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So Robert Kerbak, you were just saying that Kevin Dylan, I mean, what could have been a thing where one fire leads to another fire and needs to another fire in the high fire spreads, he took a stat he drew a line in in the in the lawn, as it were, to keep it from going. Am I right?
Yeah? And it just, you know, it blew me away when I heard that story and when I interviewed Kevin, because you know, you just don't think you know, he you know, was putting his life at risk, his career at risk for strangers.
You know.
And I just was really impressed with that. And that was one of the things that and I'm sure the people in Maui are finding that out too, is they're learning these stories about you know, people doing things for strangers that save people's lives. And you know, when you were talking before about you know, standing by people in a difficult time, you know, it means so much. And that story in my book, the story of Kevin doing that, you know, it seems to have so much you know,
basically sacrificing everything. I just was really impressed with that.
Well, let's add your chapter to Amy's book. She was when we spoke to last night during Open Life and Amy ken you hears.
Okay, yep, I can hear you.
You're talking to Robert Kerback.
Hi.
Robert, Hi, Amy. I'm so sorry for everything you're going through.
Thank you. How are things going for you today? A little? I mean you were last night, you were just kind of still assessing. But what do you know now that you didn't know twenty four hours ago?
Well? Today, I don't know. I just had this feeling of just goodness wash over me. What do we know now? You know, we know that they're pulling bodies out of the water. Still, they're still looking for bodies. They confirmed that gunfight with the police that I told you about last night. You did, Yeah, they I see them on
the lower roads putting in all of that. Powerful and amazing to see that they have cut off access from to the west by from our main route and people if they I don't know if they're allowed to build the backway, but where people are going the back way, I don't know. It's just a beautiful community today. It was just everybody just seems like they're brighter spirits, you know.
Proverta to you.
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm I'm speechless because it's I you know, look, I went through it. You know, I'm not on the scale that you guys are going through because as we've learned now, this is the deadliest wildfire in American in modern American history, and it's horrific, and I'm so sorry for you and your community. It's a community. I know. I have a friend who lost their home. So I'm heartbroken for you and I'm so sorry.
Amy.
What Amy, your father's doing all right?
Yeah, he's well, So the place that we're staying has stared and his need to pain everything ever, thing's a little more difficult with him. But we've got we actually had ties of permanent intakes down to the door today and so they're going to bring his influence tomorrow, his sins and anything else we need. So he's doing okay, a little stumbling and a little out of sorts, but yeah.
Well, and you're there's a story of two dogs tonight. There's the story of your dogs who were that you were able to save, but there's also the story of the cadaver dogs that they are using that must I can't imagine what that would be like to know that that's the purpose of those dogs that are out there in the rubble.
Yeah, and the you know, it's it's just it's just it's horrible. It's horrible. You know, the number keeps rising and it's just going to keep going up.
The death stole stands at eighty nine tonight. But as you say that, any idea, what how the locals if you will mean that? Uh, well, what they what they would say? Would they do you think could end up being the higher number other than eighty nine?
Yeah, it's uh, I have no clue on how to guess that because I don't even know what the number is on the missing right now. But like I said, last night, they were cutting the tops off of cars and finding a whole family. And there's bodies, you know, I just heard stories about bodies and bodies and it's
just it's horrifying. You know, they're looking for bones, so having those cadavers is really important to find teeth, Yeah, bones they have been they have to identify people with her teeth and it's just.
Robert, you said, Robert you said you've been in lo Ina like twenty times, what was your favorite place there that you would go to visit or that you would see, you.
Know, I mean they you know, Amy knows this. That Banyan tree there is just unbelievable. You know, it's it's shoes huge, it's spectacular, it's beautiful. It was kind of in the center of town, and I I, you know, I hope that the tree survives so that at some point down the road, you know, it can be some sort of symbol of of you know, how we how we persevere in spite of the terrible thing.
That happened, like Chicago's water tower.
