Hi, it's Megan. I am recording this on Thursday, January 9th from Los Angeles. I'm recording it on my

phone because I don't have my microphone or any of my podcasting equipment. Tuesday night,

around 9 p.m., I left my house in Altadena. Altadena is an enclave in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains,

north of Pasadena and about 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It's funny, that afternoon I had

taken some video of my dog, Hugo, sitting out in the yard as the wind Gus blew in at about, I don't know,

60 miles an hour maybe, no, maybe more.

Hugo, as many of you know, is a huge dog with dramatic hair, and it was fun to post the

videos on Twitter.

They got a lot of likes, and that was gratifying.

Later in the day, it was clear that what was happening in Pacific Palisades, way over on

the other side of the city, was devastating. I felt kind of silly having posted the wind videos,

actually. At the same time, there were some joking about celebrities and other

wealthy people abandoning their cars on Palisades Drive and evacuating on foot, and then those

cars getting bulldozed away because they were blocking the escape route for everyone else.

But it was obviously a mounting catastrophe, and I was glad to be, you know,

20, 30 miles away to the northeast. My main worry at that point was that the power would go out

because of the wind. Around 6.30 that evening, there was new news, though. Suddenly, out of nowhere,

there was a fire in Eaton Canyon,

which is just a few miles from my house. There were no evacuation orders at that point.

That was pretty normal because it's rare for fires to jump into residential neighborhoods

that are not up in the hills or in canyons. I'm going to try to describe

my neighborhood to you in Altadena, though it's kind of hard because it's really unlike any place

...