latimes--2020-05-17--Firefighters had to run through fireball to escape downtown L.A. explosion

Firefighters were inside a burning downtown Los Angeles business Saturday evening when there was a huge explosion .
The blast injured 12 first responders and spurred an investigation into its cause , fire officials said .
The explosion damaged several storefronts , melted fire helmets and left one fire truck burned and covered in debris .
Officials said firefighters had to pass through the fireball to escape .
“ Firefighters were coming out with obvious damage and burns , ” said Erik Scott , a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department .
They ran “ straight through that ball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the street , ” Scott said .
Eleven firefighters received treatment for burn injuries at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center , according to the LAFD .
A 12th firefighter was treated and released at an emergency room Saturday night for “ a minor extremity injury , ” said Nicholas Prange , an LAFD spokesman .
As of Sunday morning , three firefighters had been discharged from the hospital .
Eight remained hospitalized , including two in critical but stable condition .
All were expected to survive , officials said .
Doctors at USC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need skin grafts .
The cause of the fire has not been determined .
The fire broke out in an older business district off East 3rd Street known for its various smoke shops .
Authorities referred to it as Bong Row .
An initial investigation of the scene identified the business as Smoke Tokes , a warehouse distributor with supplies for butane hash oil , he said .
Authorities said carbon dioxide and butane canisters were found inside the building .
The owner of Smoke Tokes could not be reached for comment .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ has “ two locations with one of them being a cash and carry location and the other is our giant warehouse.
” Firefighters first received a call about 6:30 p.m. Saturday about a structure fire in the 300 block of Boyd Street south of Little Tokyo .
The businesses were not open at the time .
“ This fire started off like any other bread-and-butter structure fire where we had a one-story commercial building with smoke showing , ” Scott said .
LAFD Station No .
9 responded .
It is one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , serving one of Los Angeles ’ most troubled spots : skid row .
On top of the frequent calls that existed even before the pandemic , firefighters there have , in recent weeks , also have been conducting COVID-19 tests on skid row .
When the fire broke out Saturday night , firefighters went to the roof to try to create ventilation , and firefighters used power saws to force entry , Scott said .
Others went inside , attempting to find the source of the blaze .
“ It was routine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound —they described it like a jet engine spinning up — along with pressurized smoke , ” Scott said .
Firefighters started backing out , he said , but “ conditions drastically changed within moments.
” The explosion , he said , created a 30-foot-wide fireball .
“ This is one of the worst incidents in recent history that we have been to , ” Scott said .
“ Our firefighters were driven off the roof , frantically scurrying down the aerial ladder to safety through a blowtorch .
Firefighters inside had to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the injured firefighters work at Station 9 , according to LAFD .
Initially , officials could not account for all the firefighters .
In an LAFD radio transmission , an official is heard screaming , “ Mayday !
Explosion !
I have two down firefighters.
” “ This is a difficult time for our fire family , ” Scott said , his voice tired .
“ Our number one concern is to take care of the injured as well as the mental health of the other firefighters on scene.
” It took more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minutes after the call came in , authorities said .
Video at the scene captured a series of smaller explosions after the initial blast .
On Sunday , the heavily damaged warehouse still stood , Scott said .
Nearby streets were cordoned off with yellow tape .
The scene left by the fire was apocalyptic .
On Sunday , the yellow jackets of firefighters who had responded to the blaze still lay on the ground , with holes burned in them .
Melted helmets were scattered about .
There was a charred fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blackened fire hose .
There were discharged fire extinguishers “ possibly that were utilized to extinguish our own members , ” Scott said .
LAFD Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said the firefighters responding to the call sensed something was wrong inside the building but could not escape before the explosion .
“ When one of your own is injured ... you can imagine the amount of mental stress , ” Terrazas said .
“ A lot of our firefighters were traumatized.
” Along with LAFD arson investigators , the explosion is being investigated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles Police Department ’ s major crimes division and the gang and narcotics division , LAPD Asst .
Chief Horace Frank said .
“ The explosion was massive , and those firefighters are very lucky to be alive , ” Frank said .
“ Skill and awareness is the reason they were able to get out from an incredibly dangerous situation.
” The Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco , Firearms and Explosives ’ national response team will arrive Monday to assist in the investigation , federal officials said Sunday .
The team @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can reconstruct scenes in detail .
It assisted most recently in California on the Conception boat fire , which killed 34 people in the vessel off Santa Barbara in September .
The team also assisted in the investigation of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire , which killed 36 people in December 2016 .
In 2016 , there was another major fire at a downtown L.A. business called Smoke Tokes at an address nearby on 3rd Street .
“ We are aware of a fire in September 2016 , nearby on 3rd Street , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tokes , ” Scott said Sunday .
“ Our arson investigators are aware of that incident , and that ’ s part of the active investigation.
” It took more than 160 firefighters about two hours to put out that blaze , with the flames largely confined to the wholesaler and distributor of smoking paraphernalia , the Los Angeles Times reported at the time .
Firefighters encountered pressurized gas cylinders that exploded amid the inferno , fire officials said .
“ It was a tricky fire for us , ” LAFD Battalion Chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We had multiple explosions going off inside the fire while it was burning due to the butane containers releasing.
” There were no injuries in the 2016 fire .
The LAFD later said in a statement that firefighters who entered the building found “ intense fire in dense and highly flammable storage that included pressurized flammable gas cylinders , several of which were heard to explode.
” It was unclear whether that business and the one that burned Saturday were connected .
Jeralyn Cleveland was celebrating a family birthday party Saturday on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she manages three blocks away when she saw the explosion .
“ Everyone in my building thought there was a bomb that went off , ” said Cleveland , 37 .
“ It was like a mushroom.
” Cleveland said there were small fires all the time in the neighborhood , which borders skid row , but she had never seen anything like this before .

