Speaker 1: I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: Tiffany Hobbs here with you. It's Saturdays with Tiffany, And
Speaker 1: I want to tell you.
Speaker 2: I want to clue you.
Speaker 1: In to a very special secret. And yeah it's a
Speaker 1: secret no more, because I'll be telling you some information
Speaker 1: about this very special place because we don't want it
Speaker 1: to be lost. We don't want it to be yet
Speaker 1: another casualty of the fires in the Palisades and in
Speaker 1: the Pasadena and Altadena areas.
Speaker 2: This really special place is.
Speaker 1: Something that if you've driven down PCCh either north or southbound,
Speaker 1: and you've looked up at any point as you are
Speaker 1: nearing Santa Monica in that border and you're kind of
Speaker 1: going through the Pacific Palisades, you might have noticed a
Speaker 1: sign for something called the Tahitian Terrace Mobile Park, ring
Speaker 1: a bell. It's a place where when I look I
Speaker 1: had kind of these wistful dreams. I wondered, what is
Speaker 1: that there's a mobile home park in the Palisades.
Speaker 2: Wow, And when you.
Speaker 1: Looked at it, it towered over PCH and had this
Speaker 1: wonderful exposure to the coastline. Definitely coveted land Prime Real Estate.
Speaker 1: It's right across from will Rogers State Beach.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: This Tahitian Terrace mobile park tucked away in the hillside,
Speaker 1: and there were one hundred and fifty eight mobile and
Speaker 1: prefabricated homes, homes that were owned, and plots that were rented,
Speaker 1: rent controlled in fact, so people who lived there never left.
Speaker 1: You'd be hard pressed to find any availability in the
Speaker 1: Tahitian Terrace if you got in, if you were so
Speaker 1: lucky to get into that community, you did not dare leave.
Speaker 1: And there were residents who were into their eighties and
Speaker 1: nineties who had lived there since the inception of this
Speaker 1: planned community. They lived on palm lined code de sacs
Speaker 1: with names such as Aloha Drive, Kiki Place, and Bali Lane.
Speaker 1: The Tahitian Terrace again carved into this beautiful hillside adjacent
Speaker 1: to Tumescal Canyon Road. Opened in nineteen sixty two, it
Speaker 1: was the golden age for mobile home parks, as they
Speaker 1: were popping up all around the country after World War Two.
Speaker 2: In his nineteen.
Speaker 1: Sixty two book Travels with Charlie in Search of America,
Speaker 1: author John Steinbeck marveled at the houses, including those in
Speaker 1: Tahitian terraces, saying, quote, these new things under the sun,
Speaker 1: of their great numbers, the parks where they sit down
Speaker 1: in uneasy permanence.
Speaker 2: They were a phenomenon, and.
Speaker 1: For the Tahitian Terarra to withstand the ever changing nature
Speaker 1: of the Palisades and Los Angeles at large, a very
Speaker 1: special jewel. By nineteen seventy nine, residents of the Tahitian
Speaker 1: Terance but Terrists were paying between two hundred and four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month for their ocean view homes. Back
Speaker 1: then that was even a steal, and as of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, that affordability continued. Many of the residents knew
Speaker 1: each other. It was a very close knit community, an
Speaker 1: eclectic community. Some might actually describe it as bohemian. You
Speaker 1: had your artists, You had your sculptors, your painters, your actors,
Speaker 1: You had your educators. You had your retirees, people who
Speaker 1: again never intended to leave. You had people who passed
Speaker 1: down homes to other generations. That you had residents who
Speaker 1: inherited homes from their parents themselves being raised at the
Speaker 1: Tahitian Terrace.
Speaker 2: It was a jewel.
Speaker 1: And I speak about it in the past tense because
Speaker 1: on January seventh, as the Palisades Fire raged on, it
Speaker 1: set its sights on the Tahitian Terrace community. Now we
Speaker 1: have on, I want to introduce to you a very
Speaker 1: special person. His name is Alec Edwards. Alec Edwards is
Speaker 1: a fire captain. He lived at the Tahitian Terrace. He
Speaker 1: had lived there for a few years with his wife,
Speaker 1: Becky and their daughter, their toddler aged daughter, and they
Speaker 1: had a beautiful home, their dream home. In fact, the
Speaker 1: day that the Palisades Fire began, Alec was actually off
Speaker 1: and after making sure that his family was safe and
Speaker 1: evacuated from the community, Alec and other residents stayed behind
Speaker 1: to battle the fire that consumed their neighborhood. Al is
Speaker 1: just a stellar human and the fact that he is
Speaker 1: here with us I count as just an absolute honor.
