AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Thousands of homes have been destroyed in the wildfires sweeping across the Los Angeles area, but the fires engulfed more than just places to live. They displaced families, who, along with losing their shelter and precious keepsakes, lost a foothold in financial stability and a brighter future. Mars Tekosky and her family bought a home in Altadena, California, this summer to renovate. It was their dream home for the family of five, and renovations were almost complete when the Eaton Fire ultimately destroyed what was to be their new home. Mars Tekosky joins us now. Thank you so much for speaking with us today, and I'm so sorry that it's under these circumstances.
MARS TEKOSKY: Thank you. It's truly so mind-boggling, and yet we're just going through it.
RASCOE: So tell us about finding this home in Altadena in the state it was in when you bought it this summer.
TEKOSKY: I've lived in LA my whole life. It was just the place that I knew I wanted to end up with our kids 'cause it had that mix of small town and nature and very, very strong community. And so ours was a 1926 little Spanish house, about a block and a half from my kids' school, a few blocks to walk down into a beautiful creek, two blocks away from beautiful parks. And the house - the condition it was in was poor. It was almost 100 years old and had needed some love to be poured back in it. And so that's what we did. We spent every remaining cent to bring back the house to what I thought was its former glory, and you know what happened next.
RASCOE: Yeah. What was going through your mind when the fire started in Eaton Canyon?
TEKOSKY: I was just on high alert and watching the news from our community groups. And also, there was internet feed that was doing a police scanner, so I could kind of plot how the fire was moving and getting closer and closer and closer. By 3 o'clock in the morning, they had declared our specific micro zone an evacuation zone. And I shook my husband awake in the middle of the night and said, I think we're going to lose the house. And in buying this house, fire was high on my mind. Like, getting fire insurance, we were very aware or getting any insurance. So we had called our insurance company that - and said, hey, you know, we're looking at this house. Do you - are you going to cover this? And they had said that it would take an act of God for fire to get all the way down there.
RASCOE: I cannot imagine being in your position. And I want to ask you, like, what did you lose that resonates the most?
TEKOSKY: Christmas ornaments. You know, those sort of heirloom passed-down things or just even the terrible, you know, ones that kids have brought home from school with...
RASCOE: Yeah.
TEKOSKY: ...Cheap plastic beads and bells that have their - that they shook...
RASCOE: And the clay.
TEKOSKY: ...In their preschool celebrations and...
RASCOE: Sometimes they had the clay or something.
TEKOSKY: ...The clay or, you know, just - they're just a hodgepodge of things that, you know, we look at at the holiday and remind us of, like, the fullness of our life. I am a poet, and I had a bunch of poetry books that - kind of a better collection of poetry books than any library or bookstore from a lifetime of having a special collection. And those are the things, too, for my husband. Like, his records and his books, his musical instruments, some that he's had since he was a teenager.
RASCOE: How are you and the kids? How are y'all coping right now?
TEKOSKY: My kids are amazing and resilient. I think it's - there's something to be said for the universality of this experience for them right now. They know other kids - they know their friends, their very best friends are going through this with them. At nighttime, when they're about to lay down, that's when it seems like a lot of these big feelings come out.
RASCOE: Do you plan to rebuild?
TEKOSKY: I don't totally understand how FEMA kicks in and all that stuff. We are one of the luckier families in that we have insurance, but the insurance would just about cover, if we walked away, what we owe on the mortgage. So we would have just no land or no home. My husband's a social worker. I'm a stay-at-home mom trained as a social worker who was about to go back to work as soon as we finished this. So I think we need to rebuild 'cause I don't see any other financial pathway forward.
RASCOE: What is it that is holding you centered? - because you do sound like you are at least holding firm with something for hope for the future.
TEKOSKY: The community, the community of Altadena - I have this very strong belief we will be able to find a way forward, that the community is that strong. Listening on this parent Zoom yesterday for the school, you know, I was breaking down into tears of being moved by just seeing everybody's faces. And it's hard to believe that you can kill a community that's that alive.
RASCOE: That's Mars Tekosky of Altadena, California. Mars, thank you so much for joining us. And I think Altadena is better for having you and your family there, and I hope that the next chapter comes better and easier for you.
TEKOSKY: Thank you so much for having me.
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