Liam Dillon, Hailey Branson-Potts, Richard Winton

Firefighters were inside a burning downtown Los Angeles business Saturday evening when there was a huge explosion. The blast injured 12 first responders and spurred an investigation into its cause, fire officials said.
The explosion damaged several storefronts, melted fire helmets and left one fire truck burned and covered in debris. Officials said firefighters had to pass through the fireball to escape.
“Firefighters were coming out with obvious damage and burns,” said Erik Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
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An aerial view of Saturday’s fire in downtown Los Angeles. (KTLA)
They ran “straight through that ball of flame to get to safety across the street,” Scott said.
Eleven firefighters received treatment for burn injuries at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, according to the LAFD. A 12th firefighter was treated and released at an emergency room Saturday night for “a minor extremity injury,” said Nicholas Prange, an LAFD spokesman.
As of Sunday morning, three firefighters had been discharged from the hospital. Eight remained hospitalized, including two in critical but stable condition.
All were expected to survive, officials said. Doctors at USC said one of the firefighters would probably need skin grafts.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
The fire broke out in an older business district off East 3rd Street known for its various smoke shops. Authorities referred to it as Bong Row.
An initial investigation of the scene identified the business as Smoke Tokes, a warehouse distributor with supplies for butane hash oil, he said. Authorities said carbon dioxide and butane canisters were found inside the building.
Advertisement
The owner of Smoke Tokes could not be reached for comment. A website for the company said it has “two locations with one of them being a cash and carry location and the other is our giant warehouse.”
Firefighters first received a call about 6:30 p.m. Saturday about a structure fire in the 300 block of Boyd Street south of Little Tokyo. The businesses were not open at the time.
“This fire started off like any other bread-and-butter structure fire where we had a one-story commercial building with smoke showing,” Scott said.
LAFD Station No. 9 responded. It is one of the busiest fires stations in the nation, serving one of Los Angeles’ most troubled spots: skid row. On top of the frequent calls that existed even before the pandemic, firefighters there have, in recent weeks, also have been conducting COVID-19 tests on skid row.
When the fire broke out Saturday night, firefighters went to the roof to try to create ventilation, and firefighters used power saws to force entry, Scott said. Others went inside, attempting to find the source of the blaze.
“It was routine until they heard a rumbling, high-pitched sound —they described it like a jet engine spinning up — along with pressurized smoke,” Scott said. Firefighters started backing out, he said, but “conditions drastically changed within moments.”
The explosion, he said, created a 30-foot-wide fireball.
“This is one of the worst incidents in recent history that we have been to,” Scott said. “Our firefighters were driven off the roof, frantically scurrying down the aerial ladder to safety through a blowtorch. Firefighters inside had to escape a massive explosion.”
All of the injured firefighters work at Station 9, according to LAFD.
Initially, officials could not account for all the firefighters.
In an LAFD radio transmission, an official is heard screaming, “Mayday! Explosion! I have two down firefighters.”
“This is a difficult time for our fire family,” Scott said, his voice tired. “Our number one concern is to take care of the injured as well as the mental health of the other firefighters on scene.”
It took more than 230 firefighters an hour and 42 minutes after the call came in, authorities said. Video at the scene captured a series of smaller explosions after the initial blast.
On Sunday, the heavily damaged warehouse still stood, Scott said. Nearby streets were cordoned off with yellow tape.
The scene left by the fire was apocalyptic. On Sunday, the yellow jackets of firefighters who had responded to the blaze still lay on the ground, with holes burned in them. Melted helmets were scattered about.
There was a charred fire truck, Scott said, and a blackened fire hose. There were discharged fire extinguishers “possibly that were utilized to extinguish our own members,” Scott said.
LAFD Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said the firefighters responding to the call sensed something was wrong inside the building but could not escape before the explosion.
While firefighters were in the downtown Los Angeles building trying to find the source of the blaze, there was a big explosion. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
“When one of your own is injured ... you can imagine the amount of mental stress,” Terrazas said. “A lot of our firefighters were traumatized.”
Along with LAFD arson investigators, the explosion is being investigated by the criminal conspiracy section of the Los Angeles Police Department’s major crimes division and the gang and narcotics division, LAPD Asst. Chief Horace Frank said.
“The explosion was massive, and those firefighters are very lucky to be alive,” Frank said. “Skill and awareness is the reason they were able to get out from an incredibly dangerous situation.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ national response team will arrive Monday to assist in the investigation, federal officials said Sunday.
The team brings together science and fire experts who can reconstruct scenes in detail. It assisted most recently in California on the Conception boat fire, which killed 34 people in the vessel off Santa Barbara in September. The team also assisted in the investigation of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people in December 2016.
In 2016, there was another major fire at a downtown L.A. business called Smoke Tokes at an address nearby on 3rd Street.
“We are aware of a fire in September 2016, nearby on 3rd Street, with a building doing business as Smoke Tokes,” Scott said Sunday. “Our arson investigators are aware of that incident, and that’s part of the active investigation.”
It took more than 160 firefighters about two hours to put out that blaze, with the flames largely confined to the wholesaler and distributor of smoking paraphernalia, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.
Firefighters encountered pressurized gas cylinders that exploded amid the inferno, fire officials said. “It was a tricky fire for us,” LAFD Battalion Chief Mark Curry said at the time. “We had multiple explosions going off inside the fire while it was burning due to the butane containers releasing.”
There were no injuries in the 2016 fire. The LAFD later said in a statement that firefighters who entered the building found “intense fire in dense and highly flammable storage that included pressurized flammable gas cylinders, several of which were heard to explode.”
It was unclear whether that business and the one that burned Saturday were connected.
Jeralyn Cleveland was celebrating a family birthday party Saturday on the roof of the 13-story apartment building she manages three blocks away when she saw the explosion.
“Everyone in my building thought there was a bomb that went off,” said Cleveland, 37. “It was like a mushroom.”
Cleveland said there were small fires all the time in the neighborhood, which borders skid row, but she had never seen anything like this before.


latimes--2020-05-17--Earthquake: 3.1 quake near Ridgecrest

Earthquake: 3.1 quake near Ridgecrest

A magnitude-3.1 earthquake was reported at 6:49 a.m. Sunday 13 miles from Ridgecrest , Calif. , according to the U.S. Geological Survey .
The earthquake occurred 41 miles from California City , Calif. , 64 miles from Tehachapi , Calif. , 68 miles from Bakersfield and 71 miles from Rosamond , Calif .
In the past 10 days , there have been two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby .
An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3.0 to 4.0 occur each year in California and Nevada , according to a recent three-year data sample .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miles .
Did you feel this earthquake ?
Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS .
Even if you didn ’ t feel this small earthquake , you never know when the Big One is going to strike .
Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit .
This story was automatically generated by Quakebot , a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS .
A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published .
If you ’ re interested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visit our list of frequently asked questions .

A magnitude-3.1 earthquake occurred at 6:49 a.m. Sunday near Ridgecrest, according to the USGS.
A magnitude-3.1 earthquake was reported at 6:49 a.m. Sunday 13 miles from Ridgecrest, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The earthquake occurred 41 miles from California City, Calif., 64 miles from Tehachapi, Calif., 68 miles from Bakersfield and 71 miles from Rosamond, Calif.
In the past 10 days, there have been two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.
Advertisement
An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3.0 to 4.0 occur each year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample.
The earthquake occurred at a depth of 2.1 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.
Even if you didn’t feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit.
This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.


latimes--2020-05-17--Bowl of oranges for a bunch of basil: Strapped for cash, Angelenos turn to bartering and sharing

