latimes--2020-09-24--In a major test, Orange County schools reopen to joy, anxiety and gallons of hand sanitizer

On Thursday morning , months of finely-curated planning will be turned into action at five Orange County school districts serving about 76,000 students as schoolyard gates open for in-person classes for the first time in six months , marking a widely watched return to school amid California ’ s coronavirus crisis .
The Tustin , Irvine and Los Alamitos unified districts and Fountain Valley and Cypress Schools are among the first cluster of school systems in the 29-district county to begin opening this week — with hybrid schedules that allow a portion of students back at one time while others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maintain social distancing .
Next week , five more will open : Capistrano , Saddleback , Orange and Newport Mesa unified and Ocean View schools .
These first days bring both celebrations and deep concerns among teachers and parents about safety as their reopening experiences will stand as harbingers of what may lie ahead throughout the state .
The openings come after Orange County — known for its anti-mask rebellion and defiance of state orders — was given state and county public health department clearance to reopen campuses because of the county ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Out of 29 school districts in the county , 10 have announced plans to open for in-person instruction by the end of the month .
“ It is with great excitement that we welcomed our elementary age students back to school , returning for in-person learning with their teachers and support staff , ” Fountain Valley Superintendent Mark Johnson said .
“ The joy of being back on campus with their teachers and classmates was evident throughout the day and hopefully made each of us feel a little more connected again.
” Second-grade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sycamore Magnet Academy expressed the joy and anxieties of a complicated and new classroom order : masks , desk dividers , hand sanitizer by the gallon , staggered schedules , dots on the floor indicating how close students can get to her .
But more than anything else , she was excited to finally meet the 7-year-old children whose voices and laughter she has known for weeks through the computer screen and audio of distance learning .
“ Everyone wanted us to reopen , and I felt like Orange County was rushing it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the safety of my coworkers and my students , they ’ re my babies , ” she said .
“ But right now our main concern is how to protect the kids.
” The districts that are reopening serve mostly more affluent communities where COVID-19 rates are lower than districts serving mainly low income households , including Santa Ana and Anaheim — developments that have raised equity concerns among some educators .
Unresolved are the safety concerns voiced by teachers in Irvine , Newport-Mesa and Saddleback Valley who protested their district openings last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ready to welcome students , teachers and staff back on campus safely during the COVID-19 pandemic .
At Newport-Mesa , where 8,000 preschool to sixth-grade students are expected to return on campus this week , union President Tamara Fairbanks said concerns raised during their Sunday caravan protest remain .
“ We feel that the district is rushing into it without further thought of the ideas they ’ re implementing , ” Fairbanks said .
Newport-Mesa school board President Martha Fluor said the district continues to work with the union .
“ We are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are meeting or exceeding the standards in all aspects ... we ’ re confident that we can resume in-person learning in a safe manner , ” Fluor said , referring to the state tier that allows for school and other business reopenings .
Irvine and Saddleback teachers also pushed back on reopening plans by circulating petitions and sending them to their school boards .
Over 257 teachers in Saddleback Valley signed a petition , calling to push back the Sept. 29 start date and re-evaluate the hybrid learning model .
Meanwhile , teachers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open letter and collected over 2,000 signatures on a petition against the district ’ s reopening next week , citing a lack of preparation and unclear safety protocols .
“ The hybrid model is not a return to normalcy .
It will not improve the educational outcomes , ” the Saddleback Valley statement reads .
“ It will not improve socialization .
It will not improve our well-being.
” Still , teachers across the county are preparing for the week ahead .
Hickman spent Wednesday afternoon setting up her classroom for the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ screens to each table and organized school supplies for the students , since they could no longer share supplies .
Days before , she installed a temperature check on the wall by the door for students to pass by before entering the classroom .
In the front of the room , she tested out the setup for her “ teacher island , ” which consists of an iPad on a tripod , a headset , her laptop with Google meets open and the smart board for writing .
The setup will allow her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The pandemic has upended the teaching methods she has all but perfected during 17 years in the classroom .
“ Gone are the group projects , the art projects , the 6,000-book library .
Gone is me going up to a student ’ s desk to help or telling them to ask a classmate , ” Hickman said .
When a student has a question or requires assistance , they ’ ll make their way over to a yellow Velcro dot on the floor that is a safe distance from her and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morning and afternoon class , Hickman said , teachers will use an aerosol disinfectant to clean off all of the surfaces before the next group of students arrives .
The classroom cleaning during the day will likely fall on teachers due to a small custodial staff .
Outside James Cox Elementary School , a line of 3-foot-tall children carrying oversized backpacks walked in a single file line promptly at 2:15 p.m. to the parking lot .
A kindergarten teacher led the fleet with a paper sign “ We survived !
” One by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their parents .
Just minutes later , the bell rang and students from older grades fled out into the front entrance to find their parents who were waiting widely scattered across the front of the school .
Kim Rincon , 42 , searched through the sea of tiny humans to spot her 9-year-old daughter Jordan , who had just completed her first day of fourth grade .
She tapped her left foot in nervous anticipation as she held her 4-year-old son Dylan .
“ My fears are the same as everyone else .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ child ] to get sick and then then bring it home and get the family sick , ” she said .
The safety protocols in place put her at ease , but as a teacher in a different district , she said she was concerned if schools would follow through .
A wave of relief passed when Rincon spotted her daughter , lugging a math workbook and blue lunch bag .
That nonchalant response brought back a sense of normality : meeting new — though fewer — classmates , learning the new rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends in a three-hour school day .
“ I was nervous about my safety for the first day , but I ’ m pretty happy about being back , ” she said with a shrug .
During a socially distanced recess , she reunited with friends , though some of her classmates chose to play on the playground with less distance separating them .
Still , she said , the students were monitored by teachers .
Just 10 miles away , parents at Los Alamitos were also adjusting to their new schedule .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ his daughter Kimora at Los Alamitos Elementary School at 8:15 a.m .
The dropoff and pickup organization flowed with little interruption .
To avoid crowding , parents were assigned a specific gate and time at which to arrive .
“ So far , I haven ’ t had any problems , ” McCord said .
“ But of course I ’ m nervous .
I trust the school is taking care of the children , but I ’ m always worried about the what if .
”