Yeah. Yeah, the Banion tree is still there, and I think it's going to come back stronger. Uh you know, we're gonna going to have tourists slimbing all over it for a while.
So yeah, that'll. I think my memory of the conversation of those so many that we had last night was that I got I had the privilege of telling you the good news that the tree had survived, and you're a lot closer to it than I was, but I had just seen it on a news story And so are communications improving starlink at all?
Ah? No, I mean it's hit or miss Oh, Robert, the tree just turned one hundred and fifty years old this year, so you know that's a big deal. But as far as communication, I don't know. We just got power back today and I think that's a lot to do with my moods. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. But I mean I haven't gotten internet all day today, but yesterday I was just able to get it. They just like hit or miss and whatever. So allegedly tomorrow we should
be getting it, which would be amazing. Yeah, way faster than I assumed it would.
What was the what was the most uplifting moment? I know it sounds hard to think about it, but Robert was talking about that. No, just in general, where you where you see the human spirit coming through in a way.
Which So I was just driving on the Lower Highway and I was going by the ABC store and there's just a bunch of local boys from the other side and they just had this huge, huge thing of gas and they weren't with anybody. It was just local boys and they I went to stopped there and I was like, wait, are you guys giving away gas? And they're like yeah.
And it wasn't on the radio because it's just localist, right, they're not advertising it and they're like just partying up to drink coronas and just like music going and just and buff Hawaiian dude give and everybody, Yash. It was the greatest. That's just so good because they were just so happy and it's just good to see that the helpers, how happy they are to help and how happy. You know, it's just a visual feeling of camaraderie.
Love that May it last forever. Yeah, thank you so much, Amy for joining us back in the conversation that we started last night. Uh, there you go, Robert. In a lot of ways, that's an echo of Malibu burning too, just the ways in which you wouldn't expect people to step up at a time when there could be work. It could be Uh, you know, there are lesser angels, but they're not.
Yeah.
Look, I recently had a birthday. I had every single neighbor at my party. Now, before the fire, would I've had every single neighbor. No, I would not. You know, I would have had some of the neighbors, the neighbors that I liked. I had every neighbor.
No.
In a terrible time. You know, it doesn't matter whether you love somebody or you don't love somebody, whatever, but you need people to be there for you, and they will be there for you. The only ones you can count on, and these tragedies are not the authorities. It's your neighbors, right, And that's a big lesson.
I mentioned from time to time. I have a studied Hebrew for a while, and that concept of neighbor originally meant not in terms of geographical proximity, but it was the people you cannot avoid, Those are your neighbors. And so I think that's kind of what these type of situations do. They remind us that it isn't about whether you're eight feet, twenty feet, fifty feet a mile away. If you need them, they're your neighbor and you're theirs. This is you know, and it makes everything else, any
other preconception sort of just melt away. But now, so looking forward, though, the lessons learned from the from Malibu burning, what should they take from that into Maui to avoid another situation like this?
Well that's a fantastic question. And you know I'm here to report. You know, Malibu I believe is far more fire safe today. You know, when they rebuild these homes now, they use much more concrete. They build these homes so that they're fire resistant. You can see the people that lost their homes when they rebuild them now, they're not planning all the kind of flammable landscaping that can catch on fire and then obviously drop hot embers onto your
house and then catch your house on fire. So you can really see the difference, especially in Western Malibu where the fire was the worst. So I think when they rebuild in Lahina, and they will, you know, they're going to have much better standards in terms of the the businesses and the homes, because of course they lost all of the businesses in all of the homes, which is why that fire is even more horrific. You know, if
you imagine losing your home and your job. So so you know, I think moving forward, But you know what would be great is if we didn't have to lose towns to do that, right, That would be the great thing is if we could go, hey, let's let's start
implementing these hardening things. You know, in California, you're required to have your water heater strapped so in case of an earthquake, you know, you know, and your and your gas heater, you know, so that you know you're not having you know, gas explosions and you know whatever, you know, and you know all these other things. And there are simple things you can do with the home hardening for wildfire too, and that's something that I think more states need to to to.