On a hilly street in Highland Park , Alexandra Kacha ’ s front garden bursts with kale and broccoli , eggplant and artichoke , zucchini and celery and a host of fragrant herbs .
Out back , there ’ s a mulberry tree .
Kacha never thought too much about it all .
Gardening was just a hobby that happened to put food on the table .
But as Los Angeles shut down and the world became smaller , as people lost their jobs and the economy faltered , neighbors started stopping by to ask for tips .
One brought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her own backyard , ready to trade for basil .
Friends and Instagram followers came ready to barter , too , always standing outside and from six feet away .
In one exchange , Kacha ’ s friend Jennifer Noble brought apple and carrot muffins , and left with fresh mulberries and chard .
“ I was never really grateful for my garden , but during quarantine it has saved me , ” said Kacha , 33 , a photographer .
“ This is changing everyone.
” “ It ’ s a nice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 36 , a city librarian who has bartered with other friends , too .
“ Particularly for someone like me who lives alone — it ’ s just me and my two dogs — finding spaces for connection is important.
” In California and across the country , an ancient ethos of community codependence is quietly being revived , as people return to a world where the marketplace is the neighborhood and where bartering and borrowing — or just giving things away — is always preferable to paying .
Dissuaded from venturing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat , Angelenos have discovered that toilet paper is never too far afield , private gardens can feed entire families , and certain neighbors have killer spice racks .
“ There ’ s something about the pandemic that has brought out a little bit of that neighborly , old-fashioned , everybody checking in on everyone else thing , ” said Amanda Rykoff , 49 , of West Hollywood , who has traded brownies for toilet paper and Kleenex , and averted a late-night bread-baking debacle by scooping an extra Dutch oven off an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a reminder that we are part of a community , as opposed to just being isolated all the time behind our screens , ” said Rykoff , communications manager for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles .
Such connections have always existed , of course , but they are becoming more common .
Just as we are learning to live apart , we are growing closer together .
Cash and Venmo transactions still rule in online marketplaces , but the economy of kindness is making gains .
According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 9-million-member Freecycle Network , which helps local communities set up free exchanges around the globe , people are itching to tap into the free economy — some because they are in need , others because they know their luck and can give .
Since the pandemic hit , Freecycle has grown at two or three times its normal rate , Beal said , with 10,000 new members joining per week .
Rebecca Rockefeller and Liesl Clark , founders of the 1.5-million-member Buy Nothing Project , which also has community groups around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well , with 400 people signing up for a recent training session for new neighborhood administrators .
“ There ’ s a huge interest , ” Clark said .
“ People are starting to understand.
” Rockefeller and Clark , authors of a new book titled “ The Buy Nothing , Get Everything Plan : Discover the Joy of Spending Less , Sharing More , and Living Generously , ” said they watched in recent months as shutdown orders spread across the U.S. , and requests to start new chapters in those regions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run a Buy Nothing chapter in Alhambra , said her 300-member group has grown by more than 10 % since March 14 .
When the pandemic began — she limited exchanges to essential items only to limit person-to-person interactions but keep open a lifeline for members — people rose to the occasion by sharing home-cooked leftovers , pantry staples , diapers , toilet paper and cleaning supplies , she said .
And when she opened the group back up to all kinds of posts , people quickly met requests for gardening materials , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids , she said .
As a nanny and personal assistant who hasn ’ t worked in months , Seevers said she has relied heavily on the platform herself , including for groceries .
One recent day , she laughed at herself after realizing she ’ d essentially gone “ grocery shopping ” around the neighborhood .
“ One person gave me ham , another person gave me vegetables , another person gave me cheese , ” she said .
“ It ’ s really helped me a ton , to feel safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when I ’ m kind of scared.
” Kristi Fisher , 38 , an administrator of a Buy Nothing group in Chatsworth , said use of the platform has definitely increased , and some users are clearly relying on it .
“ We ’ re finding now that everything that is getting posted foodwise is getting taken , ” she said .
Local families are even snapping up expired produce for their farm animals , she said .
A few members with little “ free library ” boxes in their frontyards have started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead , she said .
Others without any goods to give have offered to teach their neighbors how to make homemade hand sanitizer .
“ It ’ s brought out the best in people , ” Fisher said .
Michelle Barnes , who lives between Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks and facilitates a North Hollywood chapter of the Freecycle Network , agreed .
“ I ’ m seeing a lot more compassion , in terms of people wanting to help out other people , ” she said .
Rebecca Stanek , Rykoff ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Bay Area , said she recently found herself in a three-way food trade with friends .
After she posted a picture of cilantro she ’ d grown on Instagram , a friend called and suggested a trade , then brought over some cucumber plants and more chard than Stanek knew what to do with .
So Stanek , 40 , called another friend .
“ Does your family eat chard ?
Because we have a lot of it , ” she said .
The friend said yes , then asked Stanek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What could you use ?
” Stanek ’ s husband Eli , a baker , had been looking everywhere for whole wheat flour , but couldn ’ t find it .
So here came the second friend , with the flour but also some tomato shoots , Stanek said .
“ In exchange for a handful of cilantro , I ended up with some chard , whole wheat flour , cucumber plants and some tomato shoots , ” she said with a laugh .
“ I feel in debt a little bit !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or if I get a lot of cucumbers , I feel as though I need to give those to some friends.
” Kacha , in Highland Park , loves to think this new system of bartering and trading will stick , and that more Californians will take advantage of the fact that , in Southern California , you can grow practically anything on a small scale .
“ I feel like people ’ s lawns should be food , ” Kacha said , just as a neighbor , Amy Olk , 48 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I ’ m kind of obsessed , ” Olk said of Kacha ’ s garden .
Then she mused about going to the local nursery , to really get started on her own garden .