A crossing guard helps students as they return to in-class education, after months of closure due COVID-19 pandemic, at James H. Cox Elementary School in Fountain Valley.
Orange County school districts serving more than 200,000 students are opening their schoolyard gates this week and next, marking a major, widely watched test of the ability of California school systems to safely resume in-person classes amid the coronavirus crisis.
By Thursday, Tustin, Irvine, Fountain Valley and Cypress joined Los Alamitos Unified, which led the wave of openings with its elementary schools under a county-approved waiver. They will be followed next week by Capistrano, Saddleback, Orange, Newport-Mesa and Ocean View districts — a total of 10 of the county’s 28 school districts.
All the campuses are using hybrid schedules that allow a portion of students back at one time while others learn online — to help maintain social distancing by keeping classes small. So far, the vast majority of families have opted to return to campus.
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This renewal of in-person classes after six months of pandemic forced campus closures is prompting both celebration and concern — with teachers and parents hoping that carefully laid plans on how to operate schools safely will not be derailed by outbreaks of coronavirus infections.
The openings come after Orange County — known for its anti-mask rebellion and defiance of state orders — was given state and county public health department clearance to reopen campuses because of the county’s lower coronavirus test positivity rate.
“Orange County may help lead the nation’s children back to school — but only if local educators and health officials proceed with untiring vigilance,” UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller said. “Orange County might also teach union leaders that reopening with care is possible, even beneficial, for kids and parents.”
California Teachers Assn. President Toby Boyd said the state lacks consistent procedures and oversight for ensuring that schools are safe.
“I don’t think that any child or any of my members should be a test case,” Boyd said.
Across the state, 33 counties with 478 school districts are eligible to reopen because of lower infection rates, said California Department of Education director of communications Daniel Thigpen. Of these, 56% are still online only — and not all have reported data to the state.
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Most Orange County districts that are reopening sooner serve more affluent communities — where COVID-19 rates are lower. Districts serving mainly low-income households, including in Santa Ana and Anaheim, have no timetable for reopening campuses, raising equity concerns.
Lisa Hickman, second-grade teacher at Sycamore Magnet Academy, shows how she will be teaching with plastic dividers as she prepares to teach in-person classes starting Thursday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Second-grade teacher Lisa Hickman of Tustin’s Sycamore Magnet Academy expressed the anxieties of a complicated and new classroom order: masks, desk dividers, staggered schedules, hand sanitizer by the gallon and dots on the floor indicating how close students can get to her.
But she was excited to meet the 7-year-olds whose voices and laughter she has known for weeks through the computer screen and audio of distance learning.
“Everyone wanted us to reopen, and I felt like Orange County was rushing it ... I’m terrified for the safety of my coworkers and my students — they’re my babies,” she said. “But right now our main concern is how to protect the kids.”
Teachers in Irvine, Newport-Mesa and Saddleback Valley protested their impending district openings last week, saying their schools are not safe enough.
Teachers in Irvine and Saddleback also put forth a novel argument against hybrid learning — saying that most students in middle and high school would receive a better education from distance learning.
“Research has emphasized the importance of movement,” Saddleback secondary teachers stated in a petition. “At the very least, in distance learning, students can safely move around their own homes during and in between lessons. They will not be able to do so in the hybrid model.”
They also contend that the hybrid model would reduce instructional time because of such things as safety checks and cleaning — and curtail time teachers are now using to work with students online individually and in small groups. Students also would be more limited in their ability to work with one another or move, albeit virtually, from class to class than in the rigid, socially distanced, small-group bubbles.
“All the plans in place will make the classroom environment less conducive for learning and more conducive for spread,” Mission Viejo High School teacher Shane Cost said. “This is all happening far too fast, and we still don’t know how to manage teaching an online and in-person class simultaneously.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said it was “ridiculous” for teachers to have to teach online and in-person simultaneously, and that dubious or unsafe practices need to be weeded out.
“Hybrid learning is nobody’s favorite,” Weingarten said. Even so, she said, polling indicates a large majority of teachers and parents across the country favor returning to campus in some form provided it is safe. “The reason teachers are struggling to get to in-person learning is that we are trying to help our kids.”
She added that many school districts and some states are getting it mostly right so far.
If 5% or more of a school’s population test positive for the coronavirus within a two week period of time a school must close for at least 14 days, Orange County health officials said Thursday.
“For every school in the community that has even one case of COVID, we’re going to be... talking through the issues with them about whether there’s a need to close classrooms at some point,” said Dr. Matthew Zahn, medical director of the Orange County Health Care Agency’s communicable disease control division.
Hickman is doing what she can to keep things safe, attaching plastic screens to each table and organizing individual school supplies for each student.
Her “teacher island” consists of an iPad on a tripod, a headset, her laptop and a smart board for writing. The setup will allow her to teach online and in person simultaneously.
The pandemic has upended the teaching methods she had all but perfected during 17 years in the classroom.
“Gone are the group projects, the art projects, the 6,000-book library. Gone is me going up to a student’s desk to help or telling them to ask a classmate,” Hickman said.
When a student has a question or requires assistance, they’ll make their way to a yellow Velcro dot on the floor that is a safe distance from her and classmates.
Irvine was the only newly opening district to bring back high school students this week.
Freshman Kathleen Curran got lost among the unfamiliar buildings and arrows meant to direct traffic with minimal interaction. She found herself five minutes late to English.
“It’s scary starting school now. I don’t really know the campus or know many people yet,” Curran said. “Most of my friends come to school on a different day.”
Senior Michael Ko, 17, lamented the loss of senior activities, but enjoyed seeing friends. Although he’s been on the soccer and track teams, he now returns home promptly at 3:10 p.m.
Jordan Rincon, 9, left, arrives with her father, Tom Rincon, and 4-year-old brother Dylan for school at James H. Cox Elementary in Fountain Valley. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Outside James Cox Elementary School, a line of 3-foot-tall children carrying oversized backpacks walked in a single file line promptly at 2:15 p.m. to the parking lot. A kindergarten teacher led the fleet with a paper sign: “We survived!”
Minutes later, the bell rang and students from older grades rushed out to parents waiting scattered apart.
Kim Rincon, 42, spotted her fourth-grader Jordan.
“My fears are the same as everyone else,” Rincon said as she held 4-year-old Dylan. “I don’t want my [child] to get sick and then then bring it home and get the family sick.”
Hala Houry provides hand sanitizer to a student returning to James H. Cox Elementary School in Fountain Valley after months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
“How was school?” Rincon asked.
Jordan replied with her go-to, nonchalant response, “Oh, good.”
“I was nervous about my safety for the first day, but I’m pretty happy about being back,” she said with a shrug.
VIDEO | 06:04 LA Times Today: Orange County reopens schools Watch L.A. Times Today at 7 p.m. on Spectrum News 1 on Channel 1 or live stream on the Spectrum News App. Palos Verdes Peninsula and Orange County viewers can watch on Cox Systems on channel 99.
Times staff writer Paloma Esquivel contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-09-24--Column: It's time for California to prepare for wildfires as it does for earthquakes

California should put the same effort into preparing buildings to survive wildfires that it has retrofitting for earthquakes .
That ’ s the view of UC Merced fire scientist Crystal Kolden , a former firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service .
California needs “ policies that support individuals and communities to make structures more resistant to fire — replacing roofs and other exterior building materials with ones that are resistant to burning , ” Kolden says in a Q & A with the Public Policy Institute of California .
“ It will be expensive , ” she continues , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in earthquake retrofitting ?
We need to look at wildfire the same way with a massive investment to make communities more resistant to fire.
” “ Trillions ” may be a reach .
Maybe hundreds of billions .
Whatever .
We ’ ve spent a ton on readying ourselves for catastrophic temblors .
Wildfires and quakes are inevitable in California .
We ’ ve made a pretty good stab at bracing against quakes but have only recently begun to wake up about wildfires .
Also inevitable are torrential rains that can cause devastating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ ve spent many billions erecting dams and levees to hold back rampaging floodwaters .
There are nearly 1,500 dams in the state , many of them operated , in part , for flood control .
“ We have an enormous number of dams and a crazy network of aqueducts and canals , ” Kolden told me when I called her .
“ We also spend an enormous amount of money preparing for a tsunami .
How many tsunamis have there been on the West Coast ?
But we ’ ve made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are tsunami warning signs , evacuation signs all along the coast .
“ We ’ ve not made that type of state or federal investment in addressing wildfires.
” Fighting fires , yes .
But retrofitting residential homes and commercial buildings to resist the fires , not nearly enough .
Kolden grew up in Seattle and graduated from Cornell with a history degree .
“ I had no intention of going to law school or becoming a high school history teacher , ” she says , “ so I went to work for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was working outside.
” Kolden worked on a timber crew near Placerville , east of Sacramento .
In the fall , she ’ d do prescribed burning to clean up forest floors — something the feds and the state have been doing increasingly less .
“ I got hooked on fire , ” she says .
“ So I became a wildland firefighter .
After a couple of years , I moved to fire ecology .
I wanted to better understand why we were managing fires the way we were and started grad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fire science professor in July after being an associate professor at the University of Idaho .
One thing that upsets Kolden is the common cry of many citizens that local governments shouldn ’ t allow people burned out of their homes to rebuild in rural areas ravaged by wildfire — and shouldn ’ t even have permitted them to erect housing there in the first place .
“ I get frustrated when I hear people say we shouldn ’ t live in outlying areas , ” she says , “ because they fail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in California there is flammable vegetation — 98 % of the state ’ s vegetation is fire-prone under the right conditions .
“ We just saw coastal redwoods burn [ near Santa Cruz ] .
People who lived there didn ’ t think they had to worry about wildfires because redwoods are wet and typically don ’ t burn .
What we ’ re seeing with climate change is that these places that haven ’ t burned very frequently are burning more frequently.
” “ So when people ask me , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe place to live in California where I don ’ t have to worry about fire ?
’ the only place that fits that description is in the middle of the urban core in cities — downtown L.A. , downtown San Francisco .
If you live in the urban jungle , as some call it , you don ’ t have to worry about wildfire.
” But you may have to worry about your wallet .
People are moving into the countryside because they can ’ t afford city housing costs that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t told people , ‘ You can ’ t live on these earthquake faults.
’ Nobody suggested not rebuilding the Bay Bridge because it was not a safe place for a bridge , ” Kolden says .
“ It was made safer so when the next earthquake hits , there ’ s much less probability that it will collapse .
“ That ’ s the conversation we need to be having about wildfires.
” It cost $ 6.3 billion to erect a new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earthquake .
“ To suggest we shouldn ’ t allow people to live in these [ fire-prone ] areas is very much a straw man and doesn ’ t address the problem , ” Kolden says .
“ It ’ s addressing an untenable solution .
“ The real solution is to figure how to live in these fire-prone places so they don ’ t have disasters .
What we need are stronger building codes .
And that ’ s the analogy to earthquakes.
” All of California is covered by a uniform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can stand up to earthquakes .
Retrofitting can also be required .
That ’ s true whether the region has faults or not .
But tough code requirements to protect against wildfires are spotty .
They ’ re imposed only in places the state deems fire-prone .
And the state doesn ’ t always get it right .
One example : some of the wine country around Santa Rosa two years ago .
Wildfires should be treated with the same respect and fear as California ’ s ages-old menace , earthquakes .