Speaker 1: Alec has spoken about his experiences that day online, and
Speaker 1: I actually invited Alec on to the show after he
Speaker 1: shared the timeline of events that day during the Palisades fire,
Speaker 1: and he said, then I noticed that speaking publicly about
Speaker 1: what he went through, not only was he expecting that
Speaker 1: to help others who were navigating what was going on,
Speaker 1: but that it also was cathartic and therapeutic for him
Speaker 1: as well to share his experience. So I asked Alec
Speaker 1: to come on and talk to us about the events
Speaker 1: of that fateful night. Please welcome Captain Alec Edwards to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Hi, Alec, Hey, Tiffany, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm well.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on with us and
Speaker 1: giving us your time. This can't be easy by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, and I really appreciate you being
Speaker 1: willing to describe what happened at the Tahitian Terrass in
Speaker 1: your own words. This article the La Times wrote and
Speaker 1: the chronicling they did, the profiling they did is beautiful,
Speaker 1: but it pales in comparison to actually hearing it directly
Speaker 1: from you.
Speaker 2: So thank you again for coming on with us.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk
Speaker 3: about my like you've described it, the jewel of my life,
Speaker 3: where we had our family and I only got to
Speaker 3: be there for six and a half years, but I
Speaker 3: loved it there, and yeah, we fought to try to
Speaker 3: save it.
Speaker 1: You know, before before you actually get into the fighting part,
Speaker 1: because I'm going to dedicate a lot more time to
Speaker 1: you retelling your story tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what attracted you initially to the Tahitian terrasts. There are
Speaker 1: so many places you could have bought why by there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I grew up in Santa Monica. I'm a surfer.
Speaker 3: Before I was a fire captain, I was surfer, and
Speaker 3: my entire life I drove up pch going surfing, and
Speaker 3: I always kind of saw this sign for Tahitian Terrace,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know anybody that lived there, and kind
Speaker 3: of always just thought, hmm, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 3: Kind of like you said, we were experienced. And then
Speaker 3: when I met my wife, Becky, one of her best
Speaker 3: friends lived in the park, and that was something different,
Speaker 3: and so we started visiting her and going to dinners there,
Speaker 3: and then we just got really lucky. There was an
Speaker 3: elderly lady who was moving out and wanted someone to
Speaker 3: take her her home. Her her children didn't want it,
Speaker 3: they lived out of state, and she wanted someone who
Speaker 3: was going to move in and not demolish it, but
Speaker 3: just live in the place that she lived and have
Speaker 3: a family there. And so she made sure that we
Speaker 3: got it, and so we moved in when we had
Speaker 3: an ocean view and we could five minutes. It was
Speaker 3: some of our favorite surf spots. And you know, it
Speaker 3: was funny we moved in because my wife's best friend
Speaker 3: lived there, and a couple other friends that we had
Speaker 3: made from being there lived there. And then when we
Speaker 3: moved in, after about a year, my wife's best friend
Speaker 3: moved to Portugal and another one got married and ended
Speaker 3: up in San Diego, and the people that we had
Speaker 3: originally moved there to be around had left, and we
Speaker 3: were left with this amazing community of other people that
Speaker 3: we had become best friends with. I mean people that
Speaker 3: I counted as family, honestly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it sounds incredible. It sounds incredible. Aleck.
Speaker 1: You know, the time is actually against us, and we
Speaker 1: have a lot more to cover, and I want you
Speaker 1: to continue telling us about the Tahitian Terraces and about
Speaker 1: how special it was to you, so special in fact,
Speaker 1: that you were willing to risk your life that day
Speaker 1: to fight for your community. Can I hold you over
Speaker 1: for another segment and we can do that when we
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you, wonderful.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Captain Fire Captain Alec Edwards, resident of
Speaker 1: the Tahitian Terrace. A mobile home park tucked away adjacent
Speaker 1: to Tumesco Canyon there in the Pacific Palisades, right off
Speaker 1: of PCH a beautiful community, and we'll hear from Alec
Speaker 1: directly about what happened the day of the Palisades fire
Speaker 1: and his very ambitious quest along with neighbors to save
Speaker 1: their community. We are talking to fire Captain Alec Edwards.
Speaker 1: He is a longtime fire captain and was a six
Speaker 1: year resident of the Tahitian Terrace mobile home Park in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Palisades. Unfortunately a victim a major casualty that
Speaker 1: mobile home park of the Palisades fire, and the La
Speaker 1: Times did a very long story about the Tahitian Terraces
Speaker 1: as well as about the neighbors. Some of the neighbors
Speaker 1: who stayed behind to try to fight that Palisades fire.
