I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Tiffany Hobbs here with you. It's Saturdays with Tiffany, And I want to tell you.
I want to clue you.
In to a very special secret. And yeah it's a secret no more, because I'll be telling you some information about this very special place because we don't want it to be lost. We don't want it to be yet another casualty of the fires in the Palisades and in the Pasadena and Altadena areas.
This really special place is.
Something that if you've driven down PCCh either north or southbound, and you've looked up at any point as you are nearing Santa Monica in that border and you're kind of going through the Pacific Palisades, you might have noticed a sign for something called the Tahitian Terrace Mobile Park, ring a bell. It's a place where when I look I had kind of these wistful dreams. I wondered, what is that there's a mobile home park in the Palisades.
Wow, And when you.
Looked at it, it towered over PCH and had this wonderful exposure to the coastline. Definitely coveted land Prime Real Estate. It's right across from will Rogers State Beach.
Again.
This Tahitian Terrace mobile park tucked away in the hillside, and there were one hundred and fifty eight mobile and prefabricated homes, homes that were owned, and plots that were rented, rent controlled in fact, so people who lived there never left. You'd be hard pressed to find any availability in the Tahitian Terrace if you got in, if you were so lucky to get into that community, you did not dare leave.
And there were residents who were into their eighties and nineties who had lived there since the inception of this planned community. They lived on palm lined code de sacs with names such as Aloha Drive, Kiki Place, and Bali Lane. The Tahitian Terrace again carved into this beautiful hillside adjacent to Tumescal Canyon Road. Opened in nineteen sixty two, it was the golden age for mobile home parks, as they were popping up all around the country after World War Two.
In his nineteen.
Sixty two book Travels with Charlie in Search of America, author John Steinbeck marveled at the houses, including those in Tahitian terraces, saying, quote, these new things under the sun, of their great numbers, the parks where they sit down in uneasy permanence.
They were a phenomenon, and.
For the Tahitian Terarra to withstand the ever changing nature of the Palisades and Los Angeles at large, a very special jewel. By nineteen seventy nine, residents of the Tahitian Terance but Terrists were paying between two hundred and four hundred dollars a month for their ocean view homes. Back then that was even a steal, and as of twenty twenty five, that affordability continued. Many of the residents knew each other. It was a very close knit community, an
eclectic community. Some might actually describe it as bohemian. You had your artists, You had your sculptors, your painters, your actors, You had your educators. You had your retirees, people who again never intended to leave. You had people who passed down homes to other generations. That you had residents who inherited homes from their parents themselves being raised at the Tahitian Terrace.
It was a jewel.
And I speak about it in the past tense because on January seventh, as the Palisades Fire raged on, it set its sights on the Tahitian Terrace community. Now we have on, I want to introduce to you a very special person. His name is Alec Edwards. Alec Edwards is a fire captain. He lived at the Tahitian Terrace. He had lived there for a few years with his wife, Becky and their daughter, their toddler aged daughter, and they
had a beautiful home, their dream home. In fact, the day that the Palisades Fire began, Alec was actually off and after making sure that his family was safe and evacuated from the community, Alec and other residents stayed behind to battle the fire that consumed their neighborhood. Al is just a stellar human and the fact that he is here with us I count as just an absolute honor.
Alec has spoken about his experiences that day online, and I actually invited Alec on to the show after he shared the timeline of events that day during the Palisades fire, and he said, then I noticed that speaking publicly about what he went through, not only was he expecting that to help others who were navigating what was going on, but that it also was cathartic and therapeutic for him as well to share his experience. So I asked Alec to come on and talk to us about the events
of that fateful night. Please welcome Captain Alec Edwards to the show.
Hi, Alec, Hey, Tiffany, how are you.
I'm well.
Thank you so much for coming on with us and giving us your time. This can't be easy by any stretch of the imagination, and I really appreciate you being willing to describe what happened at the Tahitian Terrass in your own words. This article the La Times wrote and the chronicling they did, the profiling they did is beautiful, but it pales in comparison to actually hearing it directly from you.
So thank you again for coming on with us.
Absolutely, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my like you've described it, the jewel of my life, where we had our family and I only got to be there for six and a half years, but I loved it there, and yeah, we fought to try to save it.
You know, before before you actually get into the fighting part, because I'm going to dedicate a lot more time to you retelling your story tell us a little bit about what attracted you initially to the Tahitian terrasts. There are so many places you could have bought why by there?