Firefighters continue to battle the Bobcat fire north of Mt. Wilson along Angeles Crest Highway on Tuesday.
California should put the same effort into preparing buildings to survive wildfires that it has retrofitting for earthquakes.
That’s the view of UC Merced fire scientist Crystal Kolden, a former firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service.
She makes sense.
California needs “policies that support individuals and communities to make structures more resistant to fire — replacing roofs and other exterior building materials with ones that are resistant to burning,” Kolden says in a Q&A with the Public Policy Institute of California.
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“It will be expensive,” she continues, “but how many trillions has California invested in earthquake retrofitting? We need to look at wildfire the same way with a massive investment to make communities more resistant to fire.”
California Photos: Bobcat fire rages in the Angeles National Forest Fears of a significant spread of the Bobcat fire dissipated as Santa Ana winds failed to materialize, but foothill communities remain on high alert.
“Trillions” may be a reach. Maybe hundreds of billions. Whatever. We’ve spent a ton on readying ourselves for catastrophic temblors.
Wildfires and quakes are inevitable in California. We’ve made a pretty good stab at bracing against quakes but have only recently begun to wake up about wildfires.
Also inevitable are torrential rains that can cause devastating flooding, particularly in Northern California. We’ve spent many billions erecting dams and levees to hold back rampaging floodwaters. There are nearly 1,500 dams in the state, many of them operated, in part, for flood control.
“We have an enormous number of dams and a crazy network of aqueducts and canals,” Kolden told me when I called her.
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“We also spend an enormous amount of money preparing for a tsunami. How many tsunamis have there been on the West Coast? But we’ve made a substantial investment in that. There are tsunami warning signs, evacuation signs all along the coast.
“We’ve not made that type of state or federal investment in addressing wildfires.”
Fighting fires, yes. But retrofitting residential homes and commercial buildings to resist the fires, not nearly enough.
Kolden grew up in Seattle and graduated from Cornell with a history degree.
“I had no intention of going to law school or becoming a high school history teacher,” she says, “so I went to work for [the Forest Service] because it was working outside.”
Kolden worked on a timber crew near Placerville, east of Sacramento. In the fall, she’d do prescribed burning to clean up forest floors — something the feds and the state have been doing increasingly less.
“I got hooked on fire,” she says. “So I became a wildland firefighter. After a couple of years, I moved to fire ecology. I wanted to better understand why we were managing fires the way we were and started grad school.”
She became a UC Merced fire science professor in July after being an associate professor at the University of Idaho.
One thing that upsets Kolden is the common cry of many citizens that local governments shouldn’t allow people burned out of their homes to rebuild in rural areas ravaged by wildfire — and shouldn’t even have permitted them to erect housing there in the first place.
“I get frustrated when I hear people say we shouldn’t live in outlying areas,” she says, “because they fail to acknowledge that in nearly every place in California there is flammable vegetation — 98% of the state’s vegetation is fire-prone under the right conditions.
“We just saw coastal redwoods burn [near Santa Cruz]. People who lived there didn’t think they had to worry about wildfires because redwoods are wet and typically don’t burn. What we’re seeing with climate change is that these places that haven’t burned very frequently are burning more frequently.”
“So when people ask me,” she continues, “‘Where is a safe place to live in California where I don’t have to worry about fire?’ the only place that fits that description is in the middle of the urban core in cities — downtown L.A., downtown San Francisco. If you live in the urban jungle, as some call it, you don’t have to worry about wildfire.”
But you may have to worry about your wallet. People are moving into the countryside because they can’t afford city housing costs that have become ridiculous.
“We haven’t told people, ‘You can’t live on these earthquake faults.’ Nobody suggested not rebuilding the Bay Bridge because it was not a safe place for a bridge,” Kolden says. “It was made safer so when the next earthquake hits, there’s much less probability that it will collapse.
“That’s the conversation we need to be having about wildfires.”
It cost $6.3 billion to erect a new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after it was destroyed by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
“To suggest we shouldn’t allow people to live in these [fire-prone] areas is very much a straw man and doesn’t address the problem,” Kolden says. “It’s addressing an untenable solution.
“The real solution is to figure how to live in these fire-prone places so they don’t have disasters. What we need are stronger building codes. And that’s the analogy to earthquakes.”
All of California is covered by a uniform building code aimed at making sure structures can stand up to earthquakes. Retrofitting can also be required. That’s true whether the region has faults or not.
But tough code requirements to protect against wildfires are spotty. They’re imposed only in places the state deems fire-prone. And the state doesn’t always get it right. One example: some of the wine country around Santa Rosa two years ago.
Wildfires should be treated with the same respect and fear as California’s ages-old menace, earthquakes.


latimes--2020-09-23--Crews 'turn a corner' in Bobcat fire as containment doubles

Beleaguered fire crews made significant progress overnight on the Bobcat fire burning in northeastern Los Angeles County .
After weeks of struggling to keep up with the fire ’ s erratic , multidirectional growth , crews had achieved 38 % containment of the blaze as of Wednesday morning — more than doubling the fire ’ s containment from the previous day .
“ Today we had a pretty successful day , ” said Kerri Gilliland , of the California Interagency Incident Management Team organizing the battle against the Bobcat fire , in a Tuesday evening update .
Crews successfully placed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with bulldozers and mechanical equipment to hinder the spread of flames — along the fire ’ s edge , Gilliland said .
The fire ’ s growth is also slowing .
After ballooning to twice its size in the course of one week , it is now increasing in slower increments , growing by a little more than 1,000 acres overnight .
The total acreage burned Wednesday was 113,307 , according to the U.S. Forest Service .
Progress was so significant that the estimated containment date for the fire has been moved up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We finally got the resources , we got favorable weather , and the fuel transition was big , ” Forest Service spokesman Larry Smith said Wednesday .
“ Once it came out of the really steep timber [ of the Angeles National Forest ] , we were able to get more mechanized.
” The northern portion of the fire , which seared through the foothills community of Juniper Hills and , has been marked as contained , Smith said .
But the fight is not over .
Mt .
Wilson , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 1 billion worth of communications towers , remains threatened by the fire , which is considered one of the largest in L.A. County history .
Still , fire crews ’ progress atop Mt .
Wilson held steady Wednesday afternoon .
Pockets of terrain were smoldering , but few immediate flames were apparent .
“ The weather finally cooperated , ” said Capt .
Dave Gillotte of the L.A. County Fire Department .
“ We were finally able to see the fire and to get to the fire.
” The rugged landscape was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pink fire retardant and blackened trees , but the sky above the observatory was clear despite the lingering smell of smoke .
Gillotte attributed much of the crews ’ recent gains to hard work and preparation .
“ We ’ ve been making a stand at Mt .
Wilson , ” he said .
“ Half the time is very intense , and half the time is preparing for it to be very intense.
” Farther down the mountain , though , was a different scene .
At the intersection of Highway 2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , about five miles below the observatory in the Angeles National Forest , thick smoke had settled in like a blanket over the valley .
“ There are still a lot of variables at play , ” said L.A. County Fire Department spokesman Pono CQ Barnes , who was stationed at the intersection .
“ Right now we ’ re looking at wind , fuels and topographical features.
” And although progress on the blaze has been substantial , Barnes said the Bobcat fire ’ s containment lines are still very dependent on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it changes , he said , there is “ significant potential ” for reignition .
“ I ’ m exhausted , ” said Thomas Meneghini , executive director of the Mt .
Wilson Observatory .
Meneghini said observatory staff had been “ pretty well wiped out ” from seeing flames lap at Mt .
Wilson for more than a week .
At one point , the fire reached less than 500 feet from the storied structure .
“ Our stuff is priceless , it ’ s irreplaceable , ” he said of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100-year-old telescope that played an important role in the history of astronomy , and the 2004-built CHARA array for digitized space study .
“ There ’ s no monetary value you could put on these items , ” he said .
The fire has destroyed 52 structures — 27 of which were residences — and damaged 14 other buildings , officials said Wednesday .
Among the structures lost is the nature center at the Devil ’ s Punchbowl , a 1,310-acre rock canyon that receives a reported 130,000 visitors each year .
remain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Angeles National Forest and the foothills north of the blaze .
also remain for Pasadena , Altadena and other areas threatened by the fire .
The Bobcat fire , which ignited Sept. 6 , is one of more than two dozen fires burning across California , and resources are spread thin .
In response , the Forest Service has mobilized 100 firefighters from across Mexico to assist with wildfire suppression throughout the state .
The firefighters are expected to arrive Wednesday and will receive orientation and training before traveling to the Castle fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Forest .
Firefighters from Canada and the U.S. military are also deployed to fires around the state , the Forest Service said .
More than 3 million acres have burned in California this year , and although the cause of the Bobcat fire is still classified as “ under investigation , ” federal officials are investigating Southern California Edison utility equipment around Cogswell Dam that experienced an incident minutes before the reported ignition of the fire nearby .
But after what felt like weeks of playing whack-a-mole with the unpredictable Bobcat fire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be the start of a new chapter .
“ We ’ re really starting to turn a corner on this fire and getting the upper hand , ” Forest Service spokesman Andrew Mitchell said Wednesday .
But , Mitchell said , officials are not celebrating just yet , as the forecast calls for hot , dry weather that could help reignite the blaze .
The National Weather Service said Wednesday that “ temperatures will be above normal into the weekend , then a significant warming trend is forecast for early next week.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ critical fire weather , ” Mitchell said .
“ It all depends on this weekend .
”

