In a Wildfire-Ravaged L.A. Suburb, Red Tape Snarls the Rebuilding: ‘Everybody’s Forgotten About Us’

Altadena, Calif. — In the wee hours of the morning of January 8, Monica Stuhlman thought she was going to die.

Driving down the hill of her Southern California street, she took one last look at her neighborhood as it was going up in flames — squinting through the darkness as pockets of fire lit up the landscape amid that night’s power outages. Black smoke and embers filled the air as gusts of hot Santa Ana winds wrapped around her vehicle.