Yeah, So I grew up in Santa Monica. I'm a surfer. Before I was a fire captain, I was surfer, and my entire life I drove up pch going surfing, and I always kind of saw this sign for Tahitian Terrace, but I didn't know anybody that lived there, and kind of always just thought, hmm, I don't know what that is.
Kind of like you said, we were experienced. And then when I met my wife, Becky, one of her best friends lived in the park, and that was something different, and so we started visiting her and going to dinners there, and then we just got really lucky. There was an elderly lady who was moving out and wanted someone to
take her her home. Her her children didn't want it, they lived out of state, and she wanted someone who was going to move in and not demolish it, but just live in the place that she lived and have a family there. And so she made sure that we got it, and so we moved in when we had an ocean view and we could five minutes. It was some of our favorite surf spots. And you know, it was funny we moved in because my wife's best friend lived there, and a couple other friends that we had
made from being there lived there. And then when we moved in, after about a year, my wife's best friend moved to Portugal and another one got married and ended up in San Diego, and the people that we had originally moved there to be around had left, and we were left with this amazing community of other people that we had become best friends with. I mean people that I counted as family, honestly.
Yeah, yeah, it sounds incredible. It sounds incredible. Aleck.
You know, the time is actually against us, and we have a lot more to cover, and I want you to continue telling us about the Tahitian Terraces and about how special it was to you, so special in fact, that you were willing to risk your life that day to fight for your community. Can I hold you over for another segment and we can do that when we come back.
Absolutely, thank you, wonderful.
We're talking to Captain Fire Captain Alec Edwards, resident of the Tahitian Terrace. A mobile home park tucked away adjacent to Tumesco Canyon there in the Pacific Palisades, right off of PCH a beautiful community, and we'll hear from Alec directly about what happened the day of the Palisades fire and his very ambitious quest along with neighbors to save their community. We are talking to fire Captain Alec Edwards.
He is a longtime fire captain and was a six year resident of the Tahitian Terrace mobile home Park in the Pacific Palisades. Unfortunately a victim a major casualty that mobile home park of the Palisades fire, and the La Times did a very long story about the Tahitian Terraces as well as about the neighbors. Some of the neighbors who stayed behind to try to fight that Palisades fire.
And rather than me just telling you excerpts from the story, I reached out to Alec, who I've known for almost twenty years now and I've watched as he's navigated this personal loss publicly by sharing about what happened that day, and I thought, you know, come on, KFI, talk to our audience and let them know directly from yourself, from you personally what you went through. So Alec, again, thank you for coming on with us. And you were telling
us about living at the Tahitian Terrace. Can you tell us what happened that day?
Yeah, thank you, Tiffany. So that day, right around ten am, we started getting alerts that there was a fire, and you could see it from pretty much everywhere in the Palisades. There was just this big plume of smoke coming from up in the mountains. We knew there was a lot of wind that day, and so my wife got home from work early, packed up the kid, and they evacuated
around twelve thirty. I stayed back thinking that, you know, I just had some garden hose with me, and I thought, if there's any embers that fly over, I'll try to put them out. Our area traditionally has never really been affected by these wildfires, but this one was different. And right around three o'clock the wind shifted and it started blowing directly at us. Yeah, it was it was wild. I've never seen winds like that before. I've been a firefighter for quite a minute few years, and it was
pretty wild. So and then right around that time, a firefighter, a friend of one of my neighbors showed up in the park with fire, actual fire hose and novels, and we thought, oh, we might actually be able to do something here. And so he and I and this man named JB who is a retired military and one of my neighbors. He stayed back and the three of us ended up tapping into a fire hydrant and as the
fire came into our park, we started trying to save houses. Yeah, and right around then is when an LA City l a fd rake showed up and a cal fire rag showed up, and so we tied in with them, and they were generous enough to let us pull some hose. We let them. They let us pull some hoses off their engine as well, and all of us started just going to work trying to say what we could. Wow.
Wow, that's just you know, when you think about the effort of you guys who were there, the neighbors coming together trying what you can with the kind of I guess you would say that the meager supplies you had a regular garden hose, but then being able to access your larger hoses. And then fortunately a truck shows up and you guys are you're professional, So you're able to just combine efforts, so now there's this.
Organic effort to fight the fire.
I just I can't imagine what that was like for you, as a firefighter, who this is your career, this is what you do for strangers, but you're doing this for your own community.
It was hard. It was really hard. The end of my street. Some people that I really love once their house burn to the ground. Was really difficult.
Thank you, Alec.
I know this is really hard for you, and heart doesn't seem like a big enough word to be honest, thank you so much for just trying to get through this, and I hear this emotion.
