The view from the car of former State Sen. Abbie Cornett’s car when the family returned Thursday to their home in a suburb of Los Angeles. (Courtesy of Abbie Cornett)
LINCOLN — Suitcases are packed. The cat carrier is by the front door. And the family of former State Sen. Abbie Cornett is ready to flee again, if necessary, the horrific fires torching neighborhoods near their home in Los Angeles County.
The family, who has lived in the L.A. suburb of Monrovia for 11 years, fled once already — a week ago when wildfires blew out of containment, powered by up to 100 mph winds and extreme drought conditions. As of midday Tuesday, more than 12,000 structures and been destroyed or damaged, 24 people had died, and an area comparable in size to half of Omaha was blackened.
“It was like a hurricane with fire and without rain,” said Cornett via cell phone. “It’s really rough in places. It looks like a nuclear holocaust.”
Strewn with debris
Roads were strewn with ash and debris, sort of like the aftermath of a midwestern tornado, she said. One of the family’s cars suffered two flat tires as they fled, forcing them to leave it behind.
Ultimately, though, the Eaton Canyon fire, the one closest to their home, burned away from their residence.
Former State Sen. Abbie Cornett. (Nebraska Unicameral Information Office)
On Monday, Cornett was cleaning up the ash that coated the inside of their home, gathering up clothing and toys to donate to relief efforts and hoping the latest forecasts of a resumption of Santa Ana winds, with gusts up to 70 mph, don’t exacerbate the spread of the four active fires in the L.A. area.
“We’re on pins and needles,” she said.
While their home was spared, others — including some former Nebraskans she knows — weren’t so lucky, losing homes and a lifetime of possessions. Along major streets, there are people standing in line for food and water and donation centers “everywhere,” Cornett said, plus calls for people to temporarily house pets displaced by the fires.
“So many people need so much help out here,” she said. “It is not a red or blue issue. It just isn’t. This is a humanitarian issue.”
Cornett added that many of the fire victims lacked insurance because several companies have stopped offering coverage in California — due to the spate of recent calamities — and homeowners couldn’t afford the high-cost of the remaining policies.
“Knock on wood, we came out really lucky. There are too many people out here who didn’t,” she said.
They returned to their home on Thursday and power was restored on Friday, said Cornett, who represented the Bellevue area in the Nebraska Legislature from 2005 to 2013.
Humor in sadness
The former senator, now a writer for a health magazine and the host of a podcast, hasn’t lost her sense of humor. On Saturday, her family hosted some neighbors whose electricity was still out. They watched the film, “Backdraft,” and sipped on a red wine called “Inferno.”
“If you can’t laugh at it, you’re just going to curl up and cry,” Cornett said.
A view of the fire in California from former State Sen. Abbie Cornett’s vehicle. (Courtesy of Abbie Cornett)
Ironically, she said, the Los Angeles fires broke out on the same week, 17 years earlier, when their family’s home in Bellevue burned while she was serving.
Cornett said she is soon to compile work on a second master’s degree, this one in health care administration, and wants to continue to live in the area to follow the movie and television careers of their twin daughters, Victoria and Madison. The twins use their mother’s middle name, Abbott, as their last name for their film work. A third daughter, Cameron, is planning to attend college this spring.
But she admitted that she told her husband “we’re moving to Palm Springs” amid the fury of the fires.
“I don’t think anyone who lives in California doesn’t have a love-hate relationship with it,” Cornett said.
“Insurance is insane, traffic is insane, they have ‘fire season’ — it’s not a season in Nebraska, it’s an element — and homelessness is horrible,” she said. “But it has its charms. And for the twins, it’s where they work.”