Been combing through news articles on the fire. Most of those I read are pretty general, but one article which interviewed people who lived in a stable mobile home/manufactured home development in the Pacific Palisades struck me.
People owned their homes, but leased the land.
The park was totally destroyed.
People had paid between $500K and $1 million for their homes,
They cannot rebuild unless the owners of the park decide to rebuild.
The park is old enough that it is not up to code. Any work to restore the park would require they bring it up to code.
Assuming good faith efforts by all of the people involved, including government, a decade might be an optimistic estimate.
The more I learn about this disaster, the worse it seems.
It just occurred to me that one of my repeat buyers of theatre memorabilia is in LA,
He and I have communicated by PM for years. He writes dramatic feedback on my Ebay sales. Another former NYC septuagenarian, I truly fear for him,
I found his address online and compared its place to the LA Times Fire Map. Heās in a 4 million dollar house in the Pacific Palisades in a location which seems to coincide with the dark red area of the map.
As secondary thought, I am also disturbed by the potential loss of the things he bought.
I sold some books to a buyer in Pacific Palisades a few years ago, a household name author whose name I canāt recall. If she still owns the house, it is definitely gone.
Friends in Pasadena have not replied to my e-mails.
Georgian reporting in as surviving Snowpocalypse 2025. (I didnāt leave the house. I do not trust the people here to drive in that when they canāt drive in the rain.)
Our Forecast is arctic temps, wind (so wind chill on top of arctic temp) and dry. Might get to see a little frost in the mornings but not much more ā¦ overnight lows in the single digits.
Itās a little odd here in NJ; forecast for 5-8"; but Manhattan, which is close enough I can hear the New Years Eve celebrations, is predicted to get maybe 1", and has no advisory.
Could be nasty; steady rain today means that all of the salt pre-treatments that everyone put out are washed away. And then the bitter cold is not gonna be fun, especially since the heat in the car barely works.
And to make things really bad, Iām on day 18 of Covid; donāt feel bad (never really felt sick), but doing a load of laundry and carrying out the garbage is enough of a workout that Iām ready for another nap; not sure how Iām gonna do with shoveling snow! (and gone are the days of kids going around with shovels offering to clear snow for a few bucks; at least in this area).
Yo, Nisha! Boksellers are not supposed to catch Covid. They interact with their books and their laptops, and, OK, the local post office.
Did you go to a book sale unmasked and un-gloved?
Have you no sense of personal germ protection against the old booksellers who cultivated being quite smelly at book sales to keep the competition away?
Hope you got fully vaxxed and are feeling better soon, but donāt forget personal protection, being masked and gloved at your next book sale.
Worse, I visited family over Xmas.
And fully vaxxed, boosted, and everything else. No serious symptoms, other than getting tired. Nisha had it worse; had to put her on Paxlovid.
Made it almost 5 years though, so I guess I canāt complain too much. Of course, much of that due to the fact that booksellers have no social life.
Just to be clear, whatās coming this week includes various moistures in varying amounts and sustained atypically low temperatures, meaning that the moisture sticks around on roads and wires as ice. And tractor-trailers are unable to take certain interstates when wind speeds reach a certain level.
Travel and power infrastructure will be affected nearly nationwide, in addition to the continued significant destruction wrought by the California wildfires.
AND Monday is a federal holiday.
PLAN AHEAD
Put your store on vacation or extend your total expected delivery times. Even if your locale is unaffected directly, order delivery will very likely be affected as ground transportation will be disrupted nationwide (again).
If you have shipments to go out, try to get them to your carrier tomorrow (Sunday), or schedule an appointment for later in the week.
Consider suspending deliveries to certain areas temporarily.
Prepare your backup heat, battery, and power sources. Recognize that internet access and the cell phone system might be disrupted or unreliable.
PLAN AHEAD 