It's still very raw.
Yeah, but we you know, we we tried to do what we could. It was it was surreal. I mean people that earlier that day, my lovely neighbor who makes dog food had just dropped drop dog food off for us, and a couple of hours later, I'm squirting her porch down trying to stop her house from burning down. It was absolutely surreal for us. Yeah, yeah, it was. And so I stayed until basically I could tell my house was catching on fire, and I turned around and my
car was about to catch on fire. And I knew I had to go, and there just wasn't anything we could do at that point. You know, my my entire street was on fire, and if I stayed any longer, I was going to be trapped. And so I left. The l City guys, the CalFire guys, they all had to leave to If you walked through our park, you would find remnants of hose where they had to just ditch them and flee for their own live which is
not the wing we normally do as firefighters. This fire was different, and those guys really pushed themselves and tried to save our park as best they could. I really have a lot of respect for both CalFire and LSD for trying to save our park.
Thank you for saying that, because there have been quite a few questions that have arisen out of the fires across other than California about the firefighting effort. There were communities or neighbors neighborhoods where people said, you know, they didn't see a truck or the truck didn't stay very long. And I appreciate you speaking about your experience because it does dispel any myth that may be growing out of this that firefighters weren't trying.
Oh no, they were trying, these guys. I mean they had already been fighting it for a couple hours when they came into my park, and these guys pushed it to the limit. I mean they were there after I left. Like I said, I had to go because my car was going to catch on fire, and they were still there, and I'm sure they had leave shortly after. And Tiffany, there was just nothing we could do. I you know, I was on the Woldy in twenty eighteen in Malibu.
This fire was completely different. It was like a hurricane with fire and it you couldn't there was nothing to do. I hate to say it that way, but they really were. We tried. I tried so hard, but I you know, if we would have lost. It's amazing to me that we didn't lose any firefighters in this, in this uh these fires, because.
Just what happened unprecedented is the word that people are saying.
Absolutely, and you know, it's weird to be on the civilian side of this. I was off duty that day, and I just kudos to all the guys that were out there working and really putting their lives on the line, trying to save people's properties.
I'm going to ask you a two part question.
You've so graciously and humbly walked us through the faithful events of that day and into that night, as the Palisades fire took over your community, the Tahitian Terris. We're talking to Fire Captain Alec Edwards, a resident himself of the Tahitian Terrace. Where are you now? Where are you and your family now? And are there plans? Are their hopes that you'll be able to return?
So we were fortunate enough to find an apartment in Santa Monica, near where I grew up. We just got very lucky, and so my family as of now is safe and comfortable and we're okay, but we want to rebuild. We have our whole community, if we're still a community, even though we don't have our houses. We have a great hoa led by some wonderful people, and they've kept us all in touch and we all want to come back. We we don't know if it'll ever be the same, but we're going to try to make it, make it
what it was. We've been in touch with our council member, Tracy Park. She wants us back and we're we're all ready to rebuild and try to come back there as soon as possible, because that's home, and that was it was a jewel, and it was a community and a neighborhood and just a wonderful place to live. We all want to come back, and I hope you do.
I really hope that you are able, like the other mobile home communities in the Palisades are able to in fact rebuild because they are so special and they are so uniquely a part of not only the Southern California landscape there in the Palisades on the coast, but they're just they're helpful. They're helpful for people who want that slice of home ownership where it may not have been afforded to them before, and these these developments really gave
people that opportunity. Alec Where can people keep up with what you are doing? Maybe stay abreast through you of what you may need to get back into your community, any sort of news you want to share about the redevelopment or rebuilding process.
Where can people keep up with you?
The only Times article, I think she's going to be doing a series of keeping up with us. If anyone has a generosity in their heart and wants to donate. There is a go fundme for the residents of our park. A lot of people, like you said, we're retired on fixed incomes, and there is going to be updates on news. If anyone wants to just google Tahitian Terrists go fund me, they'll find it. And that money goes directly to people fill out a form, and it's the residents that were
lower income or fixed income that need help. A lot of us were under insured and so some of us are going to be owing more on our mortgages than our insurance is going to cover us. So all that money goes to just helping us rebuild and come back and be part of the community that we were before. So yeah, and there'll be updates on that, I'm sure, Alec.
I wish you all the best, buddy, I love you, I am here for you, and you are welcome back anytime too, KFI to talk about what you're going through and what you need.
Okay, Tiffany are the best. I love you so much.
Thank you for all your friend Shure, You're so welcome