Thursday, January 16, 2025

Coping With the New Everyday

By EDDIE RIVERA

Editor’s Note: Ten days after the Eaton Fire, Pasadena Now is taking a closer look at the lives of some of those who lost everything in the disaster, and talking with them about their lives before the fire, their current circumstances and their hopes for the future. In this occasional series, we begin with actor Allan Poe.

As the shock of the Eaton Fire wears off, evacuees are now contemplating their new futures and dealing with the harsh reality of meeting their everyday needs.

Outside the Red Cross shelter at the Pasadena Convention Center, the food trucks have gone and the area outside the center is lightly sprinkled with Red Cross employees, a few members of the media, City workers, and disaster volunteers.

Allan Poe, an actor, who, along with his wife lost their Altadena home, is sitting on the steps of the Convention Center, speaking with a friend on his cell phone.

Poe lost his home and most of his possessions in the fire, including a large and cherished collection of vinyl records. He and his wife are currently staying with in-laws and dealing with the logistical challenges of rebuilding their life, like changing their mailing address and replacing important documents.

“You get pretty morose when you’re left on your own,” he said Wednesday, “and I’m busy just taking care of stuff that has to be taken care of, the passports and changing the mailing address.”

Poe’s wife is struggling with the emotional impact of losing their longtime family home, while Poe said he is trying to remain positive and focus on moving forward. He has a role in a new film adaptation of “Nosferatu” on Roku, starring actor Doug Jones, which he can be excited about.

But the reality of losing everything has sunk in.

“I had 3,000 records tightly packed on shelves,” he recalled, “and I think they would’ve been fine because records can take when they’re tightly packed like that, you can take a lot.”

He and his wife hope to return and rebuild on their lot.

“It’s going to take three years,” he said, wistfully. “That’s what everybody I asked told me. It’ll take three years to get the house back.

“Some house,” he sighed. “It’ll be the house. A house. You don’t have much choice. What else are we going to do? You don’t have much choice. We’ll build something because really, you get pennies on the dollar if you just sell.”

He was at the Red Cross shelter gathering up more daily necessities.

“I mean, that’s why I’m here. There’s people here. They have toiletries and clothes. I only had the clothes on my back when we evacuated.”

As he recalled, ‘I did take a few things out of the house, but not nearly enough. I could take so much more. Especially because we evacuated about 10 o’clock, and the house didn’t really burn down until about 6:30 in the morning. I was nowhere near what they call a fire zone.”

Now what?

“Many people are saying, ‘I don’t want to go back.’” Poe said. “My wife’s first reaction is, ‘I don’t want to go, really, I don’t want to live there anymore because I’ll think about the house, think about the old house.’ We had a lot of mementos now gone, family photos, all kinds of stuff. Again, I don’t care about the house, it’s just stuff inside that house.”

“Of course,” he said, “I love my stuff. I had a lot of, I was a bit of a collector,” he said, his eyes crinkling under his mask. “Not a hoarder, but a collector. Everything had its place.”