Beleaguered fire crews made significant progress overnight on the Bobcat fire burning in northeastern Los Angeles County.
After weeks of struggling to keep up with the fire’s erratic, multidirectional growth, crews had achieved 38% containment of the blaze as of Wednesday morning — more than doubling the fire’s containment from the previous day.
“Today we had a pretty successful day,” said Kerri Gilliland, of the California Interagency Incident Management Team organizing the battle against the Bobcat fire, in a Tuesday evening update.
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Crews successfully placed several direct containment lines — barriers created with bulldozers and mechanical equipment to hinder the spread of flames — along the fire’s edge, Gilliland said.
The fire’s growth is also slowing. After ballooning to twice its size in the course of one week, it is now increasing in slower increments, growing by a little more than 1,000 acres overnight. The total acreage burned Wednesday was 113,307, according to the U.S. Forest Service .
Progress was so significant that the estimated containment date for the fire has been moved up by one month, to Sept. 30.
“We finally got the resources, we got favorable weather, and the fuel transition was big,” Forest Service spokesman Larry Smith said Wednesday. “Once it came out of the really steep timber [of the Angeles National Forest], we were able to get more mechanized.”
The northern portion of the fire, which seared through the foothills community of Juniper Hills and portions of the Antelope Valley , has been marked as contained, Smith said.
But the fight is not over. Mt. Wilson, home to an observatory and a reported $1 billion worth of communications towers, remains threatened by the fire, which is considered one of the largest in L.A. County history.
Still, fire crews’ progress atop Mt. Wilson held steady Wednesday afternoon. Pockets of terrain were smoldering, but few immediate flames were apparent.
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“The weather finally cooperated,” said Capt. Dave Gillotte of the L.A. County Fire Department. “We were finally able to see the fire and to get to the fire.”
The rugged landscape was painted with a stark mix of bright pink fire retardant and blackened trees, but the sky above the observatory was clear despite the lingering smell of smoke. Gillotte attributed much of the crews’ recent gains to hard work and preparation.
“We’ve been making a stand at Mt. Wilson,” he said. “Half the time is very intense, and half the time is preparing for it to be very intense.”
Farther down the mountain, though, was a different scene. At the intersection of Highway 2 and Mt. Wilson Red Box Road, about five miles below the observatory in the Angeles National Forest, thick smoke had settled in like a blanket over the valley.
“There are still a lot of variables at play,” said L.A. County Fire Department spokesman Pono CQ Barnes, who was stationed at the intersection. “Right now we’re looking at wind, fuels and topographical features.”
And although progress on the blaze has been substantial, Barnes said the Bobcat fire’s containment lines are still very dependent on the direction of the wind. If it changes, he said, there is “significant potential” for reignition.
“I’m exhausted,” said Thomas Meneghini, executive director of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.
Meneghini said observatory staff had been “pretty well wiped out” from seeing flames lap at Mt. Wilson for more than a week. At one point, the fire reached less than 500 feet from the storied structure.
“Our stuff is priceless, it’s irreplaceable,” he said of the observatory’s equipment , which includes a 100-year-old telescope that played an important role in the history of astronomy, and the 2004-built CHARA array for digitized space study.
“There’s no monetary value you could put on these items,” he said.
The fire has destroyed 52 structures — 27 of which were residences — and damaged 14 other buildings, officials said Wednesday.
Among the structures lost is the nature center at the Devil’s Punchbowl, a 1,310-acre rock canyon that receives a reported 130,000 visitors each year.
I'm sad to share that 90 percent of Devil's Punchbowl has burned from the #BobcatFire. The nature center and significant plant life and fauna across its 1350 acres have been lost. My office is working with @lacountyparks to see how we can rebuild and restore this beloved land. pic.twitter.com/0fsPriO7ho — Supervisor Kathryn Barger (@kathrynbarger) September 22, 2020
Evacuation orders remain in place for several communities in the Angeles National Forest and the foothills north of the blaze. Evacuation warnings also remain for Pasadena, Altadena and other areas threatened by the fire.
The Bobcat fire, which ignited Sept. 6, is one of more than two dozen fires burning across California, and resources are spread thin. In response, the Forest Service has mobilized 100 firefighters from across Mexico to assist with wildfire suppression throughout the state.
The firefighters are expected to arrive Wednesday and will receive orientation and training before traveling to the Castle fire within the Sequoia Complex in Sequoia National Forest.
Firefighters from Canada and the U.S. military are also deployed to fires around the state, the Forest Service said. More than 3 million acres have burned in California this year, and although the cause of the Bobcat fire is still classified as “under investigation,” federal officials are investigating Southern California Edison utility equipment around Cogswell Dam that experienced an incident minutes before the reported ignition of the fire nearby.
But after what felt like weeks of playing whack-a-mole with the unpredictable Bobcat fire, officials said Wednesday’s substantial gains could be the start of a new chapter.
“We’re really starting to turn a corner on this fire and getting the upper hand,” Forest Service spokesman Andrew Mitchell said Wednesday.
But, Mitchell said, officials are not celebrating just yet, as the forecast calls for hot, dry weather that could help reignite the blaze. The National Weather Service said Wednesday that “temperatures will be above normal into the weekend, then a significant warming trend is forecast for early next week.”
“We are expecting elevated to critical fire weather,” Mitchell said. “It all depends on this weekend.”


latimes--2020-09-25--This L.A. company was hit with state's largest-ever COVID-19 fine. Some say it's a model for worker

This L.A. company was hit with state's largest-ever COVID-19 fine. Some say it's a model for worker safety

In late July , Gloria Lopez , a weight checker at a frozen food processing plant in Vernon , noticed that a plexiglass divider was missing between workers on the production line .
Two employees were left exposed to the coronavirus .
Neither had said anything .
“ I said to one of them , ‘ Do you feel comfortable the way you ’ re working ?
’ And she said , ‘ No , but what do you want me to do ?
’ ” Lopez recalled .
Within minutes , Lopez instructed an employee to hit a button @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line leader she belonged to a new safety committee at the plant owned by Overhill Farms , which has authorized the panel ’ s members to halt production if safety precautions were lacking .
About 10 minutes later , the divider was back .
“ I thought to myself , ‘ Yes , we can do something with our committee , ’ ” said Lopez , from Huntington Park .
“ Yes , we can be safer where we work.
” The company and workers backed by a union formed the group in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On Sept. 9 , California ’ s Division of Occupational Safety and Health , known as Cal/OSHA , announced more than $ 200,000 in fines each for Overhill Farms and its temporary employment agency , Jobsource North America — the state ’ s largest fines to date for coronavirus health violations .
The citations , which reference more than 20 cases of the virus and one worker death , stem from inspections begun in April , which found the company failed to provide sufficient protective equipment , enforce physical distancing or inform workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first fines Cal/OSHA announced on Sept. 4 for coronavirus safety violations , with penalties against 11 employers ranging from $ 2,025 to $ 51,190 .
Overhill Farms and Jobsource have said they plan to dispute the citations .
Overhill Farms called the allegations “ erroneous , ” asserting that Cal/OSHA falsely claimed that the company failed to install plexiglass dividers .
“ The health and safety of our employees is our first priority , ” the company said in a statement .
“ Overhill Farms has not only taken steps in line with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local guidance , we have gone above and beyond those recommendations as we developed our employee safety procedures.
” Since the committee was first convened in late July , six workers , a union liaison and company representatives have met almost weekly to discuss coronavirus safety .
Some of these workers have said they ’ ve slowly seen improvements in enforcement of social distancing and feel safer on the job .
Labor advocates have highlighted Overhill ’ s safety committee as a precedent as the county ’ s Board of Supervisors moves forward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to form public health councils authorized to report whether their employers are complying with coronavirus health orders — a proposal with widespread backing among labor groups but strongly opposed by many business leaders .
“ It ’ s a common sense approach , ” said Rob Nothoff , policy director for the L.A. County Federation of Labor .
“ You empower workers to help add additional capacity to the Department of Public Health and to serve as kind of enforcers or whistleblowers .
Everyone is better off protected.
” According to county health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases from March through August at Overhill Farms .
Most cases were in April , when 11 workers became sick .
Kathy Finn , secretary-treasurer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 , which represents several hundred Overhill employees , said she hoped the citation would send a sharp message to other workplaces .
“ The fact that there have been some improvements now is I think a reflection of the fact the state took so long to actually do anything , ” Finn said .
Armando Romero , a forklift operator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said that in the early days of the pandemic Overhill Farms failed to provide workers with masks .
He took a 30-day leave , worried about the possibility of exposing his mother-in-law with whom he lived .
When he returned , the Maywood resident said that the company was providing masks but not enforcing social distancing or providing sufficient hand sanitizer .
“ When coronavirus began , no one knew what rules to follow , ” Romero said .
“ From there , we saw we needed to do something to protect ourselves.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns approached their union , which proposed the idea of the committee to Overhill managers .
Romero said that after the company began hearing the committee ’ s concerns , it moved to limit how many workers could enter a plant at a time and enforced social distancing during lunch breaks by adding plexiglass dividers to tables in the lunchroom and limiting seating .
Throughout the workday , the committee ’ s workers scan their areas to ensure dividers are in place and that employees wear face coverings and observe social distancing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in South Gate , said she joined the committee to protect her three daughters and husband and the families of her co-workers .
Like Romero , she stopped going to work briefly because she said the company wasn ’ t providing adequate protective equipment .
To get her co-workers to social distance , she tells them , “ I don ’ t want my family to get infected and I don ’ t want your family to get infected.
” Although she said the workplace still poses a dangerous environment , Finn acknowledged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raise issues in an industry where workers often fear retaliation .
“ Some of the things they accomplished was giving the workers a voice , ” she said .
“ They got the ability to shut down the line when they saw unsafe things happening .
That is a huge , huge power to stop production because that impacts the company in its pocketbook.
” In response to questions about whether the safety committee had led to improvements , Frank Polizzi , a public information officer for California ’ s Department of Industrial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said that as of the citation date the state “ has not received proof that the COVID-19-related violations have been corrected by either employer.
” But in recent weeks , labor groups have pointed to the Overhill Farms committee as a model to support the motion supervisors are considering to create similar groups .
Under the current proposal , worker councils would pair with third-party organizations certified by the county Department of Public Health to document violations , with the goal of expanding the department ’ s enforcement capacity .
Details of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas , who co-authored the motion initially approved in late July , said it should focus on industries with high rates of violations and outbreaks .
“ The establishment of public health councils will provide another tool in the toolkit to better monitor , document and report public health violations , ” said Ridley-Thomas at the board ’ s Sept. 1 meeting .
“ If we want to slow the spread , we need to do it in the context of a just economy.
” In an Aug. 6 letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Barbara Ferrer acknowledged concerns that employers might retaliate against workers who participate in the councils and suggested adopting rules to address that issue .
Tia Koonse , a legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center , said that , with too few county investigators , worker councils are a cost-effective measure to ensure compliance .
But the motion has faced staunch pushback from business leaders .
In a letter to the board , the Los Angeles County Business Federation , known as BizFed , called the proposal “ nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designed to harass employers at the whim of any disgruntled employee.
” It said that employees can already report noncompliance to a county hotline , and that it would support the councils only “ for the few bad actors that have been repeatedly warned and are still unable to comply.
” “ We don ’ t really see any redeemable aspects to it , ” Sarah Wiltfong , BizFed ’ s policy manager , said in an interview , adding that the proposal would result in the “ de facto unionization of businesses.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ compensate for worker councils meeting during business hours , she said .
Similarly , Patricia Torres Bruno , chief policy officer for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce , said that the motion has been “ rushed through the Board of Supervisors ” with little input from the business community .
“ It is not in a business ’ best interest not to be compliant with the health orders , ” Bruno said .
“ They are eager to open and open safely.
” Freddie Agyin , director of health and environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said that when his staff visited Overhill Farms in mid-August , they noted only that plexiglass barriers needed to be extended farther on lunch tables and that more copies of health orders needed to be posted in areas employees frequent .
“ They have made progress , ” he said of the company .
Agyin said employee engagement around safety issues is key .
“ You can ’ t implement things where you don ’ t have buy-in , ” he said .

