Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: And coming up this weekend Saturday from seven to nine
Speaker 2: pm and Sunday from two to four pm. Kfi's own
Speaker 2: Michael Monks will be presenting his special on the weekend
Speaker 2: excuse me, the Weekend Wildfire Special, and he'll give us
Speaker 2: an update on that right now.
Speaker 3: Michael Monks, good to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Good evening, MO.
Speaker 2: I always wondered when you're reporting the news, you get
Speaker 2: one perspective.
Speaker 3: You don't get a wide perspective.
Speaker 2: You've kind of narrow in just the facts and what
Speaker 2: is happening in the moment. But now that some time
Speaker 2: has passed, you gain a little bit of perspective. What
Speaker 2: do you think that you have learned looking back on
Speaker 2: the wildfires?
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what was most interesting in putting this
Speaker 4: together so far, and I should know. Just for disclosure,
Speaker 4: I talked to a couple of wildfire victims who work
Speaker 4: with us at KFI and at iHeart, one of them being.
Speaker 3: Your producer to wal Sharp, who had some.
Speaker 4: Trouble in the Altadena fire, and also David Howard from
Speaker 4: our sales department who lost a house in the Palisades,
Speaker 4: And as I talked to both of them separately by
Speaker 4: the way, and then put together this piece about their experiences,
Speaker 4: I learned the similarities. Despite the fact that these fires
Speaker 4: happened thirty miles from one another in different types of neighborhoods,
Speaker 4: there was a sense of optimism on both sides that hey,
Speaker 4: we've seen these types of forecast before. Heck, we've had
Speaker 4: fires before, but this may not play out. And so
Speaker 4: there was that hope up intol the very last moment
Speaker 4: that nothing was going to happen, and then after it happened,
Speaker 4: the similar emotions not just of losing the homes, but
Speaker 4: both of these guys experienced the sensation of being physically
Speaker 4: lost in neighborhoods that they have known for decades because
Speaker 4: everything was gone, All of the recognizable historic landmarks were gone.
Speaker 4: And that really opened up a new perspective of the
Speaker 4: devastation we've all seen. We've seen aerial footage, I've been
Speaker 4: there on the ground, I've seen it up close and personal,
Speaker 4: but to hear it from their mouths in that way,
Speaker 4: with that intensity, it really did open my eyes even
Speaker 4: bigger to the sense of loss that this entire region
Speaker 4: has experienced collectively.
Speaker 2: I got to ask you, because you may interview someone
Speaker 2: on a daily basis, and even though they may be
Speaker 2: going through something painful, there is a degree of distance
Speaker 2: because you don't know them, you don't see them every day,
Speaker 2: you don't work with them. How was it going through
Speaker 2: this type of interview process with two people that you
Speaker 2: would see presumably daily and know them in a way
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't a typical interview subject.
Speaker 4: The closer you are to somebody, the harder it is
Speaker 4: to hear the story. We report tragedies every day in
Speaker 4: the news, and it's terrible, and we have humanity and
Speaker 4: we recognize that if it's some fatal crash takes place
Speaker 4: on the freeway, you know that's sad, But that's also
Speaker 4: somebody's family member, right, I mean, somebody who's closer to that.
Speaker 4: That is a devastating experience that will live with them forever.
Speaker 4: So the closer you are to something, obviously, the more
Speaker 4: intense the feelings.
Speaker 3: But I was.
Speaker 4: Grateful to both gave It and Towala for sharing their
Speaker 4: stories with us, because they both presented their story with
Speaker 4: a sense of vulnerability. They really opened up about the
Speaker 4: feelings that they experienced in the moment leading up to
Speaker 4: the fires, the moments during the fires, immediately after, and
Speaker 4: even right now, and it's just been terrible, and just
Speaker 4: to build upon the similarities that both are experiencing, that
Speaker 4: focus has shifted to the rebuild and the interactions with
Speaker 4: the governments, the reflection on the preparedness or the lack thereof,
Speaker 4: that the governments had in addressing these these fires as
Speaker 4: they were on the way and as they were happening,
Speaker 4: and it was just all very revealing that even though
Speaker 4: we tell the stories, we talk to the politicians, we
Speaker 4: talk to people on the ground, the people who are
Speaker 4: experiencing it, not just on January seventh, not just on
Speaker 4: January eighth, but right now it's still very very intense.
