January 11 (Saturday) status

We were able to check on a few more things today, including visiting the evacuation center at the Pasadena Convention Center. We are fortunate enough not to need their food and lodging resources, but were able to get some useful information about various aspects of the recovery process. We visited the main Pasadena post office (our local branch was also destroyed in the fire). We plan to pick up any up mail and packages that were not delivered by Tuesday Jan 7 when they are available next week. We have also changed our mailing address to a friend's, but have been told that it may take 7-14 days for the change of address to get processed by USPS, so anything sent to our old Altadena address between the beginning of the year and going forward may be stuck in transit for a while, or possibly lost altogether. If you want to send us anything, please don't use the old address, let us know directly and we can provide the temporary address.

We also visited Laura's parents' house, which is right on the edge of the restricted zone. Though they were evacuated, none of their street and below has suffered direct damage from the fire so far. There is a perimeter of LA County Sheriffs and California National Guard closing off the north side of their street and further up, at least as far west as our former home. No one is currently allowed into this area except emergency responders and credentialed media, and they did not have an estimate on when residents might be allowed in again. We will continue to work on the numerous activities facilitating our recovery, and will return to inspect our home site when access for us is allowed again.