Armando Espinoza, a representative of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, says a prayer next to a memorial in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration that honors the more than 5700 Angelenos who have died of COVID-19.
In late July, Gloria Lopez, a weight checker at a frozen food processing plant in Vernon, noticed that a plexiglass divider was missing between workers on the production line.
Two employees were left exposed to the coronavirus. Neither had said anything.
“I said to one of them, ‘Do you feel comfortable the way you’re working?’ And she said, ‘No, but what do you want me to do?’” Lopez recalled.
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Within minutes, Lopez instructed an employee to hit a button to stop production. She told the line leader she belonged to a new safety committee at the plant owned by Overhill Farms, which has authorized the panel’s members to halt production if safety precautions were lacking.
About 10 minutes later, the divider was back.
“I thought to myself, ‘Yes, we can do something with our committee,’” said Lopez, from Huntington Park. “Yes, we can be safer where we work.”
Photographs of people who lost their lives to COVID-19, including Celia Marcos, left, were part of a memorial erected in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
The company and workers backed by a union formed the group in the midst of a serious problem. On Sept. 9, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, announced more than $200,000 in fines each for Overhill Farms and its temporary employment agency, Jobsource North America — the state’s largest fines to date for coronavirus health violations.
The citations, which reference more than 20 cases of the virus and one worker death, stem from inspections begun in April, which found the company failed to provide sufficient protective equipment, enforce physical distancing or inform workers about the dangers. They follow the first fines Cal/OSHA announced Sept. 4 for coronavirus safety violations, with penalties against 11 employers ranging from $2,025 to $51,190.
Overhill Farms and Jobsource have said they plan to dispute the citations. Overhill Farms called the allegations erroneous, asserting that Cal/OSHA falsely claimed the company failed to install plexiglass dividers.
“The health and safety of our employees is our first priority,” the company said in a statement. “Overhill Farms has not only taken steps in line with the constantly evolving federal, state and local guidance, we have gone above and beyond those recommendations as we developed our employee safety procedures.”
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Since the committee was first convened in late July, six workers, a union liaison and company representatives have met almost weekly to discuss coronavirus safety. Some of these workers have said they’ve slowly seen improvements in enforcement of social distancing and feel safer on the job.
Labor advocates have highlighted Overhill’s safety committee as a precedent as the county’s Board of Supervisors moves forward on a motion that would allow workers to form public health councils authorized to report whether their employers are complying with coronavirus health orders — a proposal with widespread backing among labor groups but strongly opposed by many business leaders.
“It’s a common sense approach,” said Rob Nothoff, policy director for the L.A. County Federation of Labor. “You empower workers to help add additional capacity to the Department of Public Health and to serve as kind of enforcers or whistleblowers. Everyone is better off protected.”
County health officials said there had been 26 coronavirus cases from March through August at Overhill Farms. Most cases were in April, when 11 workers became sick.
Kathy Finn, secretary-treasurer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents several hundred Overhill employees, said she hoped the citation would send a sharp message to other workplaces.
“The fact that there have been some improvements now is I think a reflection of the fact the state took so long to actually do anything,” Finn said.
Armando Romero, a forklift operator and member of the safety committee, said that in the early days of the pandemic Overhill Farms failed to provide workers with masks. He took a 30-day leave, worried about the possibility of exposing his mother-in-law with whom he lived.
When he returned, the Maywood resident said that the company was providing masks but not enforcing social distancing or providing sufficient hand sanitizer.
“When coronavirus began, no one knew what rules to follow,” Romero said. “From there, we saw we needed to do something to protect ourselves.”
A group of workers with safety concerns approached their union, which proposed the idea of the committee to Overhill managers. Romero said that after the company began hearing the committee’s concerns, it moved to limit how many workers could enter a plant at a time and enforced social distancing during lunch breaks by adding plexiglass dividers to tables in the lunchroom and limiting seating.
Throughout the workday, the committee’s workers scan their areas to ensure dividers are in place and that employees wear face coverings and observe social distancing.
Rhina Blanco, a worker who lives in South Gate, said she joined the committee to protect her three daughters and husband and the families of her co-workers. Like Romero, she stopped going to work briefly because she said the company wasn’t providing adequate protective equipment.
To get her co-workers to keep their distance, she tells them, “I don’t want my family to get infected and I don’t want your family to get infected.”
Although she said the workplace still poses a dangerous environment, Finn acknowledged the committee has created a space to raise issues in an industry where workers often fear retaliation.
“Some of the things they accomplished was giving the workers a voice,” she said. “They got the ability to shut down the line when they saw unsafe things happening. That is a huge, huge power to stop production because that impacts the company in its pocketbook.”
In response to questions about whether the safety committee had led to improvements, Frank Polizzi, a public information officer for California’s Department of Industrial Relations, the parent agency of Cal/OSHA, said that as of the citation date the state “has not received proof that the COVID-19-related violations have been corrected by either employer.”
But in recent weeks, labor groups have pointed to the Overhill Farms committee as a model to support the motion supervisors are considering to create similar groups.
Under the current proposal, worker councils would pair with third-party organizations certified by the county Department of Public Health to document violations, with the goal of expanding the department’s enforcement capacity. Details of the program are still being developed, but Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who co-authored the motion initially approved in late July, said it should focus on industries with high rates of violations and outbreaks.
“The establishment of public health councils will provide another tool in the toolkit to better monitor, document and report public health violations,” said Ridley-Thomas at the board’s Sept. 1 meeting. “If we want to slow the spread, we need to do it in the context of a just economy.”
In an Aug. 6 letter to the board, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer acknowledged concerns that employers might retaliate against workers who participate in the councils and suggested adopting rules to address that issue.
Tia Koonse, a legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center, said that, with too few county investigators, worker councils are a cost-effective measure to ensure compliance.
But the motion has faced staunch pushback from business leaders. In a letter to the board, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, known as BizFed, called the proposal “nothing more than another layer of cumbersome bureaucracy designed to harass employers at the whim of any disgruntled employee.”
It said that employees can already report noncompliance to a county hotline and that it would support the councils only “for the few bad actors that have been repeatedly warned and are still unable to comply.”
“We don’t really see any redeemable aspects to it,” Sarah Wiltfong, BizFed’s policy manager, said in an interview, adding that the proposal would result in the “de facto unionization of businesses.” Questions remain about how employers would compensate for worker councils meeting during business hours, she said.
Similarly, Patricia Torres Bruno, chief policy officer for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said the motion has been “rushed through the Board of Supervisors” with little input from the business community.
“It is not in a business’ best interest not to be compliant with the health orders,” Bruno said. “They are eager to open and open safely.”
Freddie Agyin, director of health and environmental control for the city of Vernon, said that when his staff visited Overhill Farms in mid-August, they noted only that plexiglass barriers needed to be extended farther on lunch tables and that more copies of health orders needed to be posted in areas employees frequent.
“They have made progress,” he said of the company.
Agyin said employee engagement around safety issues is key.
“You can’t implement things where you don’t have buy-in,” he said.


latimes--2020-09-25--Column One: Discovering the life story of Dr. Good, who survived the Nazis

