Picking up the pieces after the Sayre fire

Meghan McCarty
| November 24, 2008 11:18 PM TrackBacks (0) Comments (0)
Sights and Sounds from Oakridge Mobile Home Park



I visited Sylmar, the north San Fernando Valley community devastated by the Sayre fire, twice last week.

On Monday, nerves still raw and exposed, residents of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park were allowed to return to their homes - escorted by police in vanpools, looking out upon the catastrophic scene like tourists on a somber bus tour.

Vans filed in one after another, driving through the grounds like a funeral motorcade, while the media stood by in the 90 degree heat, some wearing masks to protect themselves from the smoke and ash which still filled the air.

The returning residents didn't get out of the vehicles to speak to the press. They filed by silently, holding cameras up and peering through tinted windows.

They weren't allowed to walk through the park. The LAPD was still classifying the site as a crime scene - not because of suspicion of foul play but because they wanted to finish a thorough investigation of the ruins and make sure everyone was accounted for to prevent civilians from discovering any human remains that may have been buried among the ash.

Amazingly, no one perished in that fire. Police dogs had covered the site two times in the previous days with only a single hit at a home where it turned out a woman had kept the cremains of her husband.

The news brought small relief to a couple of residents gathered under the 210 overpass who looked on as neighbors drove through the park.

They declined to give their names, saying they lived and worked at Oakridge and had already gotten into trouble for talking to the media. They were tired and dazed. They had been sitting under the overpass every day since the fire chased them from their home - watching, and waiting, trying to wrap their minds around the loss that was staring them in the face.

On Thursday I returned to Sylmar to the Sayre Fire Assistance Center. The mood among many victims I met was upbeat and optimistic. Less than a week after losing everything, people were starting to rebuild their lives.

Tags:

0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Picking up the pieces after the Sayre fire.

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/cgi-bin/mtcom/mt-tb.cgi/864

Leave a comment