January 23

The power company crews had moved off of our street today, continuing to work on restoring lines throughout the area. We didn't encounter any checkpoints today, though there were still sheriff's deputies and national guard in the area. According to the county emails, all of Altadena is now accessible to residents again. We spent some time at the house retrieving the fireplace 'Batchelder' tiles that were original from when the house was built in 1923. If we end up building a new house, we could recreate the fireplace with these tiles. They survived the fire basically intact, but the concern was that with the forecasted rain this weekend, water would mix with the ash and potentially damage them. All of the tiles were retrieved, most of them intact, and we found a metal engine piece that Laura had displayed on the mantle which has also survived mostly undamaged. We won't be able to go back until next week, so the site may be even worse off with any rain mixing with the debris. 

We had a discussion with the architect we had worked with last year when we had considered some renovations to the house. He is quickly coming up to speed on the new processes that will govern rebuilding in Altadena and fire hardening features available for homes. Because of our previous work, we could get a quick start on any rebuilding effort if other factors lined up in that direction (cleaning of the site, insurance payouts, and plans for the community as a whole, among may others). We'll be spending some time away from Altadena for the next couple of days before getting back into things next week.