To a child , it was the perfect name : Dr. Good .
Simple , straightforward , uncomplicated .
Who wouldn ’ t want a doctor who was good ?
So it made sense that my parents , just weeks after moving to Southern California from Philadelphia , picked that name out of the phone book and made Dr. Good our family physician .
He was kind , almost timid in his gentleness .
But there was also a mystery behind the slight build and the high-pitched , nasally , accented voice , always spoken just above a whisper .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ an immigrant , with U.S. culture , like the summer he set my broken arm then told me I could play football but had to avoid contact sports .
Four decades would pass before Dr. Good , at a memorial for my mother , would tell me his secret .
He was in his mid-80s then , more stooped than I remembered , but with the same bright , mischievous eyes , darting behind the same wire-rim glasses .
The revelation didn ’ t come all at once , but unspooled like wool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given name wasn ’ t William Z .
Good , but Wowka Zev Gdud .
He was a Jew who grew up outside Vilna , in Poland , which before World War II was among the world ’ s largest and most important centers of Jewish culture .
While I had spent one summer of my childhood lamenting that I couldn ’ t play football because of the broken arm , he had spent three of his hiding in the woods and fighting the Nazis , cheating death again and again .
Dr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a major bad-ass .
Not only had he survived the Holocaust , he actually fought back .
But why had he chosen this time and this place to reveal his secret ?
Dr. Good told his story over hors d ’ oeuvres and coffee the way friends might discuss the weather — and later sent me a deeply detailed 25-page memoir .
It began with the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union , which had absorbed Vilna two years earlier , adding it to the Soviet Republic of Lithuania and giving it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he thought he could outrun the invaders , pedaling his bike as fast as he could in the opposite direction as they advanced .
But German planes strafed the column of refugees he was in , killing a companion a mere arm ’ s length away .
The blitzkrieg soon overtook him and he had to turn back .
He had an even closer brush with death days later when the Germans rounded up 500 people and took them about 9 miles outside Vilna to Ponary , now Paneriai , where a mass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , most of them Jews , would be murdered there over three years , shot once in the back of the head .
Only about a dozen Jews lived to tell of the trip to Ponary .
Among them was Wowka Zev Gdud .
Just as the guard fired his gun , Gdud slipped on the uneven dirt and tumbled into the pit .
Believing the boy had been shot , the assassin moved on to the next victim , whose body fell on top of Gdud , protecting him when the troops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later he woke , covered in blood , and escaped by digging his way under the barbed wire .
He was just 17 .
Three months later , Gdud was asleep when a woman from the village came to his family ’ s house in the dead of night to warn that a group of men had been mobilized to dig more graves for the Jews .
The Gdud family was to be killed at dawn .
He escaped death once again as he ran into the forest , this time dodging bullets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a peasant boy .
His 14-year-old brother , Motl , already a concert violinist , wasn ’ t as lucky .
Hiding elsewhere with their mother , Motl was spotted by a shepherd and captured by the local police .
The next day his mother turned herself in , insisting she be allowed to accompany her youngest son , who was blind in one eye , on his last journey .
The next day , the second of Rosh Hashana , Gdud heard a prolonged burst of gunfire while in hiding .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ learned , that killed his brother and mother .
Gdud and his father spent much of the war hiding in the forest , escaping one final execution attempt and occasionally participating in partisan missions to sabotage German rail lines .
They also managed to avoid a hazard in the forest — poisonous vipers .
It was while in the forest , hiding in a depression dug in the fresh snow , that Gdud decided to become a doctor .
His father had grown delirious , suffering from fever , chills and a swelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could do nothing for him .
The helplessness pained him .
And though the abscess in his father ’ s neck gland eventually drained and he recovered , his son kept his promise and studied medicine so that he would never have that feeling of impotence again .
Of the 100,000 Jews who lived in and around Vilna before the war , just 2,000 survived ; Gdud and his father were among the few from an extended family of nearly 100 to live through the war .
The city ’ s largest group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a forced labor camp commanded by a German major named Karl Plagge .
One of them was Perela Esterowicz , who would later become Gdud ’ s wife .
Under Plagge , the labor camp became a safe haven for Jews , whom the major first protected , then helped escape moments before SS troops arrived with orders to “ liquidate ” the camp .
Although Esterowicz also survived the war in Vilnius , she and Gdud did not meet until years later , as students living in a home for Holocaust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Turin , Italy .
They also earned degrees in Italy , he in medicine and she in organic chemistry , before coming to New York under President Truman ’ s Displaced Persons Act .
There they married , learned English and adopted the names William and Pearl Good .
They started a family and moved to California .
Dr. Good brought the mien and patience of a country doctor to the suburbs , making house calls and caring for patients even when they couldn ’ t pay , especially when they couldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white lab coat over a button-down shirt and tie and looked you directly in the eyes when he spoke .
He was there when I was born , his cold hands the first worldly thing I felt .
That doesn ’ t make me special , though .
I grew up in blue-collar La Puente when it had one of the largest populations of children per capita in the United States , and Dr. Good delivered more than 2,000 of them , said his son Michael , who as a family physician with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is also a Dr. Good .
For most of the elder Dr. Good ’ s practice , which ended in 2013 when he was 89 , he had the same receptionist , Flo , and the same nurses , Shirley and Tommy .
Shirley vowed she wouldn ’ t retire until the doctor did ; she was 79 when she worked her last shift .
The Goods ’ three children knew their parents were Holocaust survivors because they freely told their stories at home .
But those weren ’ t memories they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when Michael , their youngest son , took his parents to Lithuania to revisit a place his mother hadn ’ t seen since the war .
That trip led Michael Good to write “ The Search for Major Plagge : The Nazi Who Saved Jews , ” an amazing book that documents the story of his mother ’ s unlikely savior .
The book inspired a documentary and started a campaign that led the Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem to recognize Plagge as one of the “ Righteous Among the Nations.
” Pearl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name when he was added to the Wall of the Righteous .
The trauma William and Pearl Good had quietly endured sometimes revealed itself in strange ways .
As Michael Good , 63 , recounts in his book , when showing his future wife , Sue , around his parents ’ home in West Covina , he pointed out a hidden closet she found odd .
To the Goods , however , it had been a necessary design feature , a place to hide the children — Michael ; his twin sister , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lenny —should the Nazis return .
The war also explained Dr. Good ’ s generosity .
In his book , Michael Good describes how a family in hiding once wrote to his grandfather , Dov Gdud , begging for financial help .
The young Gdud protested , saying they didn ’ t have enough to money to help others .
Dov Gdud ’ s answer has stuck with his son to this day : “ We have no right to gamble on the presumption of our survival and keep the money for ourselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This money can buy five lives today.
” It did .
The Beckenstein family survived the war along with Dov Gdud , who had one small coin left in his pocket when the Red Army liberated Vilna in 1944 .
He later settled in Israel , and died of colon cancer in 1969 at the age of 74 .
That story , and others , had remained largely hidden for decades .
But the trip to Lithuania encouraged Dr. Good to begin speaking publicly about his experiences , in his son ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to classrooms of schoolchildren .
And that ’ s how he came to sidle up next to me at my mother ’ s memorial , paper plate in hand , and share a secret he had kept from my parents .
A couple of days later a copy of his son ’ s book , signed and dated , arrived in the mail .
But it sat on a shelf while I dealt with my mother ’ s affairs , ushered a son through high school and tended to an ailing aunt .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and restaurants , and I finally reached for the book .
It was still difficult to reconcile the superman in its pages with meek , kindly man I knew , so I reached out through his son to continue our conversation .
I don ’ t think Dr. Good knew I was a journalist , but now I felt an obligation to share his story .
Dr. Good and Pearl , married 67 years , live in a care facility in Azusa .
He is 96 , she five years younger .
COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managed to connect by phone shortly before the start of the High Holy Days .
He explained why he had never hidden his wartime experiences from his children .
“ I did not keep it secret , ” he said .
“ Many Holocaust survivors never told their story to their children .
We , however , both Pearl and I , decided we did not kill German children .
They killed our children , so we have nothing to hide.
” But why tell me ?
His answer was surprisingly simple : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
I do not know .
I guess I thought you might be interested.
” Despite the passage of time , his memory remains sharp .
My mother , he said , was a “ wonderful lady , ” which is true enough .
But it ’ s the experiences of the Holocaust and the days that followed that he recounts with startling clarity .
It was exactly 10 minutes after 1 p.m. when he heard the shots that killed his mother and brother .
“ That is engraved , the story of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
Dr. Good ’ s recollections don ’ t always flow linearly ; he often interrupts himself , retreating to add context or correct a fact .
“ I didn ’ t tell you something , ” he will say .
“ I have to go back to tell you.
” He crossed “ maybe 20 borders ” to get to Italy , he said , arriving with only a shirt , shorts , a pair of pants , and sandals , and “ not knowing a word of the language.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italian .
“ I was very good at learning languages , ” said Good , who knows 11 , including Yiddish , Hebrew , Aramaic , Latin and Spanish — so many , he wrote them down and keeps the list with him so as not to forget .
Pearl , who also speaks multiple languages , was a professor and researcher in organic chemistry at Pomona College .
For decades she harbored deep resentment over what happened to her and her family during the Holocaust .
In time she let those feelings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier .
“ I ’ ll tell you , ” he began , “ most people are very angry — ‘ Look what they did to us.
’ And so they don ’ t go on with their lives .
They are bitter .
[ But ] if I am angry at you , it ’ s eating me .
You don ’ t even know that I ’ m angry at you .
“ So I decided that that ’ s a dead emotion and I better get rid of that .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Dr. Good had one final story to tell , one that illustrates how he survived the Holocaust not just with his life but his soul intact as well .
It ’ s a story he first recounted after his daughter , Anne , repeatedly asked how many people he had killed during the war .
He and an escaped Russian prisoner , with one pistol and nine bullets between them , were hiding in a barn when two Lithuanian policemen , armed with handguns and rifles , walked in .
He got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to surrender their weapons , then at the urging of the Russian , marched the policemen into the swamps to shoot them .
“ You bloody murderers !
You killed my mother , you killed my brother !
” he remembers shouting as the men , their backs to him , dropped to their knees and pleaded for their lives .
With his outstretched arm shaking , he eventually lowered his gun and told the men to leave , but he said he long felt shame he didn ’ t avenge his family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shame lifted , he said , when he told his daughter the story and she responded with a smile .
“ Dad , ” she said , “ I ’ m so glad you never killed anybody.
” Seventy-seven years later , Dr. Good is glad as well .

