Ash Zone Survivors Need Your Help

My family and I, like many, have been affected by the Eaton Canyon fire in Altadena. We have been displaced from our home since Tuesday night, January 7 with nothing but a few belongings and the clothes on our backs. These past few days we’ve been at loss of sensibility with moments spent separated, moving from hotel to hotel, and not knowing when or if we’d have a home to go back to. Fortunately our home survived…unfortunately it is unlivable due to the ash, soot, and other harmful chemicals in the atmosphere as well as inside of our home. WE ARE LOCATED IN WHAT IS KNOWN AS AN “ASH ZONE”. From day one of this my mom did everything in her power to reassure me we would be okay. She went up into the burn area on day two of this catastrophe distributing N95’s to people that were standing over smoldering structures, she helped elderly patients that had been displaced by fire at the shelter, she has been apartment hunting to find us a new home, she has gone to work daily. I am hoping to take anything I can off her plate. Our home is deemed uninhabitable, and the ash is covering our sofas, mattresses, rugs, clothing etc, and we have been advised to throw away anything that was exposed that can’t be washed in a machine. Even then, some items that retain the smell of smoke will be discarded. We are essentially starting over. All I want to do is not burden my mom further in all of this. She was already stressing over paying for my college, and now this.