Michael Cohen

If you think of disasters like a plane crash or when the subway gets stalled and they say like, please wait for organized instructions from uniformed crew members.

In a disaster, it's probably happening so fast that there aren't uniformed crew members with organized instructions.

So you have to be in charge of your own survival.

Mike says the fire was a terrifying wake-up call for him and for many people in his neighborhood that emergency services aren't always there in an emergency.

But, he says, one big lesson has stood out to him over the last year.

He is so grateful that he knows his neighbors.

The silver linings that I remember are all the ways that different people in our community have shown up for each other.

I found out that my house was, in fact, a total loss because a friend that I made at the dog park drove by the next morning and sent us a video of our house still smoldering.

I got introduced to a nonprofit that helped us get a grant because a friend of ours up the street also applied because a friend of theirs who was their neighbor also applied.

We look out for each other or we're trying because nobody else is going to do it for us.

So that's really been the silver lining.

Gregory, from your experience, what in the same way are some pieces of advice that you would give someone who maybe hasn't experienced something like this before?

This is Gregory and Mike's first big lesson a year out from the Eaton Fire.

Invest in your community.

A good first step is to create an easy way to communicate with your neighbors.

This could be a text chain or a group chat through something like WhatsApp or GroupMe.

And this might naturally evolve through whatever you're doing in your daily life.

Mike's neighborhood thread started as a group of local dog owners before the fire.

You could also join a volunteer organization in your community.

After the fires, Gregory joined a group to do brush cleanup.