Dr. William Z. Good, known as Wowka Zev Gdud in his youth, made a vow as he and his father hid from the Nazis in a forest outside their formerly Polish village. Here he lives up to his word, studying medicine in Turin, Italy, after World War II.
To a child, it was the perfect name: Dr. Good.
Simple, straightforward, uncomplicated. Who wouldn’t want a doctor who was good?
So it made sense that my parents, just weeks after moving to Southern California from Philadelphia, picked that name out of the phone book and made Dr. Good our family physician.
He was kind, almost timid in his gentleness. But there was also a mystery behind the slight build and the high-pitched, nasally, accented voice, always spoken just above a whisper. There also was his unfamiliarity, as an immigrant, with U.S. culture, like the summer he set my broken arm, then told me I could play football but had to avoid contact sports.
Four decades would pass before Dr. Good, at a memorial for my mother, would tell me his secret. He was in his mid-80s then, more stooped than I remembered, but with the same bright, mischievous eyes, darting behind the same wire-rim glasses.
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The revelation didn’t come all at once, but unspooled like wool slowly released from a spindle. His given name wasn’t William Z. Good, but Wowka Zev Gdud. He was a Jew who grew up outside Vilna, in Poland, which before World War II was among the world’s largest and most important centers of Jewish culture.
Dr. Good and wife Pearl, then Perela Esterowicz, had both lived and escaped genocide in the same part of Lithuania, formerly part of Poland — but met for the first time in Italy, after the war. (Good family photo)
While I had spent one summer of my childhood lamenting that I couldn’t play football because of the broken arm, he had spent three of his hiding in the woods and fighting the Nazis, cheating death again and again.
Dr. Good, it turned out, was a major badass. Not only had he survived the Holocaust, he actually fought back.
But why had he chosen this time and this place to reveal his secret?
::
Dr. Good told his story over hors d’oeuvres and coffee the way friends might discuss the weather — and later sent me a deeply detailed 25-page memoir.
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It began with the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, which had absorbed Vilna two years earlier, adding it to the Soviet Republic of Lithuania and giving it the Lithuanian name Vilnius.
At first he thought he could outrun the invaders, pedaling his bike as fast as he could as they advanced. But German planes strafed the column of refugees he was in, killing a companion a mere arm’s length away. The blitzkrieg soon overtook him, and he had to turn back.
He had an even closer brush with death days later, when the Germans rounded up 500 people and took them about 9 miles outside Vilna to Ponary, now Paneriai, where a mass grave awaited them.
Approximately 100,000 people, most of them Jews, would be murdered there over three years, shot once in the back of the head. Only about a dozen Jews lived to tell of the trip to Ponary. Among them was Wowka Zev Gdud.
Just as the guard fired his gun, Gdud slipped on the uneven dirt and tumbled into the pit. Believing the boy had been shot, the assassin moved on to the next victim, whose body fell on top of Gdud, protecting him when the troops machine-gunned the pile of corpses.
Hours later he woke, covered in blood, and escaped by digging his way under the barbed wire. He was just 17.
Three months later, Gdud was asleep when a woman from the village came to his family’s house in the dead of night to warn that a group of men had been mobilized to dig more graves for the Jews. The Gdud family was to be killed at dawn.
Dr. Good gave his younger son, Michael, his physician’s bag for being accepted into medical school. The younger Dr. Good has written a book about his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust. (Good family photo)
He escaped death once again as he ran into the forest, this time dodging bullets — he heard seven shots — fired by a peasant boy.
His 14-year-old brother, Motl, already a concert violinist, wasn’t as lucky. Hiding elsewhere with their mother, Motl was spotted by a shepherd and captured by the local police. The next day his mother turned herself in, insisting she be allowed to accompany her youngest son, who was blind in one eye, on his last journey.
The next day, the second of Rosh Hashana, Gdud heard a prolonged burst of gunfire while in hiding. They were the shots, he later learned, that killed his brother and mother.
Gdud and his father spent much of the war hiding in the forest, escaping one final execution attempt, and occasionally participating in partisan missions to sabotage German rail lines. They also managed to avoid a hazard in the forest — poisonous vipers.
It was while in the forest, hiding in a depression dug in the fresh snow, that Gdud decided to become a doctor. His father had grown delirious, suffering from fever, chills and a swelling in his neck, and his son could do nothing for him.
The helplessness pained him. And though the abscess in his father’s neck gland eventually drained, and he recovered, his son kept his promise and studied medicine so that he would never have that feeling of impotence again.
Of the 100,000 Jews who lived in and around Vilna before the war, just 2,000 survived; Gdud and his father were among the few from an extended family of nearly 100 to live through the war. The city’s largest group of survivors, about 250, were from a forced labor camp commanded by a German major named Karl Plagge. One of them was Perela Esterowicz, who would later become Gdud’s wife.
Under Plagge, the labor camp became a safe haven for Jews, whom the major first protected, then helped escape moments before SS troops arrived with orders to “liquidate” the camp.
Although Esterowicz also survived the war in Vilnius, she and Gdud did not meet until years later, as students living in a home for Holocaust survivors that Gdud had set up in Turin, Italy. They also earned degrees in Italy, he in medicine and she in organic chemistry, before coming to New York under President Truman’s Displaced Persons Act.
There they married, learned English and adopted the names William and Pearl Good. They started a family and moved to California.
::
Dr. Good brought the mien and patience of a country doctor to the suburbs, making house calls and caring for patients even when they couldn’t pay, especially when they couldn’t pay.
He always wore a white lab coat over a button-down shirt and tie and looked you directly in the eyes when he spoke. He was there when I was born, his cold hands the first worldly thing I felt. That doesn’t make me special, though.
I grew up in blue-collar La Puente when it had one of the largest populations of children per capita in the United States, and Dr. Good delivered more than 2,000 of them, said his son Michael, who as a family physician with his own practice in Durham, Conn., is also a Dr. Good.
For most of the elder Dr. Good’s practice, which ended in 2013 when he was 89, he had the same receptionist, Flo, and the same nurses, Shirley and Tommy. Shirley vowed she wouldn’t retire until the doctor did; she was 79 when she worked her last shift.
The Goods’ three children knew their parents were Holocaust survivors because they freely told their stories at home. But those weren’t memories they shared outside the house.
“Many Holocaust survivors never told their story to their children. We, however, both Pearl and I, decided we did not kill German children,” says Dr. Good, pictured with Pearl at their 65th wedding anniversary two years ago. “They killed our children, so we have nothing to hide.” (Michael Good)
That changed when Michael, their youngest son, took his parents to Lithuania to revisit a place his mother hadn’t seen since the war.
That trip led Michael Good to write “The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews,” an amazing book that documents the story of his mother’s unlikely savior. The book inspired a documentary and started a campaign that led the Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem to recognize Plagge as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.”
Pearl Good helped unveil the major’s name when he was added to the Wall of the Righteous.
The trauma William and Pearl Good had quietly endured sometimes revealed itself in strange ways. As Michael Good, 63, recounts in his book, when showing his future wife, Sue, around his parents’ home in West Covina, he pointed out a hidden closet she found odd. To the Goods, however, it had been a necessary design feature, a place to hide the children — Michael; his twin sister, Anne; and their older brother, Lenny — should the Nazis return.
The war also explained Dr. Good’s generosity. In his book, Michael Good describes how a family in hiding once wrote to his grandfather, Dov Gdud, begging for financial help. The young Gdud protested, saying they didn’t have enough money to help others.
Dov Gdud’s answer has stuck with his son to this day:
“We have no right to gamble on the presumption of our survival and keep the money for ourselves — we may be dead tomorrow. This money can buy five lives today.”
It did. The Beckenstein family survived the war along with Dov Gdud, who had one small coin left in his pocket when the Red Army liberated Vilna in 1944. He later settled in Israel, and died of colon cancer in 1969 at the age of 74.
That story, and others, had remained largely hidden for decades. But the trip to Lithuania encouraged Dr. Good to begin speaking publicly about his experiences, in his son’s book, the documentary and in talks to classrooms of schoolchildren. And that’s how he came to sidle up next to me at my mother’s memorial, paper plate in hand, and share a secret he had kept from my parents.
A couple of days later, a copy of his son’s book, signed and dated, arrived in the mail. But it sat on a shelf while I dealt with my mother’s affairs, ushered a son through high school and tended to an ailing aunt.
Then a pandemic hit, closing theaters and restaurants, and I finally reached for the book. It was still difficult to reconcile the superman in its pages with the meek, kindly man I knew, so I reached out through his son to continue our conversation. I don’t think Dr. Good knew I was a journalist, but now I felt an obligation to share his story.
Dr. Good and Pearl, married 67 years, live in a care facility in Azusa. He is 96, she five years younger. COVID-19 has kept them quarantined, but we managed to connect by phone shortly before the start of the High Holy Days.
He explained why he had never hidden his wartime experiences from his children.
“I did not keep it secret,” he said. “Many Holocaust survivors never told their story to their children. We, however, both Pearl and I, decided, ‘We did not kill German children. They killed our children,’ so we have nothing to hide.”
But why tell me? His answer was surprisingly simple:
Former Pomona College professor Pearl Good, with Dr. Good at their Azusa care facility, took longer than her husband to let go of her resentment over what her family suffered during the Holocaust. (Michael Good)
“Why did I tell you that? I do not know. I guess I thought you might be interested.”
Despite the passage of time, his memory remains sharp. My mother, he said, was a “wonderful lady,” which is true enough. But it’s the experiences of the Holocaust and the days that followed that he recounts with startling clarity.
It was exactly 10 minutes after 1 p.m. when he heard the shots that killed his mother and brother. “That is engraved, the story of my mother and brother,” he said.
Dr. Good’s recollections don’t always flow linearly; he often interrupts himself, retreating to add context or correct a fact.
“I didn’t tell you something,” he will say. “I have to go back to tell you.”
He crossed “maybe 20 borders” to get to Italy, he said, arriving with only a shirt, shorts, a pair of pants, and sandals, and “not knowing a word of the language.”
Within months he was studying medicine in Italian.
“I was very good at learning languages,” said Good, who knows 11, including Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Spanish — so many, he wrote them down and keeps the list with him so as not to forget.
Pearl, who also speaks multiple languages, was a professor and researcher in organic chemistry at Pomona College.
For decades she harbored deep resentment over what happened to her and her family during the Holocaust. In time she let those feelings go, as her husband had years earlier.
“I’ll tell you,” he began, “most people are very angry — ‘Look what they did to us.’ And so they don’t go on with their lives. They are bitter. [But] if I am angry at you, it’s eating me. You don’t even know that I’m angry at you.
“So I decided that that’s a dead emotion, and I better get rid of that. And I did that early in life.”
Column One A showcase for compelling storytelling
from the Los Angeles Times. More stories
Dr. Good had one final story to tell, one that illustrates how he survived the Holocaust not just with his life, but his soul intact as well. It’s a story he first recounted after his daughter, Anne, repeatedly asked how many people he had killed during the war.
He and an escaped Russian prisoner, with one pistol and nine bullets between them, were hiding in a barn when two Lithuanian policemen, armed with handguns and rifles, walked in. He got the drop on them and forced them to surrender their weapons, then at the urging of the Russian, marched the policemen into the swamps to shoot them.
“You bloody murderers! You killed my mother, you killed my brother!” he remembers shouting as the men, their backs to him, dropped to their knees and pleaded for their lives.
With his outstretched arm shaking, he eventually lowered his gun and told the men to leave, but he said he long felt shame he didn’t avenge his family’s loss that day.
That shame lifted, he said, when he told his daughter the story, and she responded with a smile.
“Dad,” she said, “I’m so glad you never killed anybody.”
Seventy-seven years later, Dr. Good is glad as well.


