Today marks the long-anticipated reopening of the Pacific Coast Highway. Just before 8 a.m., we arrived at the Topanga checkpoint, eager to make the familiar descent to the sea. The fire-scorched canyon greeted us in full spring regalia—lush, vivid, almost defiantly alive. Its vertiginous cliffs stood clad in green, shrouded in morning mist and studded with wildflowers that caught the sun like tiny, glinting jewels. Orange poppies, yellow mustard, violet lupine and pink snapdragons—the darling buds of May. A quiet reminder that nature, in time, heals all things.
But the illusion dissolved at sea level.
At the shoreline, the devastation was total. Ruined neighborhoods. Whole communities wiped off the map. Where there had once been homes and the quiet choreography of coastal life, there was now only absence: buckled foundations, twisted rebar, the charred skeletons of cars. The silence was profound. Loss hung in the air like ash.
This loss reaches beyond structures; it’s the erasure of history—the whimsical, fairy-tale charm of the “sand castles” along PCH, the weathered shacks, characterful restaurants and vintage landmarks that once made the city feel enchanted. What’s gone are not just buildings but cultural DNA.
Nearly 30,000 acres reduced to cinders. More than 380,000 people evacuated—greater than the population of a mid-sized American city. The numbers are staggering. And yet, Los Angeles has always been a city of second chances. A sanctuary for the restless and the exiled, a haven for creative black sheep—for those who come here not just to live but to reinvent themselves.
Joan Didion once wrote that Los Angeles lives under “the weather of catastrophe.” She understood, intuitively, what we are forced to confront again and again: that in this place, disruption is not the exception, but the norm. And yet, amidst the smoke and ruin, there were moments of grace—fire crews who stood their ground, pilots who flew through flame, neighbours who shared water, comfort and silence.
Driving the reopened highway home this morning, I did not feel elated. I felt sober. Grateful, yes—but mostly weighted by the knowledge of what’s been lost. This remains a remarkable place: beautiful, contradictory, rich in history and heartbreak.
The "For Sale" signs now peppering Topanga suggest that others, too, have made quiet calculations. Although the equal amount of “Sold” signs indicates that the love for this place hasn’t vanished. But it has changed. It has grown wary, conditional—less romantic, more clear-eyed.
This is still a land of dreams. But dreams, too, must be maintained—and perhaps now, reimagined. Malibu’s beauty endures, but it is edged with the sobering truth: this stretch of coastline, possibly one of the most iconic in the world, will never be the same again.
*This picture was taken from my house at 11 a.m. on January 7, 2025….little did we know what devastation lay ahead. We evacuated later that day.