One year after the Eaton and Palisades wildfires tore through Southern California, the recovery work remains. The truth about disaster work is that it is immensely difficult and slow. Last year’s wildfire was the fifth-deadliest and the second-most destructive in the state’s history. It claimed 19 lives and destroyed over 9,000 buildings. Since the epic tragedy, the question has shifted from whether the city will reconstruct communities to which community members can return and prosper post-construction.
Lessons Written in History
The fires that devastated Maui in 2023 offer a stark and nearly parallel lesson for the Eaton and Palisades fires in California today. In Maui, recovery was painfully slow. Thousands of residents remain displaced years later, with many living in temporary housing far from their original neighborhoods. The island’s housing crisis, which was already severe before the fire, was only deepened after the fire, pushing working-class families further from their communities, jobs, and support systems. What unfolded there reminds us that disaster is not only about destruction—it is about what happens when recovery fails to move with urgency and equity.
New Orleans tells a hauntingly similar story. When Hurricane Katrina struck, more than a million people were displaced—most of them Black. Neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward experienced slow, uneven reconstruction. Many families never returned. The result was not just population loss but also the erosion of community capital and generational wealth built over decades. Recovery delays reshaped the city’s social and economic fabric in ways that still linger today.
South Los Angeles also knows this lesson intimately. After the 1992 Civil Unrest, vast stretches of the community remained disinvested for decades. Delayed recovery became life-altering for generations. A vacant, blighted lot across the street from Community Coalition sat empty for nearly 30 years before public action finally reclaimed it. Today, that land is home to Evermont—a mixed-use, transit-oriented affordable housing development at the corner of Vermont and Manchester—proof that recovery is possible, but also a reminder of the enormous cost of waiting too long.
Most notably, Tulsa carries this history as well. The Greenwood District—known as Black Wall Street—was deliberately destroyed, wiping out homes, businesses, and lives. Though man-made, the aftermath mirrors what we see after natural disasters: lost wealth, fractured communities, and stolen futures. The damage was measured not only in dollars but in generations of historical erasure.
The Deeper Question: Who Gets to Come Home?
The concern surrounding equitable recovery after the Eaton wildfire reflects a long and painful pattern. Disaster recovery processes often overlook structural inequalities, resulting in the prolonged—sometimes permanent—displacement of low-income communities and communities of color. If no further measures are taken—such as expanded emergency funding, anti-land speculation safeguards, affordable housing, and community-based planning—recovery will continue to accelerate in affluent areas and remain stagnant in areas trying to retain their cultural identity while regaining economic stability.
Life Long Resident Donny Kincey Speaks Out Immediately After The Fires (Click Here)
“My family has lived in Altadena since 1958. We left Tulsa, a family of nine children, and came here. I went to preschool and elementary school at St. Mark’s (nine of the school’s buildings were destroyed). My family worked so hard to ensure I had everything I needed, and everything I needed was in Altadena. I tried to save my parents’ house, but the fire took it. I went home, thinking I was okay. I looked at the mountain and knew I wasn’t okay. I watched everything: my sister’s house, my house, my business, my artwork—everything I’ve worked so hard for is gone. Knowing that vultures are circling, people are being displaced, and they’re being taken advantage of makes me the most upset. I want to make sure that we fight, and that we stay—no matter what!”
—Graphic from High Country News
What This Moment STILL Demands of Us
As Los Angeles continues to rebuild, we must honor and rebuild the cultural and racial diversity of impacted communities.
Indigenous, Black, and Latino communities—especially in places like Altadena and Sylmar. Recovery must strengthen, not erase, these communities. We must lift up the voices of those directly impacted. Survivors must guide recovery priorities. Their lived experience is expertise, and without it, rebuilding efforts risk serving systems instead of people. Standing with survivors means demanding a recovery rooted in justice, memory, and collective care—so that this chapter does not become another cautionary tale of loss, displacement, and forgotten communities, but a turning point toward a more