“ I don ’ t know what to plant in the summer , ” she said , as warm California sunshine blinked through the morning clouds .
“ I ’ m going to have to research that .
”

Alexandra Kacha, 33, tends to a frontyard garden in Highland Park on Mother’s Day. The vegetables and herbs from Kacha’s garden have attracted neighbors and Instagram followers armed with muffins, fruit and other food to trade.
On a hilly street in Highland Park, Alexandra Kacha’s front garden bursts with kale and broccoli, eggplant and artichoke, zucchini and celery and a host of fragrant herbs. Out back, there’s a mulberry tree.
Kacha never thought too much about it all. Gardening was just a hobby that happened to put food on the table.
But as Los Angeles shut down and the world became smaller, as people lost their jobs and the economy faltered, neighbors started stopping by to ask for tips. One brought over a big bowl of oranges from her own backyard, ready to trade for basil.
Advertisement
Friends and Instagram followers came ready to barter, too, always standing outside and from six feet away. In one exchange, Kacha’s friend Jennifer Noble brought apple and carrot muffins, and left with fresh mulberries and chard.
“I was never really grateful for my garden, but during quarantine it has saved me,” said Kacha, 33, a photographer. “This is changing everyone.”
“It’s a nice way to connect,” said Noble, 36, a city librarian who has bartered with other friends, too. “Particularly for someone like me who lives alone — it’s just me and my two dogs — finding spaces for connection is important.”
In California and across the country, an ancient ethos of community codependence is quietly being revived, as people return to a world where the marketplace is the neighborhood and where bartering and borrowing — or just giving things away — is always preferable to paying. Dissuaded from venturing out and into stores by the coronavirus threat, Angelenos have discovered that toilet paper is never too far afield, private gardens can feed entire families, and certain neighbors have killer spice racks.
“There’s something about the pandemic that has brought out a little bit of that neighborly, old-fashioned, everybody checking in on everyone else thing,” said Amanda Rykoff, 49, of West Hollywood, who has traded brownies for toilet paper and Kleenex, and averted a late-night bread-baking debacle by scooping an extra Dutch oven off an old friend’s porch.
“It’s a reminder that we are part of a community, as opposed to just being isolated all the time behind our screens,” said Rykoff, communications manager for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles.
Such connections have always existed, of course, but they are becoming more common. Just as we are learning to live apart, we are growing closer together. Cash and Venmo transactions still rule in online marketplaces, but the economy of kindness is making gains.
Advertisement
According to Deron Beal, founder and director of the 9-million-member Freecycle Network, which helps local communities set up free exchanges around the globe, people are itching to tap into the free economy — some because they are in need, others because they know their luck and can give.
Since the pandemic hit, Freecycle has grown at two or three times its normal rate, Beal said, with 10,000 new members joining per week.
Rebecca Rockefeller and Liesl Clark, founders of the 1.5-million-member Buy Nothing Project, which also has community groups around the world, saw interest surge as well, with 400 people signing up for a recent training session for new neighborhood administrators.
“There’s a huge interest,” Clark said. “People are starting to understand.”
Rockefeller and Clark, authors of a new book titled “The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan: Discover the Joy of Spending Less, Sharing More, and Living Generously,” said they watched in recent months as shutdown orders spread across the U.S., and requests to start new chapters in those regions increased.
Jessica Seevers, who helps run a Buy Nothing chapter in Alhambra, said her 300-member group has grown by more than 10% since March 14.
When the pandemic began — she limited exchanges to essential items only to limit person-to-person interactions but keep open a lifeline for members — people rose to the occasion by sharing home-cooked leftovers, pantry staples, diapers, toilet paper and cleaning supplies, she said.
And when she opened the group back up to all kinds of posts, people quickly met requests for gardening materials, DVDs, puzzles and art supplies for kids, she said.
As a nanny and personal assistant who hasn’t worked in months, Seevers said she has relied heavily on the platform herself, including for groceries. One recent day, she laughed at herself after realizing she’d essentially gone “grocery shopping” around the neighborhood.
“One person gave me ham, another person gave me vegetables, another person gave me cheese,” she said. “It’s really helped me a ton, to feel safe and taken care of at a time when I’m kind of scared.”
Kristi Fisher, 38, an administrator of a Buy Nothing group in Chatsworth, said use of the platform has definitely increased, and some users are clearly relying on it.
“We’re finding now that everything that is getting posted foodwise is getting taken,” she said. Local families are even snapping up expired produce for their farm animals, she said.
A few members with little “free library” boxes in their frontyards have started loading them up with canned goods, instead, she said. Others without any goods to give have offered to teach their neighbors how to make homemade hand sanitizer.
“It’s brought out the best in people,” Fisher said.
Michelle Barnes, who lives between Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks and facilitates a North Hollywood chapter of the Freecycle Network, agreed. “I’m seeing a lot more compassion, in terms of people wanting to help out other people,” she said.
Rebecca Stanek, Rykoff’s sister-in-law who lives in Castro Valley in the Bay Area, said she recently found herself in a three-way food trade with friends.
After she posted a picture of cilantro she’d grown on Instagram, a friend called and suggested a trade, then brought over some cucumber plants and more chard than Stanek knew what to do with. So Stanek, 40, called another friend.
“Does your family eat chard? Because we have a lot of it,” she said. The friend said yes, then asked Stanek a question of her own: “What could you use?”
Stanek’s husband Eli, a baker, had been looking everywhere for whole wheat flour, but couldn’t find it. So here came the second friend, with the flour but also some tomato shoots, Stanek said.
“In exchange for a handful of cilantro, I ended up with some chard, whole wheat flour, cucumber plants and some tomato shoots,” she said with a laugh. “I feel in debt a little bit! So once my leeks are doing well, or if I get a lot of cucumbers, I feel as though I need to give those to some friends.”
Kacha, in Highland Park, loves to think this new system of bartering and trading will stick, and that more Californians will take advantage of the fact that, in Southern California, you can grow practically anything on a small scale.
“I feel like people’s lawns should be food,” Kacha said, just as a neighbor, Amy Olk, 48, walked up with her dog.
“I’m kind of obsessed,” Olk said of Kacha’s garden. Then she mused about going to the local nursery, to really get started on her own garden.
“I don’t know what to plant in the summer,” she said, as warm California sunshine blinked through the morning clouds. “I’m going to have to research that.”


