Before a wildfire ravaged their street in northwest Altadena, Louise Hamlin and Chris Wilson lived next door to each other in nearly identical houses.
“I chose an old home in an old neighborhood because it has soul,” said Hamlin, a 51-year-old single mom with a teenage boy, who bought her 1,500-square-foot home 10 years ago.
Today, gone are their charming English-style cottages built in 1925 with the welcoming porches and Palladian windows. Amid the rubble and ash, little is left of their historic neighborhood.
In the weeks since the Eaton wildfire took their homes, Hamlin and Wilson have been stumbling through the layers of business, bureaucracy and emotional trauma of surviving a natural disaster, with their sights firmly set on rebuilding.
How they’ll navigate rebuilding is a story of contrasting…
