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Good Thursday Morning. 

Thank you to all who have checked in on my wife and me during the wildfires that have ripped through Los Angeles County the past several days.

We were fortunate not to be impacted, and things are eerily normal in Santa Monica where we live. We have power, have no evacuation order, and are essentially back to our day-to-day lives.

It’s hard to reconcile that normalcy when it looks like a bomb went off just 3 miles north of us.

Like so many others, we have friends who have lost their homes and are struggling to grasp the widespread destruction caused:

• Over 40,000 acres burned (nearly 3x the size of Manhattan, for reference)

• 24 people reported dead

• More than 100,000 people displaced

As the city begins to recover, some estimates expect there to be over $250 billion in damage and economic loss. That is staggering, and it’s an economic problem for the country as a whole because LA produces nearly 4% of the U.S. GDP.

The worst is hopefully behind us, and much of that is a testament to the around-the-clock work by heroic first responders from across the city, county, state, country, and continent.

But given the events of this week, it frankly doesn’t feel right to talk about sports.

Instead, I wanted to share more about these fires and, most importantly, ways you can help the city rebuild.

What’s Happened

Most of the news coverage has focused on the Palisades Fire, the one that destroyed the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood, parts of Malibu, and an iconic stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway.

But, the reality is that this was not just one fire, and it did not just impact rich people and celebrities.

This was 5+ fires burning at one point across the city during a perfect storm of conditions, laying waste to neighborhoods of all socio-economic statuses and upending the worlds of people from all walks of life.

The Eaton Fire in the northeastern part of LA destroyed much of Altadena, a middle class town that is 58% people of color and was one of the first neighborhoods to provide black people with fair housing back in the 1960’s and 70’s.

Many of those same people and their families still lived there when the fires came.

The Palisades Fire claimed the home of our friends who live behind us. They’re a younger couple who just had their second child and were going to be moving into their dream home in the Palisades in the next two months that they that had worked so hard to get. It’s now a pile of ashes and rubble.

We know many other families with young kids in similar situations who had built communities in this area and are now having to start over. Imagine having to explain this to your five year-old.

These anecdotes are not meant to be downers. They’re meant to humanize the destruction and create some additional empathy for the people a part of the 100,000+ displaced. And many other people, both LA-residents and non-LA residents, have similar stories.

While LA is hurting, the work begins now to rebuild. Here’s how you can help.

How to Help

There are myriad ways to contribute from afar, and if you’ve found a causes that you like, fantastic! Everything helps.

My wife and I are volunteering across various causes, and we will also be continuing to make monetary donation over the next weeks and months.

An exciting perk of the company that I work for when I’m not Uncle SBP is that it matches up to $5,000 on all employee donations to approved causes.

So, if you would like to help double the impact, send me a Venmo or Zelle (respond to this email if you do not have my information and I will provide it to you), and I’ll plan to make a donation next week split between:

• Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation

• California Fire Foundation

• World Central Kitchen

I will send receipts and share an update in next week’s edition on how much we raised.

Thank you to all those who have reached out over the past week, thank you to the first responders, and thank you for everyone's support to help rebuild LA!

-Alex

P.S.

To finish on a lighter, sports-themed note, check out this fun SportsCenter Top 10 style video of the fire plan aerial drops. I’m in awe of these pilots.