Do, yeah, especially esthetically speaking, when there's been huge improvements on metal roofs uh and there are a lot of communities that that do require metal roofs now because that was one way that but you know, there was a time when it looked like you had a corrugated steel roof, you know, or you had a blue roof with ridges on it or something. But now they they're they're replicating the sort of the classic asphalt tile style, and they've got all of these other shape, you know, cedar shakes
that are actually metal. And the only reason I mentioned it is because we were looking at that. We live kind of in the woods a little bit, not much of one, it just but there's enough trees around that if something went up, our house would seemingly be looming, you know, that would be looming over our very own roof. And that's not a good feeling.
No, it's not and and and you sound like the perfect candidate for you know, you know, a fire pump.
And oh yeah, oh yeah.
You know you literally, like I said, twenty minutes, you spray your house, you spray everything around your house, and you know, you have given yourself a you know, you and your home a really strong chances of surviving a massive wildfire. Right.
What was the There was Amy was like said about looting and I don't remember was there a lot of that during the Malibu fire.
You know, I wouldn't say there was a lot of it. There was some, And of course it was a great fear because again, you know, as you pointed out, you know there are there are some wealthy people in Malibu, and of course, you know, most people evacuated and then the roads were shut down, so you know, homes were
sitting empty, and that was a really great fear. You know, there were a couple of cases of people that were you know, using motorcycles to you know kind of come on the back roads, the dirt roads over the hills and the canyons to get you know, theoretically go into a home and get the jewelry, the you know, the you know, the valuables, and and get out. You know, I don't think that's going to be quite I hope I'm wrong. I don't think that's going to be the case.
In line it because again, and I know the town a little bit, and you know, it's small. It's a very small contained area. You know, Malibu is very long, you know wide, you know, it's twenty one miles wide. And then of course it goes up into the hills. The line is very very small, very tight area. Yeah, don't see how people are getting in there to do any looting. And then again and that this is tragic.
There are just not many homes that survived, right, So there's really you know, anybody that has lived through wildfire knows that when the wildfire burns your home, there is nothing left. There is nothing. The cars are gone, everything is gone, you know it. Maybe the chimney survives. That's it.
Yeah, the Malibu fire, I had to go back and really look at it. Where is it ranking now? The Woolsey fire in terms of it was at the time of the publication, it was the worst wildfire in La history. Is it still?
Yeah, it's still the worst wildfire in La County history. You know, one of the most expensive wildfires in history, of course, again because Malibu is Malibu, right, and the property are expensive or you know, many of the properties are expensive. In terms of acreage, it was one hundred thousand acres, so again, you know, that is a massive amount of acreage that burned. You know, I mean, if you look at the line of fire in terms of
the amount of acreage that burned, it's extremely small. And yet you've had so many people die and so many structures you know, lost, because again it's a very tight community.
I think. You know, in Malibu, we were fortunate we did not have the deaths, the fatalities that the campfire had, which was up in Paradise, which was the same day as the Malibu fire, and you know, obviously this horrific the you know, these numbers of fatalities in the line are just staggering, and I think again one of the reasons we didn't have those fatalities in Malibu is because people here have lived through wildfires, and they know, what do you do. You get down to the beach, you
get down to the water. Now we are seeing it looks like you know, people did get to the water in in Lahina and still perished. I want to know more about that. Yeah, you know, I would think once you're in the water, but I guess if you can't breathe, if the air you know, in other words, that smoke and fire above you and you're you're breathing, you know, you're inhaling that, then yeah, you know you're you're not
going to make it. You know, I'm a swimmer, so I mean, I you know, i'd be swimming across the channel to the Lanai. But you know, again, I wasn't there, so I don't know. But you know, I feel like if if you know, so many people that so far that I've read, they were in their cars. They burned alive in their cars. And and I'm here to tell your listeners the worst place to be in a wildfire is in your vehicle. It seems like it's safe and it's not.
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