latimes--2020-05-17--The price of being 'essential': Latino service workers bear brunt of coronavirus

For Lupe Martinez , who does the laundry at a Riverside nursing home , each day presented an agonizing choice : Go to work and risk getting the novel coronavirus or lose the $ 13.58-an-hour paycheck her family relies upon .
Even after the masks started running low .
Even , she said , after a patient whose room she had entered without protective equipment fell ill and was put into isolation .
Martinez , 62 , tested positive for COVID-19 last month , followed by her 60-year-old husband , who had to stop working after having a heart attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daughter , who live with them , also tested positive .
“ There were many times I didn ’ t want to go to work , ” said Martinez , coughing heavily as she spoke .
“ I didn ’ t want to get sick .
My husband said , ‘ Don ’ t. ’ I said we can ’ t live .
We have these bills .
...
I had to push myself to go .
I had a commitment to my family.
” For low-paid employees whose work is rarely if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the floors , do the laundry , serve fast food , pick the crops , work in the meat plants — having the jobs that keep America running has come with a heavy price .
By the odd calculus wrought by the viral outbreak , they have been deemed “ essential.
” And that means being a target .
Along with blacks , Latinos have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic in California and other parts of the United States , becoming infected and dying at disproportionately high rates relative to their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say one of the main reasons Latinos are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 is because many work in low-paying jobs that require them to leave home and interact with the public .
Latinos comprise about 40 % of California ’ s population but 53 % of positive cases , according to state data .
In San Francisco , Latinos comprise 15 % of the population but make up 43 % of the confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday .
UC San Francisco researchers tested thousands of people in the city ’ s Mission District @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 44 % of the people tested , they accounted for more than 95 % of the positive cases .
About 90 % of those who tested positive said they were unable to work from home .
A Los Angeles Times data analysis last month also found that younger Latinos and blacks were dying at disproportionately high rates , belying the conventional wisdom that old age is the primary risk factor for death .
Latinos in California are significantly less likely than whites , Asians and blacks to say that working from home amid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a new poll of California voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies .
Some 42 % of Latinos polled said they could work from home , compared with 53 % of blacks , 59 % of Asians and 61 % of whites .
The poll also showed that Latinos were nearly three times more likely than whites to be concerned about their jobs placing them in close proximity to others .
This was a particular problem in the first weeks of the pandemic , when masks and other protective gear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were still trying to implement social distancing policies .
“ They feel essential ; they ’ re trying to do their part to get us out of this crisis , ” said Jose Lopez , a Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Food Chain Workers Alliance .
“ Yet we can ’ t provide face masks .
We can ’ t give them the space to give them six feet of separation between their co-workers.
” A Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that Latinos make up just under 40 % of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ essential by the California state government , consistent with their share of the statewide population .
But in some sectors , they are greatly overrepresented .
In essential agriculture jobs , the workforce is more than 80 % Latino .
They also hold more than half of essential food jobs and nearly 60 % of construction jobs deemed essential .
At the same time , Latinos in the U.S. are more likely than the overall population to say they or someone in their household has experienced a pay cut or lost a job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pew Research Center survey in April .
For weeks , Dr. Marlene Martín , an assistant clinical professor at UC San Francisco and a physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital , has watched as Latino patients with COVID-19 have streamed into the emergency room .
More than 80 % of the hospitalized coronavirus patients at the facility were Latino as of last month .
They have been roofers , cooks , janitors , dishwashers and delivery drivers .
Many were under 50 .
They lived in households where social distancing is difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ families .
For Martín , a 36-year-old Latina , stepping into the intensive care unit sometimes feels like being confronted with an unsettling mirror .
“ It was already full of people who look like me , ” she said , “ who share a common language and similar cultural backgrounds.
” “ You see the extremes of what happens when someone can shelter in place or someone can ’ t .
It ’ s not that people don ’ t want to stay home .
It ’ s not that they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not that they ’ re not educated .
It ’ s that they don ’ t have an option.
” The coronavirus ’ heavy toll on Latinos raises questions about whether employers across the U.S. and the government are doing enough to protect these workers .
In Iowa , Latinos make up about 6 % of the population but have accounted for a quarter of all positive cases , according to the state ’ s tally .
In Washington state , Latinos represented 35 % of all positive cases , even though they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population .
The balance between keeping Latino essential workers safe and depending on their labor is being tested in the city of Hanford , where a coronavirus outbreak at a meat-packing plant now accounts for half of the confirmed cases in Kings County .
About 180 employees at Central Valley Meat Co. had tested positive as of Tuesday , according to County Supervisor Doug Verboon .
Most of the employees at the facility — who work in close proximity amid “ moist and wet working conditions ” — are Latino , he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to calls or emails from The Times .
Verboon said the county is depending on even more Latino workers during the current cherry-picking season , which lasts until mid-June .
He said one Hanford fruit-packing company that employed 800 workers to pick cherries told him that an outbreak similar to the one at Central Valley Meat Co. would be “ catastrophic.
” “ We can ’ t have those people get ill because we have a short window of work , ” Verboon said .
Lupe Martinez started at Alta Vista Healthcare & @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her husband , a sheet metal worker and the family breadwinner , had a heart attack and had to stop working .
In the laundry room , Martinez — a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 2015 , which represents some 400,000 home care and nursing home workers in California — was surrounded by mostly Latinos and Filipinos .
A lot of her colleagues work two jobs or pull double shifts , washing heavy comforters and blankets , cleaning shower curtains , handling patients ’ linens .
Martinez ’ s family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus began spreading in California .
“ I told them , ‘ I ’ m going to trust God .
I ’ m not going to get it , ’ ” she said .
“ I ’ d go to work .
I ’ d worry.
” A few weeks ago , Martinez said , she walked into the room of an elderly woman to bring her clean clothes .
Usually , there is a notice on the door if a patient has an illness that requires staff to put on gloves , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There was nothing posted , Martinez said , so she entered unmasked .
Martinez said the woman told her she was feeling sick .
A few days later , a sign on the door said she was in isolation .
Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre did not return calls or emails seeking comment .
On April 13 , Martinez came home with a sore throat , dry cough and aching body .
She couldn ’ t taste the tea her son brought her .
She struggled to breathe .
She went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ positive COVID-19 test and was sent home , told to try and self-isolate .
When her husband , son and daughter who live in the house tested positive , she lay in bed , crying out to God .
Another son and his wife live in a back house on the property .
He ’ s a barber .
She ’ s a dental hygienist .
They are not currently leaving home to work .
They have not gotten COVID-19 .
Because she had not yet worked at the nursing home a year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eligible for sick pay .
She has applied for state disability but has not yet heard back .
Martinez said she feels she has to return to work .
“ My kids don ’ t want me to go back , ” Martinez said .
“ But I have bills .
I know it ’ s my life , but — I don ’ t know.
” Rosa Arenas , another union member and certified nursing assistant at an Orange nursing home , said she got tested after learning a patient had tested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ May 2 , Arenas tested positive .
Now , she is isolated in one bedroom of her family ’ s apartment , away from her husband and two children , ages 12 and 6 , who have tested negative .
She spent Mother ’ s Day reading the Bible alone and video-chatting with her children and husband from the other side of the door .
“ My kids told me they were sad they weren ’ t going to give me a Mother ’ s Day hug , ” Arenas , 32 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” She said there was not enough personal protective equipment at work and that colleagues have become infected .
Her husband , a landscaper , recently was sent home by his employer to quarantine and be tested , and she has burned through all her paid vacation and sick time while quarantining at home .
And she misses working .
When Rafael Saavedra , a 40-year-old truck driver from Alhambra , returns home from work , he undresses in his garage , throws his clothes in the washing machine and rushes to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside .
His greatest fear is infecting his daughters , ages 16 and 6 .
At a San Pedro dispatch center , where he and hundreds of other drivers drop off paperwork and take breaks , he hardly ever finds soap or hand sanitizer .
Employees who normally work in the center are now working remotely , and there ’ s little communication with drivers about how they can stay safe , Saavedra said .
Drivers were given a single , thin mask about a month ago and nothing else , he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drivers he works with are Latino immigrants who are struggling to navigate the pandemic because of language barriers and a lack of resources .
“ They don ’ t know their rights .
They ’ re scared of talking .
They stay in their cocoon , ” he said .
Saavedra has carved out a comfortable life for his family .
He travels often with his wife and daughters , who attend private Christian schools .
But his paycheck has been cut in half due to reduced hours .
He fears losing his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a Pasadena homeless shelter , cut down her own hours out of fear of catching the virus and infecting their daughters .
Sonia Hernandez , who raised four children as a single mother , has worked as a cook at a McDonald ’ s in Monterey Park for 18 years and makes just over $ 14 an hour , said her daughter , Jenniffer Barrera Hernandez .
In early April , Hernandez was hospitalized with COVID-19 and went into an induced coma for weeks .
“ They told us she wasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day and we had to decide whether she wanted to go in peace or do chest compressions to try and get a pulse , ” Barrera Hernandez said .
“ It was really hard to make that decision.
” Miraculously , Barrera Hernandez said , her mother woke up .
After her diagnosis , Hernandez ’ s co-workers walked off the job to demand safety supplies , including masks , gloves , soap and hand sanitizer .
Barrera Hernandez said after she called McDonald ’ s to alert the company her mom had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a call back .
“ That ’ s really sad , because my mom really liked that job .
You provide for a company for so long , and at the end you ’ re just a number.
” Hernandez is recovering in her South L.A. home .
She is extremely fatigued and unable to walk or even hold a phone for very long , her daughter said .
She feels guilty she can ’ t go back to work yet .
David Tovar , McDonald ’ s U.S. vice president of communications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s and some employees ’ statements were false .
He said McDonald ’ s restaurants , including the one where Hernandez worked , have had an ample supply of soap , hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies and close overnight once per week for deep cleanings .
Tovar said restaurants have been open for takeout only , with social distancing requirements enforced and bathrooms closed .
When McDonald ’ s learned of Hernandez ’ s diagnosis on April 8 , the company immediately informed four crew members who she had been in contact with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the utmost respect for Ms. Hernandez and all the employees at McDonald ’ s , but it ’ s unfair to let them try to tell a story to you that ’ s simply not true , ” Tovar said .
“ We are a very large employer of diverse employees , particularly Latinos .
We want everyone who comes to work for McDonald ’ s to have a good experience.
” When Mariana Lui ’ s mother got a letter from her employer in March that labeled her an essential worker , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pride .
Lui ’ s mother , an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who works at a San Fernando food production warehouse that makes meals for schools , told her daughter that she had never before been deemed “ essential.
” Now , she said , people needed her .
But then her colleagues , many of them undocumented Latinas , started getting sick .
They stopped showing up on the assembly line , where , she said , they stack ingredients onto sandwiches while standing shoulder to shoulder .
Lui ’ s mother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of anonymity because she feared losing her job .
Lui , who also spoke to The Times , is a 31-year-old legal administrative assistant in Whittier with a different surname than her mother .
Lui ’ s 50-year-old mother said colleagues were taking aspirin and continuing to work , despite having fevers and headaches .
Then she started showing symptoms .
“ I was getting tired at work and I had a little bit of a cough , ” she said .
“ I didn ’ t think it would be something so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work for three or four days.
” A few days later , she tested positive for COVID-19 .