latimes--2020-09-25--Op-Ed: California's burning; Americans are dying. I'm safe in Finland. Why would I ever go home?

“ It ’ s too much , ” my friend Beth told me , when we talked not long ago .
“ First corona and now the fires .
Many of us were barely holding on before .
We don ’ t know how to deal with this as well.
” Beth lives in Northern California , where I have spent much of my adult life .
Niko , my Finnish husband , and I , the trailing spouse , have been in Helsinki since early April .
This separation from America is working a profound change in how I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I see life in California .
In Finland , COVID-19 has been largely contained since May .
The people trust their government politicians and believe in science .
No one I know here can believe that Americans would turn wearing a mask into a political litmus test .
The social safety net is tightly woven : Finns aren ’ t homeless on the streets ; they aren ’ t shooting one another on the barricades .
Meanwhile , in the United States , more than 200,000 people have died of COVID-19 , tragically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Three times a day on average , a civilian is killed by a police officer .
The narcissist in the White House is hell-bent on destroying democracy .
And some of the biggest fires in California ’ s history have devoured an area the size of Connecticut , with no end in sight .
The more I weigh the differences between here and home , the more I find myself inching toward a status I never dreamed of : expat .
I count Beth , a friend for 20 years , as one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fazed people in my life .
In March , when California instituted its COVID-19 lockdown , she and Ken , her husband , decamped from San Francisco to a second home near Point Reyes National Seashore .
They peck at their laptops on weekdays , venturing out only for evening walks in the hills and a weekly run to the grocery store .
They know how fortunate they are , how privileged .
Still , anyone would chafe after spending so many months in even such benign lockdown .
“ We haven ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Beth lamented .
“ We ’ ve had a few socially distanced , bring-your-own-food dinners with friends , but otherwise we ’ ve been isolated.
” And then came the fires .
“ Helicopters overhead — it ’ s like a war zone , ” Beth said when the fires were at their most dangerous .
The Woodward conflagration , finally contained after three weeks , scorched nearly 5,000 acres and though it came within half a mile of their home , Beth and Ken were lucky on that count too .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ join the hundreds of thousands of West Coast evacuees .
But what about the next fire season or the one after that ?
What about October ?
Beth thinks these days in terms of “ layers of trauma ” : pandemic , fire , election nightmares , horrid air quality .
“ Normal ” in Northern California seems far in the future .
But for Niko and me , it ’ s been almost-back-to-normal since June .
Early in the pandemic , the Finnish government invested in thorough contact tracing , and local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by testing groundwater — sewage — as well .
Finland recently released an app that lets us know if we have encountered someone who tested positive , and it says something about my adopted country that 20 % of the population signed up on the first day .
Online data show the seven-day average of new cases per million in Finland at about 14 ; in the U.S. , it ’ s about 130 .
We eat out ( on terraces ) , get haircuts , visit museums .
We worry about a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did once to flatten the curve , it will doubtlessly do again if the number of new cases rises markedly .
I devour U.S. news , but now I start the day reading the English-language Helsinki paper , for which I have started to write .
I Zoom with friends at home , and listen to U.S. political podcasts , but the United States seems very far away , as if I were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope .
Niko and I had planned to return to San @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying goes , “ Man plans and God laughs.
” Who would choose to go back now ?
When I speak with my friends , I remind them that , although they are barred from Finland until the U.S. has the pandemic under control , they could go to the U.K. or Ireland .
After quarantining for two weeks , they would live a safer , saner life there .
But none of them are budging .
It ’ s as if they have become inured to a dangerous new reality .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apartment with your name on the door , ” I tell them .
Perhaps a year from now — when these fires at least will have receded , a vaccine is available and , fingers tightly crossed , there ’ s a decent man in the White House — they can take us up on our offer .
Meanwhile , I try hard to imagine myself in their shoes , in San Francisco or Point Reyes , and sometimes — only sometimes — I succeed .
David Kirp is an emeritus professor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has permanent resident status in Finland .

The Bobcat fire, as seen from the 105 Freeway and 605 Freeway interchange on Sept. 20, 2020, is one of the largest in Los Angeles County history.
“It’s too much,” my friend Beth told me, when we talked not long ago. “First corona and now the fires. Many of us were barely holding on before. We don’t know how to deal with this as well.”
Beth lives in Northern California, where I have spent much of my adult life. Niko, my Finnish husband, and I, the trailing spouse, have been in Helsinki since early April. This separation from America is working a profound change in how I understand my native country, on how I see life in California.
In Finland, COVID-19 has been largely contained since May. The people trust their government politicians and believe in science. No one I know here can believe that Americans would turn wearing a mask into a political litmus test. The social safety net is tightly woven: Finns aren’t homeless on the streets; they aren’t shooting one another on the barricades.
Meanwhile, in the United States, more than 200,000 people have died of COVID-19, tragically and to a great degree needlessly. Three times a day on average, a civilian is killed by a police officer. The narcissist in the White House is hell-bent on destroying democracy. And some of the biggest fires in California’s history have devoured an area the size of Connecticut, with no end in sight.
The more I weigh the differences between here and home, the more I find myself inching toward a status I never dreamed of: expat.
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I count Beth, a friend for 20 years, as one of the most feet-on-the-ground, not easily fazed people in my life. In March, when California instituted its COVID-19 lockdown, she and Ken, her husband, decamped from San Francisco to a second home near Point Reyes National Seashore. They peck at their laptops on weekdays, venturing out only for evening walks in the hills and a weekly run to the grocery store.
They know how fortunate they are, how privileged. Still, anyone would chafe after spending so many months in even such benign lockdown. “We haven’t seen our kids since March,” Beth lamented. “We’ve had a few socially distanced, bring-your-own-food dinners with friends, but otherwise we’ve been isolated.”
And then came the fires. “Helicopters overhead — it’s like a war zone,” Beth said when the fires were at their most dangerous. The Woodward conflagration, finally contained after three weeks, scorched nearly 5,000 acres and though it came within half a mile of their home, Beth and Ken were lucky on that count too. They didn’t even have to join the hundreds of thousands of West Coast evacuees. But what about the next fire season or the one after that? What about October?
Beth thinks these days in terms of “layers of trauma”: pandemic, fire, election nightmares, horrid air quality. “Normal” in Northern California seems far in the future.
But for Niko and me, it’s been almost-back-to-normal since June. Early in the pandemic, the Finnish government invested in thorough contact tracing, and local authorities track the spread of the disease by testing groundwater — sewage — as well. Finland recently released an app that lets us know if we have encountered someone who tested positive, and it says something about my adopted country that 20% of the population signed up on the first day. Online data show the seven-day average of new cases per million in Finland at about 14; in the U.S., it’s about 130.
We eat out (on terraces), get haircuts, visit museums. We worry about a second wave. But what this country did once to flatten the curve, it will doubtlessly do again if the number of new cases rises markedly.
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I devour U.S. news, but now I start the day reading the English-language Helsinki paper, for which I have started to write. I Zoom with friends at home, and listen to U.S. political podcasts, but the United States seems very far away, as if I were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. Niko and I had planned to return to San Francisco this month, but as the saying goes, “Man plans and God laughs.” Who would choose to go back now?
When I speak with my friends, I remind them that, although they are barred from Finland until the U.S. has the pandemic under control, they could go to the U.K. or Ireland. After quarantining for two weeks, they would live a safer, saner life there. But none of them are budging. It’s as if they have become inured to a dangerous new reality.
“There’s a bedroom in our apartment with your name on the door,” I tell them. Perhaps a year from now — when these fires at least will have receded, a vaccine is available and, fingers tightly crossed, there’s a decent man in the White House — they can take us up on our offer.
Meanwhile, I try hard to imagine myself in their shoes, in San Francisco or Point Reyes, and sometimes — only sometimes — I succeed.
David Kirp is an emeritus professor of public policy at UC Berkeley; he has permanent resident status in Finland.