Dana Goodyear
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
so you you have a press pass and you're trying to get up there is that well i guess my question to you is what's your ultimate goal today i have combined goals um so i write for the new yorker magazine it's long form non-fiction journalism okay and i need to be seeing things that all the heroic emergency operations people are doing and i also need to figure out what in the hell is going on at my house because we haven't been able to see it okay and i know it's gone but
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Well, I mean, the thing that's so weird for me is that I've reported on so many fires, and I just can't believe that... It happened to you. I can't believe it. The beautiful Palisades. It's just... Unreal. I'm driving up Chautauqua, and I have an absolute pit in my stomach. I know I'm about to see the neighborhood, but this is the road that I drove up every day.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
And I'm glad a lot of these houses are standing on Chautauqua. So the fire didn't rip down through this little stream so much. But I'm just so scared because I'm about to actually finally see it. I've been imagining it for a week. And when I was here with Brad, it was like fire everywhere, smoke in the air, emergency vehicles. Just now it's pretty much dead calm.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Dead calm, no cars, no fire trucks. It's like a lot of broken lives. Okay, here we go. Here we go. There is literally no one anywhere in this neighborhood. It's... It's so strange. It's so quiet. The wind is blowing lightly. The doves are back on the wires behind the house. I'm looking into this pit of plaster and
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
rebar and kind of understanding how my house was made there's the fireplace that i really loved in our family room with the kind of i forgot the name of that shape but it's i think it's maybe a kiva shape the sort of um almond shape half an almond shape opening in the fireplace and the tiles on one side are still there um
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Then there's sort of a tangled mass, and there are all of our roof tiles scattered everywhere. Pizza oven. There's, like, shampoo bottles that are completely intact that were by the outdoor shower. The garage, it looks like Monday afternoon in my garage. The pillows are on the couch. My...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
daughter's jar of homemade slime is sitting there intact on the on the counter all my books are in the shelves everything looks completely fine um and then The house just is an idea of a house, or the aftermath of the house, I guess. You can walk through the arched door at the front and the back, but there's just pretty much nothing in between. Ugh.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
I wish I knew how it caught and why and if there's anything we could have done to change this outcome. And why is our garage still standing? I wish I knew how to know what its narrative was at this particular house, like where the ember went in, what caught, what's that splatter all over the back.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
wall of the house the part that's still standing is just looks like someone took a paintbrush with black paint and flicked it flung it all over the house did something explode there what's so weird is just we had so much We had so many possessions, so many stupid possessions and so many really special possessions. And you can't see any of that here.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
It's almost like what it all comes down to is nails, plaster and nails. Our world was really little tiny pieces of metal holding it together.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Yeah, so I went back and I was just wandering around when some law enforcement emergency personnel saw me and everyone was really super friendly. You know, do you need water? Do you need a snack? Are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm just, you know, they said, we'll come walk to your house with you. And so I went, finished the walk, got to my house and I said, you know, the thing that I've been...
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
really wondering about is this fireproof safe. It was a 400 pound safe that I had just installed in October and feeling very pleased with myself. I got all of my important documents out of storage in downtown LA and put them in the fireproof safe along with a small box of jewelry. And when I went back, I've kind of had, I think my eyes had adjusted to the new layout of my home, you might say.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
And I had figured out where my office was because it was in a closet in my office. And I saw this kind of listing four file high, totally black, it used to be beige, piece of metal. And I was like, that's got to be it. And And this incredibly helpful person with steel-toed boots said, you know what? I'm going to go in there and see if I can get it for you. I was like, are you serious?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Because I thought I was going to have to wait until FEMA cleared the site. Was it in the top drawer, you think? I don't think so. I think it was in the second, third, or fourth. And then he goes, wait a minute. Here's a little metal box that A little box. Okay. Oh, that might have a gold ring in it. And I was thinking, oh my God, my mom had given my daughter her school ring.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Oh my God, it's my mom's school ring. We started sifting through the dust using the piece of metal that had held the top of one of the files, you know, those little hanging files thing, using that and found the stone from my engagement ring. That's my ring. That's my wedding ring. Oh, wow. It looks like the diamonds melted out or something. Oh, my God.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
The feeling of being able to have a happy story to tell, not just my kids who are so anxious about what it all means. But also, all the people who want our lives to be okay, like, it really has meant so much to them that I found this thing. It feels like, okay, this family's going to be okay, even though, you know, it's just a symbol. But I'm super happy to have this thing.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
It just feels like crises, they either strengthen you as a family or break you down. And I feel like this strengthens us and the stone is kind of a symbol of that, of unity.