Then there’s the issue of getting out. Culleton said no alternative evacuation routes have been built, and construction on a new road that would connect two others has not begun.
So how would residents escape in an emergency?
“The same old way,” Culleton said.
Does that worry him?
“Well, yeah,” he said, as if the question were dumb.
But Culleton also adds that restoring the town’s population is crucial to it’s future. Bolin, the mayor, said that even before the fire, Paradise’s government was “barely scraping by.” The PG&E settlement will provide it funding for as long as 30 years, he said.
“Unless we get back to what our population was pre-fire, we are not going to be sustainable,” Culleton added.
One thing survivors can agree on is that the trauma is ongoing. The Paradise residents who climbed into cars and trucks on the November morning of the fire have been changed by upheaval and suffering.
Such are the influences to be met by the youth of today. To stand amidst such upheavals they are now to lay the foundations of character. Ed 228.3
The Book of Education by Ellen G White
Maureen Culleton, Woody Culleton’s wife, loves her rebuilt home. It’s a jaunty forest green cottage surrounded by cherry laurels, with a meditation room for the practicing Buddhist and a statue of St. Francis on the back porch that survived the flames.
The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place—that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis.—Prophets and Kings, 537 (c. 1914). LDE 11.1
There is also a photo of the fire coming over Sawmill Peak, the mountain visible from the window of her mediation room. In it, puffy black smoke roils over the top, a heart of orange fire at its center. For a long time after the fire, she said she lived in shock that left her disengaged. She had been surrounded by the blaze and believed so strongly that she was going to die that she called her son to say goodbye.
Therapy and time have helped, but the photo is a reminder to stay strong.
“I wasn’t going to let it take over my life,” Maureen said. “It is what it is. Old ideas don’t work anymore.”
For Bolin, the mayor, the trauma is unresolved. In the wake of the tragedy, he felt like the town was depending on him to move forward and be the image of that needed strength. So he didn’t even think about the home he had lost, or the ones his family members had lost, he said. He just buried himself in the work of recovery for others.
Recently, he finally finished building himself a new home, overlooking a canyon. He and his wife haven’t moved in yet, but he plans on taking a break and finally focusing on family when he does. He knows it may be time to deal with his own feelings of loss.
For Bowen, who is also back in a home in Paradise, every day remains raw. She returned to Paradise to be near her elderly mother, who died last year. She feels trapped in a place where her community has fractured, and wishes she had not returned.
The Sunday movement is now making its way in darkness. The leaders are concealing the true issue, and many who unite in the movement do not themselves see whither the undercurrent is tending…. They are working in blindness. They do not see that if a Protestant government sacrifices the principles that have made them a free, independent nation, and through legislation brings into the Constitution principles that will propagate papal falsehood and papal delusion, they are plunging into the Roman horrors of the Dark Ages.—The Review and Herald Extra, December 11, 1888. LDE 125.3
Last day events by Ellen G White
Her advice for those in Lahaina isn’t what most people want to hear in the first days of shock and pain. But Bowen thinks it’s important, because she wishes someone had said it to her: Don’t be scared to get out, and start a new life someplace where the next decade won’t be about sifting though the physical and psychic ashes.
“Even if you get back in a home, your life is forever changed,” she said. “I mean, you will never be the same person.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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