Speaker 1: And rather than me just telling you excerpts from the story,
Speaker 1: I reached out to Alec, who I've known for almost
Speaker 1: twenty years now and I've watched as he's navigated this
Speaker 1: personal loss publicly by sharing about what happened that day,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, come on, KFI, talk to
Speaker 1: our audience and let them know directly from yourself, from
Speaker 1: you personally what you went through. So Alec, again, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on with us. And you were telling
Speaker 1: us about living at the Tahitian Terrace. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us what happened that day?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Tiffany. So that day, right around ten am,
Speaker 3: we started getting alerts that there was a fire, and
Speaker 3: you could see it from pretty much everywhere in the Palisades.
Speaker 3: There was just this big plume of smoke coming from
Speaker 3: up in the mountains. We knew there was a lot
Speaker 3: of wind that day, and so my wife got home
Speaker 3: from work early, packed up the kid, and they evacuated
Speaker 3: around twelve thirty. I stayed back thinking that, you know,
Speaker 3: I just had some garden hose with me, and I thought,
Speaker 3: if there's any embers that fly over, I'll try to
Speaker 3: put them out. Our area traditionally has never really been
Speaker 3: affected by these wildfires, but this one was different. And
Speaker 3: right around three o'clock the wind shifted and it started
Speaker 3: blowing directly at us. Yeah, it was it was wild.
Speaker 3: I've never seen winds like that before. I've been a
Speaker 3: firefighter for quite a minute few years, and it was
Speaker 3: pretty wild. So and then right around that time, a firefighter,
Speaker 3: a friend of one of my neighbors showed up in
Speaker 3: the park with fire, actual fire hose and novels, and
Speaker 3: we thought, oh, we might actually be able to do
Speaker 3: something here. And so he and I and this man
Speaker 3: named JB who is a retired military and one of
Speaker 3: my neighbors. He stayed back and the three of us
Speaker 3: ended up tapping into a fire hydrant and as the
Speaker 3: fire came into our park, we started trying to save houses. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and right around then is when an LA City l
Speaker 3: a fd rake showed up and a cal fire rag
Speaker 3: showed up, and so we tied in with them, and
Speaker 3: they were generous enough to let us pull some hose.
Speaker 3: We let them. They let us pull some hoses off
Speaker 3: their engine as well, and all of us started just
Speaker 3: going to work trying to say what we could. Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's just you know, when you think about the
Speaker 1: effort of you guys who were there, the neighbors coming
Speaker 1: together trying what you can with the kind of I
Speaker 1: guess you would say that the meager supplies you had
Speaker 1: a regular garden hose, but then being able to access
Speaker 1: your larger hoses. And then fortunately a truck shows up
Speaker 1: and you guys are you're professional, So you're able to
Speaker 1: just combine efforts, so now there's this.
Speaker 2: Organic effort to fight the fire.
Speaker 1: I just I can't imagine what that was like for you,
Speaker 1: as a firefighter, who this is your career, this is
Speaker 1: what you do for strangers, but you're doing this for
Speaker 1: your own community.
Speaker 3: It was hard. It was really hard. The end of
Speaker 3: my street. Some people that I really love once their
Speaker 3: house burn to the ground. Was really difficult.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Alec.
Speaker 1: I know this is really hard for you, and heart
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a big enough word to be honest,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for just trying to get through this,
Speaker 1: and I hear this emotion.
Speaker 2: It's still very raw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we you know, we we tried to do
Speaker 3: what we could. It was it was surreal. I mean
Speaker 3: people that earlier that day, my lovely neighbor who makes
Speaker 3: dog food had just dropped drop dog food off for us,
Speaker 3: and a couple of hours later, I'm squirting her porch
Speaker 3: down trying to stop her house from burning down. It
Speaker 3: was absolutely surreal for us. Yeah, yeah, it was. And
Speaker 3: so I stayed until basically I could tell my house
Speaker 3: was catching on fire, and I turned around and my
Speaker 3: car was about to catch on fire. And I knew
Speaker 3: I had to go, and there just wasn't anything we
Speaker 3: could do at that point. You know, my my entire
Speaker 3: street was on fire, and if I stayed any longer,
Speaker 3: I was going to be trapped. And so I left.
Speaker 3: The l City guys, the CalFire guys, they all had
Speaker 3: to leave to If you walked through our park, you
Speaker 3: would find remnants of hose where they had to just
Speaker 3: ditch them and flee for their own live which is
Speaker 3: not the wing we normally do as firefighters. This fire
Speaker 3: was different, and those guys really pushed themselves and tried
Speaker 3: to save our park as best they could. I really
Speaker 3: have a lot of respect for both CalFire and LSD
Speaker 3: for trying to save our park.
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that, because there have been quite
Speaker 1: a few questions that have arisen out of the fires
Speaker 1: across other than California about the firefighting effort. There were
Speaker 1: communities or neighbors neighborhoods where people said, you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't see a truck or the truck didn't stay very long.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate you speaking about your experience because it
Speaker 1: does dispel any myth that may be growing out of
Speaker 1: this that firefighters weren't trying.