Hailey Branson-Potts, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Matt Stiles, Andrew J. Campa

For Lupe Martinez, who does the laundry at a Riverside nursing home, each day presented an agonizing choice: Go to work and risk getting the novel coronavirus or lose the $13.58-an-hour paycheck her family relies upon.
Martinez went to work.
Even after the masks started running low. Even, she said, after a patient whose room she had entered without protective equipment fell ill and was put into isolation.
Martinez, 62, tested positive for COVID-19 last month, followed by her 60-year-old husband, who had to stop working after having a heart attack last year. Her adult son and daughter, who live with them, also tested positive.
“There were many times I didn’t want to go to work,” said Martinez, coughing heavily as she spoke. “I didn’t want to get sick. My husband said, ‘Don’t.’ I said we can’t live. We have these bills. ... I had to push myself to go. I had a commitment to my family.”
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For low-paid employees whose work is rarely if ever glorified — the people who clean the floors, do the laundry, serve fast food, pick the crops, work in the meat plants — having the jobs that keep America running has come with a heavy price. By the odd calculus wrought by the viral outbreak, they have been deemed “essential.” And that means being a target.
Rafael Saavedra at his home in Alhambra. The truck driver, whose pay has been cut in half, fears infecting his daughters at home. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Along with blacks, Latinos have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic in California and other parts of the United States, becoming infected and dying at disproportionately high rates relative to their share of the population. Health experts say one of the main reasons Latinos are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 is because many work in low-paying jobs that require them to leave home and interact with the public.
Latinos comprise about 40% of California’s population but 53% of positive cases, according to state data. In San Francisco, Latinos comprise 15% of the population but make up 43% of the confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday.
UC San Francisco researchers tested thousands of people in the city’s Mission District for COVID-19. While Latinos made up 44% of the people tested, they accounted for more than 95% of the positive cases. About 90% of those who tested positive said they were unable to work from home.
A Los Angeles Times data analysis last month also found that younger Latinos and blacks were dying at disproportionately high rates, belying the conventional wisdom that old age is the primary risk factor for death.
Latinos in California are significantly less likely than whites, Asians and blacks to say that working from home amid the pandemic is an option, according to a new poll of California voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
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Some 42% of Latinos polled said they could work from home, compared with 53% of blacks, 59% of Asians and 61% of whites. The poll also showed that Latinos were nearly three times more likely than whites to be concerned about their jobs placing them in close proximity to others. This was a particular problem in the first weeks of the pandemic, when masks and other protective gear were in shorter supply and many businesses were still trying to implement social distancing policies.
“They feel essential; they’re trying to do their part to get us out of this crisis,” said Jose Lopez, a Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Food Chain Workers Alliance. “Yet we can’t provide face masks. We can’t give them the space to give them six feet of separation between their co-workers.”
A Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that Latinos make up just under 40% of the workforce across all industry sectors deemed essential by the California state government, consistent with their share of the statewide population. But in some sectors, they are greatly overrepresented.
In essential agriculture jobs, the workforce is more than 80% Latino. They also hold more than half of essential food jobs and nearly 60% of construction jobs deemed essential. At the same time, Latinos in the U.S. are more likely than the overall population to say they or someone in their household has experienced a pay cut or lost a job amid the pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center survey in April.
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For weeks, Dr. Marlene Martín, an assistant clinical professor at UC San Francisco and a physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, has watched as Latino patients with COVID-19 have streamed into the emergency room. More than 80% of the hospitalized coronavirus patients at the facility were Latino as of last month.
They have been roofers, cooks, janitors, dishwashers and delivery drivers. Many were under 50. They lived in households where social distancing is difficult, sometimes with two or three other families. For Martín, a 36-year-old Latina, stepping into the intensive care unit sometimes feels like being confronted with an unsettling mirror.
“It was already full of people who look like me,” she said, “who share a common language and similar cultural backgrounds.”
“You see the extremes of what happens when someone can shelter in place or someone can’t. It’s not that people don’t want to stay home. It’s not that they’re not listening. It’s not that they’re not educated. It’s that they don’t have an option.”
The coronavirus’ heavy toll on Latinos raises questions about whether employers across the U.S. and the government are doing enough to protect these workers.
In Iowa, Latinos make up about 6% of the population but have accounted for a quarter of all positive cases, according to the state’s tally. In Washington state, Latinos represented 35% of all positive cases, even though they only make up 13% of the population.
The balance between keeping Latino essential workers safe and depending on their labor is being tested in the city of Hanford, where a coronavirus outbreak at a meat-packing plant now accounts for half of the confirmed cases in Kings County.
About 180 employees at Central Valley Meat Co. had tested positive as of Tuesday, according to County Supervisor Doug Verboon. Most of the employees at the facility — who work in close proximity amid “moist and wet working conditions” — are Latino, he said. Central Valley Meat did not respond to calls or emails from The Times.
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Karla Barrera is a deli manager at a grocery store in Sun Valley and the mother of two. “I’m so scared for my babies. I’m praying that I don’t have it,” Barrera said. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Verboon said the county is depending on even more Latino workers during the current cherry-picking season, which lasts until mid-June. He said one Hanford fruit-packing company that employed 800 workers to pick cherries told him that an outbreak similar to the one at Central Valley Meat Co. would be “catastrophic.”
“We can’t have those people get ill because we have a short window of work,” Verboon said.
Lupe Martinez started at Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre in Riverside last July after her husband, a sheet metal worker and the family breadwinner, had a heart attack and had to stop working.
In the laundry room, Martinez — a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 2015, which represents some 400,000 home care and nursing home workers in California — was surrounded by mostly Latinos and Filipinos. A lot of her colleagues work two jobs or pull double shifts, washing heavy comforters and blankets, cleaning shower curtains, handling patients’ linens.
Martinez’s family asked her not to go as the virus began spreading in California.
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“I told them, ‘I’m going to trust God. I’m not going to get it,’” she said. “I’d go to work. I’d worry.”
A few weeks ago, Martinez said, she walked into the room of an elderly woman to bring her clean clothes. Usually, there is a notice on the door if a patient has an illness that requires staff to put on gloves, masks or other gear, she said. There was nothing posted, Martinez said, so she entered unmasked.
Martinez said the woman told her she was feeling sick. A few days later, a sign on the door said she was in isolation.
Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre did not return calls or emails seeking comment.
On April 13, Martinez came home with a sore throat, dry cough and aching body. She couldn’t taste the tea her son brought her. She struggled to breathe. She went to the hospital before and after a positive COVID-19 test and was sent home, told to try and self-isolate.
When her husband, son and daughter who live in the house tested positive, she lay in bed, crying out to God.
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Another son and his wife live in a back house on the property. He’s a barber. She’s a dental hygienist. They are not currently leaving home to work. They have not gotten COVID-19.
Because she had not yet worked at the nursing home a year, Martinez said, she was not eligible for sick pay. She has applied for state disability but has not yet heard back. Martinez said she feels she has to return to work.
“My kids don’t want me to go back,” Martinez said. “But I have bills. I know it’s my life, but — I don’t know.”
Rosa Arenas, another union member and certified nursing assistant at an Orange nursing home, said she got tested after learning a patient had tested positive for COVID-19 last month. On May 2, Arenas tested positive.
Now, she is isolated in one bedroom of her family’s apartment, away from her husband and two children, ages 12 and 6, who have tested negative. She spent Mother’s Day reading the Bible alone and video-chatting with her children and husband from the other side of the door.
“My kids told me they were sad they weren’t going to give me a Mother’s Day hug,” Arenas, 32, said. “It broke my heart.”
She said there was not enough personal protective equipment at work and that colleagues have become infected. Her husband, a landscaper, recently was sent home by his employer to quarantine and be tested, and she has burned through all her paid vacation and sick time while quarantining at home. And she misses working.
Rafael Saavedra, 40, outside his home last week in Alhambra. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
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When Rafael Saavedra, a 40-year-old truck driver from Alhambra, returns home from work, he undresses in his garage, throws his clothes in the washing machine and rushes to the shower, careful not to touch anything inside. His greatest fear is infecting his daughters, ages 16 and 6.
At a San Pedro dispatch center, where he and hundreds of other drivers drop off paperwork and take breaks, he hardly ever finds soap or hand sanitizer.
Employees who normally work in the center are now working remotely, and there’s little communication with drivers about how they can stay safe, Saavedra said. Drivers were given a single, thin mask about a month ago and nothing else, he said.
Saavedra said the vast majority of drivers he works with are Latino immigrants who are struggling to navigate the pandemic because of language barriers and a lack of resources.
“They don’t know their rights. They’re scared of talking. They stay in their cocoon,” he said.
Saavedra has carved out a comfortable life for his family. He travels often with his wife and daughters, who attend private Christian schools. But his paycheck has been cut in half due to reduced hours. He fears losing his house.
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His wife, a nurse at a Pasadena homeless shelter, cut down her own hours out of fear of catching the virus and infecting their daughters.
Sonia Hernandez, who raised four children as a single mother, has worked as a cook at a McDonald’s in Monterey Park for 18 years and makes just over $14 an hour, said her daughter, Jenniffer Barrera Hernandez.
In early April, Hernandez was hospitalized with COVID-19 and went into an induced coma for weeks.
“They told us she wasn’t going to make it through the day and we had to decide whether she wanted to go in peace or do chest compressions to try and get a pulse,” Barrera Hernandez said. “It was really hard to make that decision.”
Miraculously, Barrera Hernandez said, her mother woke up.
After her diagnosis, Hernandez’s co-workers walked off the job to demand safety supplies, including masks, gloves, soap and hand sanitizer. Barrera Hernandez said after she called McDonald’s to alert the company her mom had tested positive, she did not get a call back.
“That’s really sad, because my mom really liked that job. You provide for a company for so long, and at the end you’re just a number.”
Hernandez is recovering in her South L.A. home. She is extremely fatigued and unable to walk or even hold a phone for very long, her daughter said. She feels guilty she can’t go back to work yet.
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David Tovar, McDonald’s U.S. vice president of communications, said many of Barrera Hernandez’s and some employees’ statements were false.
He said McDonald’s restaurants, including the one where Hernandez worked, have had an ample supply of soap, hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies and close overnight once per week for deep cleanings. Tovar said restaurants have been open for takeout only, with social distancing requirements enforced and bathrooms closed.
When McDonald’s learned of Hernandez’s diagnosis on April 8, the company immediately informed four crew members who she had been in contact with, he said.
“We have the utmost respect for Ms. Hernandez and all the employees at McDonald’s, but it’s unfair to let them try to tell a story to you that’s simply not true,” Tovar said. “We are a very large employer of diverse employees, particularly Latinos. We want everyone who comes to work for McDonald’s to have a good experience.”
When Mariana Lui’s mother got a letter from her employer in March that labeled her an essential worker, she announced it with a sense of pride.
Lui’s mother, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who works at a San Fernando food production warehouse that makes meals for schools, told her daughter that she had never before been deemed “essential.” Now, she said, people needed her.
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But then her colleagues, many of them undocumented Latinas, started getting sick. They stopped showing up on the assembly line, where, she said, they stack ingredients onto sandwiches while standing shoulder to shoulder.
Lui’s mother spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because she feared losing her job. Lui, who also spoke to The Times, is a 31-year-old legal administrative assistant in Whittier with a different surname than her mother.
Lui’s 50-year-old mother said colleagues were taking aspirin and continuing to work, despite having fevers and headaches. Then she started showing symptoms.
“I was getting tired at work and I had a little bit of a cough,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be something so serious, so I kept going to work for three or four days.”
A few days later, she tested positive for COVID-19.


latimes--2020-05-17--Coronavirus grief is like no other. 'Everything just feels fake'

