s band were all staying there - they were on tour and had shows at the Forum. While my sister was hanging out at the pool (I was at school), she got into conversations with them, and they were so sympathetic to us being out of our apartment because of the fire, they gave us tickets to multiple nights during their 5-day run at the Forum.

Rod Stewart, 1979, The Fabulous Forum. I KNOW this was shot during his performance of “The Killing of Georgie.” The sympathy seats were excellent and back in those days, you didn’t need a photo pass to bring your camera in.

In other natural disasters, such as flooding and earthquakes, I have also been lucky. Except for Hurricane Sandy. I wasn’t living in NYC when she blew through, but I had a ground floor storage unit…. in a flood plain I learned later.

Water damage from Hurricane Sandy on this Ektachrome slide of Stiv Bators

I lost a lot of things in Hurricane Sandy - slides, negatives, vintage clothing, gifted Prada shoes (so much for safe keeping), paper things (notebooks, magazines, newspaper clippings I saved) and the only comfort is SO DID 1000s of people. Laurie Anderson lost all her stage props. Our storage spaces were in the same block. She wrote and released a beautiful piece called LANDFALL, performed with the Kronos Quartet, and hearing her interviews about writing the piece and the loss of her work was consoling to me. I recommend listening to it if you have lost THINGS.

In 2010, Nashville, where I have lived since 2008, experienced a flood of epic proportions. Thirteen inches of rain fell over two days - May 1 and 2. Entire neighborhoods were submerged, yet the small area surrounding my house did not flood. We were on the crest of a hill, but only two blocks away, in Shelby Park, huge swaths were underwater. This was a tragic, devastating event, but the people on my block and I did not get flooded.

The tornado outbreak of March 2020 also devastated my Nashville neighborhood. Two workers at my favorite speakeasy, Attaboy, were killed by flying debris when they were trying to get to safety. My house was not just unscathed, not even a lightweight planter on the porch was knocked over. The neighborhood was without power for two days, but on those two days, I had dog-sitting in another neighborhood, and they had power. The tornado of December 2023 also left us untouched. We were having a tree-trimming party (with two Christmas trees on the front porch) and someone’s phone pinged a severe weather warning. That party turned into a bourbon-filled Weather Channel viewing session, but no one’s friends or family or homes were affected.

Again - I am not boasting about the good luck that surrounds me. I am grateful for it, and quite in awe of what or whomever is protecting me. I wish everyone had such a shield.

As for current events - I have lost convenience, time, sleep, and billable hours. I could do that on my own without the assistance of a disaster. I am lucky. I MIGHT be able to return to my apartment on Saturday, which would be a week after the fire. The family who lost everything, and their downstairs neighbor (whom I do know - and her cat) whose apartment is absolutely water-damaged - I feel for them and hope that the Red Cross, friends, family, and various insurance interests buoy their future.

I think back on January’s ice storm here, and how 1000s of people were without power and heat for weeks. I had power and heat. Sure, it was icy and I couldn’t go anywhere. Also, my car was stolen - and apart from the colossal inconvenience it caused, there’s a part of me that’s impressed by whoever could steal a car in an ice storm. But one of my neighbors mentioned the other night, as we were watching the Fire Department fight the blaze, it is in the aftermath of disasters that thieves and ne’er do wells strike - because people are pre-occupied with the disaster, and that is somehow an opportunity for the thieves. There’s an ad hoc chain link fence around our building, and we can only access it while the repair contractors are there. Hopefully this not just mitigates but absolutely prevents looting.

This is the ad hoc chain link fence. You’re seeing a view of the UNDAMAGED units. Mine is the unit with the window where the people are gathered. The tenant in the apartment facing you, the reader, moved in on April 1.

Here’s a bit of blow-by-blow of Saturday morning.

At 2:02 AM, this picture shows the size of the blaze, and I inadvertently photographed the family whose apartment was the origination point of the fire.

I recognize the mother from the interviews the local stations conducted with her. She escaped with the clothes on her back and her children and fiancé.

The rest of the residents were lucky that the fire department responded quickly and were able to limit the fire to the section where it started.

At 2:04 AM, you can see the Fire Department already on the ground - in fact, prior to me taking the photos and videos - probably around 1:50 AM, a Fireman and a police officer were in my apartment trying to help me wrangle my cats into their carrier. The cats hid and none of us could find them. I was told to EVACUATE NOW, and leave the cats behind. I stood with all my neighbors from Building 7 across the driveway, in my bathrobe and slippers watching the blaze and the firefighters work as dazed, confused, and frightened residents milled about.

I was concerned about the cats and if they would be exposed to any smoke. The on-going fire alarm terrified them to begin with.

The fire was extinguished earlier than the televised story states (they said it was 4:30AM, but that’s when the Fire Department was packing up to roll out).

By 3:09 AM, the flames had been extinguished and the cherry picker was deployed to hose the apartment from above to insure every last ember was doused. Over the next hour or so, a Fire Department representative distributed witness reports that asked us to write out our statements. Mine was a list:

• Approximately 1:50 awakened by fire alarm, neighbor, police, and firefighter knocking on my door.

• Firefighter and police officer helped me try to wrangle my cats. They hid, and I was told to evacuate, and did so.

• End of narrative.

I was told the Red Cross was in the clubhouse but I had someplace to stay - my best friend lives 10 minutes away - so I didn’t meet with them. She works the day shift in a hospital and wakes up at 4:30AM, so at 4:50, I texted her and said the power and water were out at my building and we all had to leave, and I would be coming over after she left for work and having a slumber party for a night, or a few. I saved the fire story until she got home in the afternoon.

While I waited for her to leave the house, I drove to Sanders Ferry Park as the day was breaking to see and talk with the deer.

And then I went to the post office to get the mail from my PO Box.

Daybreak and sunrise don’t waste any time. And I love seeing this time of day as much as the next person, but not under these circumstances.

And here I am now - I MAY - in the best case scenario, be able to return to my apartment on Saturday - one week after the fire. And at least I have a habitable apartment.

I am absolutely aware - and always have been - that I lead a charmed life.

I am grateful for it.