Steve Guttenberg Gives Emotional Update on Wildfire Devastation: “We’re in Shock”
Steve Guttenberg has remained in the public consciousness for decades, thanks to his upbeat persona and memorable roles in such 1980s touchstones as Three Men and a Baby, Short Circuit and the Police Academy franchise. But he has made a special impact of late, as his recent televised testimonials about the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires destroying his longtime Pacific Palisades neighborhood made the rounds on news broadcasts and social media.
After processing the week’s devastation, Guttenberg connected with The Hollywood Reporter to offer his candid assessment of his beloved community and the support it still desperately needs. His home is still standing, but his family has been without water and power, so the actor borrowed a neighbor’s satellite service to share an update on the dire situation and offer encouragement on ways to provide help.
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It’s last Tuesday morning, 9 o’clock. Everything was idyllic. By 10:45 a.m., the sky was dark, and it was a bloom of smoke as high as the highest skyscraper you’ve ever seen.
I got on the road to Sunset Boulevard, and it was a parking lot. Two miles of bumper-to-bumper. Before I knew it, the fire was coming down the hill, both sides. The public school was starting to release their kids, and all the parents were out. Police told everybody to abandon their cars because the fire was so close.
But I saw that the streets were full, and the fire department and any emergency vehicles couldn’t get through. So I started just driving cars up on the curb. Most people left the keys, but people who didn’t leave the keys, that was a real problem. Then people were flooding the sidewalks.
I helped a lovely older man in a wheelchair. His feet were dragging on the ground. He was very scared, and I held his face in my hands, and I told him, “Everything’s going to be OK, and you’re going to have a good dinner tonight.” People just need to be comforted in this moment. There were a lot of moms looking for their kids.
My neighbor was out of the country, and I knew his dogs were up there. I just started walking up, and a neighbor I didn’t know, who lives within a mile of me, he gave me a drive to my house. These poor doggies were shaking, and I took care of them and gave them food.
But our area was untouched. We had 80 homes in our development. It looked like we were going to be safe.
That night, I went to a friend’s house to sleep and got up early and came back to our neighborhood. I couldn’t get up there, but I stayed back and started moving more cars, and they were bulldozing all these cars. I spent the day just seeing what I can do for the people, whatever they needed.
Then, on Thursday morning, I was driving back, and it was hard to get on PCH, but luckily somebody recognized me and let me up. I did this movie years ago called The Day After about nuclear war. PCH just looked like that.
The sky has been black every day — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. At 1 in the afternoon, it looks like it’s 6 at night.
If you’re able-bodied, help out when you can: people in wheelchairs, little kids, mothers. Try to be thoughtful and kind all year round because we’re not one street, one town, one city, one nation. We’re one planet — one community.
The resources have been fantastic. The fire department is so well-coordinated. It takes a unique human being to be able to be physical and emotional and sensitive at the same time. It takes a very special person to do what they do, and we’ve got 3,000 of them here.
We have to realize that right now, we’re in shock, but we don’t really realize what happened. A great rabbi friend of mine said to me that when someone passes, it’s too much for the brain. It doesn’t seem real — it’s just too much. If you did realize what’s going on, you couldn’t handle it.
Everybody’s in shock, and it’s a little bit of a weird adventure, but I think in about a week or so, it’s really going to become very real. We’re going to have a lot of mental health issues, and we’ve got to be careful of that. We’re going to have some depression and a lot of sadness because we don’t have anywhere to buy our food anymore. We don’t have anywhere to get a haircut. We don’t have anywhere to take our shoes.
The only stuff that’s still around: Rick Caruso built this beautiful new area in the Palisades, and the material itself is fire-retardant. All his buildings will stay, thank God. But our schools — they’re all gone. Ralph’s, Gelson’s — gone. Restaurants — gone. Buildings that have been there for 80, 100 years — gone.
It’s really rough. When you see a palm tree go on fire, you know you’re on a different planet. It’s a cliché, but in 20 minutes everything can change everything, and you have to be very aware of that.
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