It ’ s been seven weeks since Karen Blanks ’ brother-in-law died from COVID-19 , but his death still doesn ’ t seem real to her .
She and her husband couldn ’ t visit Scott Blanks in the hospital .
They couldn ’ t view his body at the mortuary before he was cremated .
They ’ re not holding a memorial service until large gatherings are permitted .
“ Everything just feels fake — like I ’ m in this big , clouded fog , and someone is telling me , ‘ Your brother-in-law died , ’ ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t feel real because everything has been so different.
” The cruel toll of the COVID-19 pandemic reaches beyond its victims to hundreds of thousands of family members and friends who have been robbed of communal support and time-honored rituals to help them cope with the loss of loved ones .
Long after a vaccine has halted the spread of the novel coronavirus , many of the bereaved will struggle with feelings of guilt and prolonged grief over all that they couldn ’ t do and say in the final days and hours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sweeping virus-related restrictions — on bedside visits , funerals , church gatherings , support-group meetings , air travel and even consoling hugs from caregivers — are affecting not just COVID-19 victims and their survivors but “ the way everyone is dying right now and how everyone is grieving , ” said Dale Larson , a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University .
“ You couldn ’ t design a more impactful set of conditions to disrupt the kind of things we like to see happening to support us in times of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just staggering , ” he said .
“ I think the novel coronavirus is creating a novel form of traumatic bereavement for a large number of survivors.
” Karen Blanks had known Scott , a 34-year-old dental assistant from Whittier , since he was a freshman in high school and she started dating his older brother Quentin .
“ He was my Scottie .
I loved him , ” she said .
“ Not being able to be by his side — for me , it ’ s almost traumatizing.… Even after he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mortuary to see him , thinking that would be OK , and I couldn ’ t even do that.
” The social distancing , shelter-in-place rules and limits on hospital visitation that are hallmarks of the global pandemic have deprived people of the most fundamental deathbed connections .
They can ’ t hold a loved one ’ s hand , sleep next to their hospital bed , comb their hair or shave them .
“ All of these physical and mammalian kinds of signals and bonding that we share with any other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stripped away , ” said Robert Neimeyer , director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition .
Forgiveness can ’ t be granted or sought .
Years of estrangement can ’ t end with a deathbed vigil .
“ We are left holding a bag of a lot of unfinished conversations , ” he said .
Stacey Silva is haunted by a phone call with her father , Gary Young , a week before he died of complications from COVID-19 in mid-March in a hospital in Gilroy , Calif .
Although she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a glass partition in the intensive care unit , the hospital had stopped visits .
“ He called me about 4 o ’ clock in the morning , and he had an [ oxygen mask ] .
It was already hard to talk to my dad and have a conversation because he would start coughing after a couple of words , ” Silva said .
“ I believe he was calling to tell me that they were intubating him .
I didn ’ t understand , and he got frustrated and he hung @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last conversation I had with my dad , and I have so much guilt that I couldn ’ t understand and that I couldn ’ t tell him that I loved him , ” she said through tears .
“ I think about that every day.
” Friends and family are giving her emotional support , “ but nothing helps , ” Silva said .
“ Unless you ’ ve lost a loved one in this particular manner , you really have no idea how this feels.
” Limits on the size of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or eliminating ancient rituals of mourning that help the living .
Funerals are small or unattended .
Memorial services are being postponed to unknown dates in the future .
Families are choosing cremation for relatives rather than burial with only a few people present .
Virtual ceremonies and gatherings can help fill that void , Neimeyer said , if the bereaved are actively involved and not just passive observers .
They can share memories and stories on Zoom or arrange a time when people across the country ritually light candles .
“ Almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ that returns to us a sense of agency , where we can in some measure exercise choice or take action.
” The coronavirus has upended the world of palliative care teams — the nurses , doctors , social workers and chaplains whose job it is to support patients and families in times of serious illness and death .
Gary Blunt is a palliative care coordinator at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center .
As a palliative care nurse , he has been present at hundreds of deaths when he could hold a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family members .
But he has been “ taken aback at times ” by the end-of-life scenes wrought by the coronavirus .
The hospital converted a cardiac unit into a COVID-19 ward .
Large , zippered sheets of heavy , opaque plastic seal the hallways and the open doors of each patient ’ s room .
A small window of clear plastic provides a view of the bed .
No visitors are allowed in the rooms .
To limit exposure , even the palliative staff avoids entering , meaning that the patient ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nurse cloaked in a gown , face shield , mask and gloves .
When death is near , the hospital will let one family member — wearing full protective gear — stand in the hallway and look through the window for a short period of time .
Late last month , Blunt ’ s team tried to prepare a woman for what she would experience if she came for a final glimpse of her dying husband .
He was confused and had been restrained so he couldn ’ t dislodge his oxygen mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to recognize her , garbed in gown and mask , peering through a small plastic window several feet from the bed .
He would not be able to hear her against the hum of the room ’ s medical equipment .
In the end , she decided not to come .
Instead , the family asked Blunt to play Neil Diamond songs on a Bluetooth speaker in the room and said goodbye on FaceTime .
A nurse held an iPad over the man ’ s face for about 15 minutes while his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endearments .
In normal times , medical staff would give a family privacy in such intimate moments .
Witnessing it now can leave nurses with “ this horrible guilt of being there , when you know you shouldn ’ t be there , ” Blunt said .
“ It ’ s really tough.
” He worries about COVID ’ s lingering emotional impact on caregivers .
“ These will stick with us uniquely , ” Blunt said .
“ I think a lot of staff are going to be scarred by this process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Rikki Larson is a clinical social worker at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale , which allows short individual visits to patients on the verge of death .
But she can no longer console the grieving the way she always has .
“ I like to be able to hug people and comfort them , ” she said .
“ I ’ ve left the hospital more times than I can tell with someone else ’ s tears on my shoulder.
” Now she has to keep her distance , at most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It ’ s very hard — it ’ s not the same , ” Larson said .
Stephanie Ryu , a chaplain on the palliative care team at Providence Little Co. of Mary Medical Center Torrance , is even more distant .
She started working from home several weeks ago .
“ None of us imagined in any universe we ’ d be able to do our jobs remotely , ” she said .
Given the severe limits on family visitation , she knows it ’ s not that different from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offering solace mostly on Zoom and FaceTime .
Only now , she said , “ this grief is pouring out of my computer into my home.
” At hospitals that aren ’ t on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle , visitation limits aren ’ t as strict .
But they can still be wrenching for families .
Rachel Rusch , a clinical social worker in palliative care at Children ’ s Hospital Los Angeles , will not soon forget her conversation with a teenage patient and her mother .
The end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had cardiovascular disease .
“ The piece that has stayed in my heart , ” Rusch said , “ was the eyes of her mother across the bedside ” as Rusch explained that , because of the COVID-19 pandemic , only a few members of their huge extended family would be allowed in the room during her daughter ’ s final hours .
Such experiences have left Rusch thinking of “ all the ripple effects that are going to continue in the days and weeks and months and years to come because the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so altered from anything anyone might have prepared themselves for , ” she said .
Wayne Strom entered the Kensington assisted living facility in Redondo Beach in early December after a series of falls made it difficult for him to walk .
His wife , Kathy , who was staying with her mother in Rancho Palos Verdes , spent every day with him , helping with his physical therapy and eating meals together .
That routine came to an abrupt halt on March 12 , when the pandemic prompted the Kensington to suspend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wayne several times a day and realized something was amiss in late March when he said he was too tired to talk .
He was admitted to the hospital on March 30 , tested positive for the coronavirus and died three days later .
Strom had not seen her husband of 38 years for three weeks .
“ I think it ’ s taken me a while to realize that he ’ s gone because I wasn ’ t with him at the end , and we haven ’ t had a memorial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ puts her cell phone by her bed , expecting Wayne to call to say their nightly prayer together .

Stacey Silva holds a photo of her father, Gary Young, who died in March of COVID-19.
It’s been seven weeks since Karen Blanks’ brother-in-law died from COVID-19, but his death still doesn’t seem real to her.
She and her husband couldn’t visit Scott Blanks in the hospital. They couldn’t view his body at the mortuary before he was cremated. They’re not holding a memorial service until large gatherings are permitted.
“Everything just feels fake — like I’m in this big, clouded fog, and someone is telling me, ‘Your brother-in-law died,’ ” she said. “It doesn’t feel real because everything has been so different.”
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The cruel toll of the COVID-19 pandemic reaches beyond its victims to hundreds of thousands of family members and friends who have been robbed of communal support and time-honored rituals to help them cope with the loss of loved ones.
Karen Blanks and her brother-in-law Scott Blanks, who died from COVID-19. (Karen Blanks)
Long after a vaccine has halted the spread of the novel coronavirus, many of the bereaved will struggle with feelings of guilt and prolonged grief over all that they couldn’t do and say in the final days and hours of a relative’s life.
Sweeping virus-related restrictions — on bedside visits, funerals, church gatherings, support-group meetings, air travel and even consoling hugs from caregivers — are affecting not just COVID-19 victims and their survivors but “the way everyone is dying right now and how everyone is grieving,” said Dale Larson, a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University.
“You couldn’t design a more impactful set of conditions to disrupt the kind of things we like to see happening to support us in times of loss and grief. It’s just staggering,” he said. “I think the novel coronavirus is creating a novel form of traumatic bereavement for a large number of survivors.”
Karen Blanks had known Scott, a 34-year-old dental assistant from Whittier, since he was a freshman in high school and she started dating his older brother Quentin.
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“He was my Scottie. I loved him,” she said. “Not being able to be by his side — for me, it’s almost traumatizing.… Even after he passed, I wanted to go to the mortuary to see him, thinking that would be OK, and I couldn’t even do that.”
The social distancing, shelter-in-place rules and limits on hospital visitation that are hallmarks of the global pandemic have deprived people of the most fundamental deathbed connections.
They can’t hold a loved one’s hand, sleep next to their hospital bed, comb their hair or shave them.
“All of these physical and mammalian kinds of signals and bonding that we share with any other species — all of that caregiving is stripped away,” said Robert Neimeyer, director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.
Forgiveness can’t be granted or sought. Years of estrangement can’t end with a deathbed vigil. “We are left holding a bag of a lot of unfinished conversations,” he said.
Stacey Silva with her father, Gary Young. She is haunted by her last conversation with him.
(Stacey Silva )
Stacey Silva is haunted by a phone call with her father, Gary Young, a week before he died of complications from COVID-19 in mid-March in a hospital in Gilroy, Calif. Although she had been able to see him through a glass partition in the intensive care unit, the hospital had stopped visits.
“He called me about 4 o’clock in the morning, and he had an [oxygen mask]. It was already hard to talk to my dad and have a conversation because he would start coughing after a couple of words,” Silva said. “I believe he was calling to tell me that they were intubating him. I didn’t understand, and he got frustrated and he hung up.
“That’s the last conversation I had with my dad, and I have so much guilt that I couldn’t understand and that I couldn’t tell him that I loved him,” she said through tears. “I think about that every day.”
Friends and family are giving her emotional support, “but nothing helps,” Silva said. “Unless you’ve lost a loved one in this particular manner, you really have no idea how this feels.”
Limits on the size of public gatherings and air travel are restricting or eliminating ancient rituals of mourning that help the living. Funerals are small or unattended. Memorial services are being postponed to unknown dates in the future. Families are choosing cremation for relatives rather than burial with only a few people present.
Virtual ceremonies and gatherings can help fill that void, Neimeyer said, if the bereaved are actively involved and not just passive observers. They can share memories and stories on Zoom or arrange a time when people across the country ritually light candles.
“Almost anything we do,” he said, “that returns to us a sense of agency, where we can in some measure exercise choice or take action.”
The coronavirus has upended the world of palliative care teams — the nurses, doctors, social workers and chaplains whose job it is to support patients and families in times of serious illness and death.
Gary Blunt, a palliative care coordinator at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, has been “taken aback at times” by the end-of-life scenes wrought by the coronavirus. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Gary Blunt is a palliative care coordinator at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center. As a palliative care nurse, he has been present at hundreds of deaths when he could hold a patient’s hand and comfort bereft family members.
But he has been “taken aback at times” by the end-of-life scenes wrought by the coronavirus.
The hospital converted a cardiac unit into a COVID-19 ward. Large, zippered sheets of heavy, opaque plastic seal the hallways and the open doors of each patient’s room. A small window of clear plastic provides a view of the bed.
No visitors are allowed in the rooms. To limit exposure, even the palliative staff avoids entering, meaning that the patient’s primary contact is with a bedside nurse cloaked in a gown, face shield, mask and gloves.
When death is near, the hospital will let one family member — wearing full protective gear — stand in the hallway and look through the window for a short period of time.
Late last month, Blunt’s team tried to prepare a woman for what she would experience if she came for a final glimpse of her dying husband.
He was confused and had been restrained so he couldn’t dislodge his oxygen mask and tubes. He would not be able to recognize her, garbed in gown and mask, peering through a small plastic window several feet from the bed. He would not be able to hear her against the hum of the room’s medical equipment.
In the end, she decided not to come. Instead, the family asked Blunt to play Neil Diamond songs on a Bluetooth speaker in the room and said goodbye on FaceTime.
A nurse held an iPad over the man’s face for about 15 minutes while his sobbing wife and son uttered their final endearments.
In normal times, medical staff would give a family privacy in such intimate moments. Witnessing it now can leave nurses with “this horrible guilt of being there, when you know you shouldn’t be there,” Blunt said. “It’s really tough.”
He worries about COVID’s lingering emotional impact on caregivers. “These will stick with us uniquely,” Blunt said. “I think a lot of staff are going to be scarred by this process and have a lot to work through.”
Rikki Larson, a clinical social worker at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Rikki Larson is a clinical social worker at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, which allows short individual visits to patients on the verge of death.
But she can no longer console the grieving the way she always has. “I like to be able to hug people and comfort them,” she said. “I’ve left the hospital more times than I can tell with someone else’s tears on my shoulder.”
Now she has to keep her distance, at most quickly laying her hand on a shoulder. “It’s very hard — it’s not the same,” Larson said.
Stephanie Ryu, a chaplain on the palliative care team at Providence Little Co. of Mary Medical Center Torrance, is even more distant. She started working from home several weeks ago.
“None of us imagined in any universe we’d be able to do our jobs remotely,” she said. Given the severe limits on family visitation, she knows it’s not that different from the hospital, where she was already offering solace mostly on Zoom and FaceTime.
Only now, she said, “this grief is pouring out of my computer into my home.”
At hospitals that aren’t on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle, visitation limits aren’t as strict. But they can still be wrenching for families.
Rachel Rusch, a clinical social worker in palliative care at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, will not soon forget her conversation with a teenage patient and her mother. The end was near for the girl, who had cardiovascular disease.
“The piece that has stayed in my heart,” Rusch said, “was the eyes of her mother across the bedside” as Rusch explained that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few members of their huge extended family would be allowed in the room during her daughter’s final hours.
Such experiences have left Rusch thinking of “all the ripple effects that are going to continue in the days and weeks and months and years to come because the end of someone’s story was so altered from anything anyone might have prepared themselves for,” she said.
Wayne Strom entered the Kensington assisted living facility in Redondo Beach in early December after a series of falls made it difficult for him to walk.
His wife, Kathy, who was staying with her mother in Rancho Palos Verdes, spent every day with him, helping with his physical therapy and eating meals together.
That routine came to an abrupt halt on March 12, when the pandemic prompted the Kensington to suspend family visits. Strom switched to calling Wayne several times a day and realized something was amiss in late March when he said he was too tired to talk.
He was admitted to the hospital on March 30, tested positive for the coronavirus and died three days later. Strom had not seen her husband of 38 years for three weeks.
“I think it’s taken me a while to realize that he’s gone because I wasn’t with him at the end, and we haven’t had a memorial,” she said.
She still puts her cell phone by her bed, expecting Wayne to call to say their nightly prayer together.