Speaker 4: The smoke is not gone from their lives.
Speaker 3: If you're just tuning in.
Speaker 2: Michael Monks of KFI News Department is joining me on
Speaker 2: the line. He has a very important weekend wildfire special
Speaker 2: which is coming up on Saturday from seven to nine pm,
Speaker 2: and it will re air on Sunday from two to
Speaker 2: four pm. Michael, we often talk about how we find
Speaker 2: ourselves in a story. At what point we find ourselves
Speaker 2: in the story Obviously, this is not the end of
Speaker 2: the particular story, as they say, it's the end of
Speaker 2: the beginning. And we know that this rebuild process that
Speaker 2: you talked about is going to be very long. In
Speaker 2: talking to Tawala and David Howard and anyone else in
Speaker 2: covering the fires, have you figured out whether this rebuilt
Speaker 2: effort is going to plan or is it actually going
Speaker 2: to pot.
Speaker 4: This is the hard part. The hard part now beg again.
Speaker 4: The fires are out, thank goodness. We have some challenges
Speaker 4: obviously tonight, maybe a little bit into tomorrow, and let's
Speaker 4: hope that it doesn't get too bad out there. These
Speaker 4: folks have been through enough. We know that, and we
Speaker 4: don't want anybody else thrown into the fray. But this
Speaker 4: is a long road. There are a lot of people
Speaker 4: who say they will rebuild, and there are other folks
Speaker 4: who are looking to rebuild their lives somewhere else. But
Speaker 4: this is a region that was already challenged. It was
Speaker 4: cash strapped, it was suffering from a housing shortage and
Speaker 4: an expensive cost of living. Anyway, part of this special
Speaker 4: explores that as well. The economic impact a study that
Speaker 4: came out from UCLA. I'll talk to one of the researchers.
Speaker 4: This is not just a dollar figure on the damage
Speaker 4: that has been done, which is well into the billions
Speaker 4: of dollars, not just on the insurance claims folks are making,
Speaker 4: but money that you and I are going to have
Speaker 4: to spend because of this. If you have an insurance policy,
Speaker 4: it's likely to go up, this researcher will tell us.
Speaker 4: And we are also possibly going to the rents going up,
Speaker 4: the cost of housing going up even further, and can
Speaker 4: we spare that? So we are all going to feel
Speaker 4: the impact. And one other element that all of us
Speaker 4: will have felt, if we haven't felt it already, is
Speaker 4: what we lost in the fires. We may not have
Speaker 4: lost our home, we may not even know anybody who
Speaker 4: lived in Altadena or lived in the Palisades, but more
Speaker 4: than likely at some point we've been there, or goodness,
Speaker 4: we wanted to go there and see some attraction or
Speaker 4: some restaurant that we love that's now gone. So we
Speaker 4: talked to the La Conservancy of Preservationist group here in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles about the impact of the loss of some
Speaker 4: of these historic structures and venues that have been there
Speaker 4: so long and have meant so much to so many people,
Speaker 4: and if you didn't get the chance to go, you
Speaker 4: never will because they're gone and that's something you can't
Speaker 4: really rebuild these.
Speaker 2: Michael Monks has a very important weekend wildfire special. Do
Speaker 2: not miss it here on KFI from seven to nine
Speaker 2: pm on Saturday, and it will be re aired on
Speaker 2: Sunday from two to four pm.
Speaker 3: Michael, I have not heard it yet.
Speaker 2: I am eagerly waiting to tune in to listen to
Speaker 2: your treatment and also learn something because I know we
Speaker 2: don't have perspective when we're reporting on these things. It's
Speaker 2: not till weeks and maybe months afterward, and you're going
Speaker 2: to help provide that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you get swept up in the moment a lot,
Speaker 4: but to have a moment to spend some time on
Speaker 4: this and to make sure that we as a community
Speaker 4: across LA remember what it was like in those early
Speaker 4: days and what it's like right now. It's just really
Speaker 4: important that we stay focused.
Speaker 3: Thank you for what you do, Michael. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Moe.
Speaker 2: It's Later with Moke Kelly I AM six forty. We
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Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty