Palisades residents feel forgotten after LA County wildfires
Amid the gray ash of the Palisdes Fire burn zone, survivors are trying to find the basics needed to survive. Many of these neighbors feel increasingly forgotten as the days pass.
"I just feel like we are already forgotten," resident Megan Garman said. "Like on to the next story, and we are still here just picking up the pieces."
Desperate for help, Garman and her neighbors, who all rented in the Palisades, are pleading for their voices to be heard.
"I lost my job," she said. "I was a caregiver to this wonderful woman and her house burned down."
While some have received help from FEMA, it hasn't been enough to help them recover.
"I got a whopping $700 from FEMA," survivor Michele Garman said. "We haven't really received any help."
Krissy Simmel lost her job after the Palisades Fire destroyed the local supermarket she worked at.
"We are humble renters. We are just community members. We are at the bottom of the food chain here," she said. "My job burned down. I can't get unemployment."
With little in their pockets, they returned to the rubble of the apartment building they once called home.
"Besides FEMA and the Red Cross," resident Nadine Rimvisbacher said. "I really don't know where else. I really don't know."
Many share Rimvisbacher's sentiment of feeling lost while searching for more help.
"I know there was FireAid," resident Tami McGuirt said. "I know there was money collected, but I'm not sure how to retrieve any of that."
FireAid has posted information on nonprofits for funding through the fundraiser. On the website , under the "grantees" section, are different clusters of organizations from children and family support, disaster relief, food access, employment help, health and housing, and others. From there, it lists organizations that are available and will direct users to a website for additional help.
"I've reached out to so many organizations and only that I was able to receive any money at all was $1000," survivor Bruce Lurie said.
Lurie, who lost his home and art gallery business, said that getting financial assistance has been complicated.
"It's a full-time job to try to find assistance," Simmel said. "You have to spend hours and hours to go to each of those websites, calling people."
Even with the help out there, for the victims of one of California's biggest disasters, it has not been enough to pick their lives back up.
"I feel like more should be done to really help people like us in our situation," Megan Gorman said. "We have just become, like, left out to hang dry."