Speaker 3: Oh no, they were trying, these guys. I mean they
Speaker 3: had already been fighting it for a couple hours when
Speaker 3: they came into my park, and these guys pushed it
Speaker 3: to the limit. I mean they were there after I left.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I had to go because my car
Speaker 3: was going to catch on fire, and they were still there,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure they had leave shortly after. And Tiffany,
Speaker 3: there was just nothing we could do. I you know,
Speaker 3: I was on the Woldy in twenty eighteen in Malibu.
Speaker 3: This fire was completely different. It was like a hurricane
Speaker 3: with fire and it you couldn't there was nothing to do.
Speaker 3: I hate to say it that way, but they really were.
Speaker 3: We tried. I tried so hard, but I you know,
Speaker 3: if we would have lost. It's amazing to me that
Speaker 3: we didn't lose any firefighters in this, in this uh
Speaker 3: these fires, because.
Speaker 2: Just what happened unprecedented is the word that people are saying.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and you know, it's weird to be on the
Speaker 3: civilian side of this. I was off duty that day,
Speaker 3: and I just kudos to all the guys that were
Speaker 3: out there working and really putting their lives on the line,
Speaker 3: trying to save people's properties.
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you a two part question.
Speaker 1: You've so graciously and humbly walked us through the faithful
Speaker 1: events of that day and into that night, as the
Speaker 1: Palisades fire took over your community, the Tahitian Terris. We're
Speaker 1: talking to Fire Captain Alec Edwards, a resident himself of
Speaker 1: the Tahitian Terrace. Where are you now? Where are you
Speaker 1: and your family now? And are there plans? Are their
Speaker 1: hopes that you'll be able to return?
Speaker 3: So we were fortunate enough to find an apartment in
Speaker 3: Santa Monica, near where I grew up. We just got
Speaker 3: very lucky, and so my family as of now is
Speaker 3: safe and comfortable and we're okay, but we want to rebuild.
Speaker 3: We have our whole community, if we're still a community,
Speaker 3: even though we don't have our houses. We have a
Speaker 3: great hoa led by some wonderful people, and they've kept
Speaker 3: us all in touch and we all want to come back.
Speaker 3: We we don't know if it'll ever be the same,
Speaker 3: but we're going to try to make it, make it
Speaker 3: what it was. We've been in touch with our council member,
Speaker 3: Tracy Park. She wants us back and we're we're all
Speaker 3: ready to rebuild and try to come back there as
Speaker 3: soon as possible, because that's home, and that was it
Speaker 3: was a jewel, and it was a community and a
Speaker 3: neighborhood and just a wonderful place to live. We all
Speaker 3: want to come back, and I hope you do.
Speaker 1: I really hope that you are able, like the other
Speaker 1: mobile home communities in the Palisades are able to in
Speaker 1: fact rebuild because they are so special and they are
Speaker 1: so uniquely a part of not only the Southern California
Speaker 1: landscape there in the Palisades on the coast, but they're
Speaker 1: just they're helpful. They're helpful for people who want that
Speaker 1: slice of home ownership where it may not have been
Speaker 1: afforded to them before, and these these developments really gave
Speaker 1: people that opportunity. Alec Where can people keep up with
Speaker 1: what you are doing? Maybe stay abreast through you of
Speaker 1: what you may need to get back into your community,
Speaker 1: any sort of news you want to share about the
Speaker 1: redevelopment or rebuilding process.
Speaker 2: Where can people keep up with you?
Speaker 3: The only Times article, I think she's going to be
Speaker 3: doing a series of keeping up with us. If anyone
Speaker 3: has a generosity in their heart and wants to donate.
Speaker 3: There is a go fundme for the residents of our park.
Speaker 3: A lot of people, like you said, we're retired on
Speaker 3: fixed incomes, and there is going to be updates on news.
Speaker 3: If anyone wants to just google Tahitian Terrists go fund me,
Speaker 3: they'll find it. And that money goes directly to people
Speaker 3: fill out a form, and it's the residents that were
Speaker 3: lower income or fixed income that need help. A lot
Speaker 3: of us were under insured and so some of us
Speaker 3: are going to be owing more on our mortgages than
Speaker 3: our insurance is going to cover us. So all that
Speaker 3: money goes to just helping us rebuild and come back
Speaker 3: and be part of the community that we were before.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and there'll be updates on that, I'm sure, Alec.
Speaker 1: I wish you all the best, buddy, I love you,
Speaker 1: I am here for you, and you are welcome back
Speaker 1: anytime too, KFI to talk about what you're going through
Speaker 1: and what you need.
Speaker 3: Okay, Tiffany are the best. I love you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for all your friend Shure, You're so welcome