latimes--2020-12-23--Activists wield bolt cutters in a tense L.A. neighborhood as poor families seize empty homes

Weary after months of sleeping on other peoples ’ couches , Martha Escudero walked through the broken door of an empty home in El Sereno and started bringing it back to life .
She fixed the garbage disposal , turned the garage into a classroom for her 11- and 8-year-old daughters and harvested squash and sweet potatoes from a vegetable garden she planted .
Her homesteading , part of an organized effort by tenant activists in March , was illegal , but it worked .
The L.A. Housing Authority this fall granted occupancy rights to the family of Escudero and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state acquired as part of now-abandoned plans to extend the 710 Freeway .
“ I feel like it was the best decision of my life , ” said Escudero , 41 , who works as an elderly caregiver .
“ Everyone deserves this.
” Other families agree and are willing to trample the legal niceties .
Aided by activists armed with bolt cutters and drills , some have descended again and again on vacant homes in El Sereno , most notably on the day before Thanksgiving when clashes erupted between California Highway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 19 more houses .
These days an uneasy calm hangs over the community .
Some residents have confronted the activists and hung signs outside their homes saying , “ Squatting is not the answer.
” Would-be occupiers , meanwhile , continue eyeing the houses , which are owned by the California Department of Transportation .
Police and private security stand guard in driveways , ready to drive them off .
“ The first time around it was very shocking , ” said Marie Salas , who lives across the street from the house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the carelessness , the I-don ’ t-care attitude about the neighborhood to say , ‘ We ’ re going to break in again ?
’ It ’ s just disgraceful.
” The story of how the state transportation agency came to own over 400 properties — including more than 80 now-vacant single-family homes — is decades old and newly urgent .
Caltrans began acquiring the properties in El Sereno , Pasadena and South Pasadena in the 1960s as part of efforts to expand the 710 Freeway , but protests and lawsuits delayed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two years ago .
Caltrans now holds a real estate portfolio of modest bungalows , Craftsman mansions and , most famously , the Pasadena childhood home of chef Julia Child , which has been empty for 35 years .
While Caltrans has rented out homes for some time — Salas has been a Caltrans tenant since 1997 — the agency has let many deteriorate .
But the dilapidated conditions are no deterrent to families pummeled by the once-in-a-century global health pandemic and housing affordability crisis .
The spark for the El Sereno takeovers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a group of impoverished Black mothers in November 2019 seized a vacant corporate-owned home in Oakland .
The occupation , done with the help of a statewide tenants group , made national news .
Public pressure led Gov .
Gavin Newsom to help broker a deal to sell the house to a community-led organization .
El Sereno activists , also assisted by the tenants group , the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment , mounted 13 home seizures in March , just as government officials issued their first pandemic stay-at-home orders .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters — Escudero says she doesn ’ t know exactly who — broke into the house beforehand so she could just walk inside without incident .
Caltrans allowed those who seized the homes to stay .
The effort ultimately led to the Los Angeles housing authority agreeing to lease 25 homes for use as temporary housing .
Eight families , including Escudero ’ s , are living in the homes now ; the others are being repaired .
Escudero began paying rent this month .
As for the remaining vacant homes and apartments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there ’ s little indication they ’ ll be filled any time soon .
Agency officials say these properties , which suffer from electrical , flooring and plumbing problems , are unsafe and uninhabitable .
And Caltrans must comply with a lengthy and complicated legal process to sell them , with former owners and current tenants given the first chance to buy .
Only 10 have been sold thus far .
State legislation aimed at speeding the sales failed earlier this year .
Why Caltrans decided not to remove those illegally occupying homes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but some people interpreted the move as a green light .
One day in early August , an unemployed hair stylist decided she had waited long enough .
With the help of some friends who jimmied the back door , Sasha Atkins , 31 , walked into an empty home in El Sereno with plans to stay .
Atkins was inspired by the initial occupations .
She ’ d been staying in motels with her 9-year-old son for a few months after losing her job .
Pandemic health fears had limited her ability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as she had been doing over the past three years .
After five hours in the Caltrans house , police found Atkins and she left the property .
She tried again the Wednesday before Thanksgiving , picking a lock to force her way into a duplex .
She spent the night but left the next afternoon as officers prepared to enter the building .
She said the daily pressures of trying to keep a roof over her head made her do something she otherwise wouldn ’ t .
“ I have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to stress on where my kid ’ s going to sleep .
If we had a home , it ’ d be so different , ” Atkins said .
Multiple activist groups have organized the mass home seizures , adding to the confusion as neighbors worry about unknown outsiders descending on their community and government officials struggle to determine with whom to negotiate .
In March , those behind the occupations called themselves Reclaiming Our Homes .
A separate group called Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community emerged later and arranged the attempted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others who occupied houses over Thanksgiving didn ’ t leave so peacefully .
Videos showed police , clad in riot gear , using battering rams to enter properties and handcuff and drag out the occupants as crowds spilled into the streets .
By Thanksgiving night , more than 60 people had been arrested , officers said .
Neighbors in the community of well-maintained properties in the $ 675,000 range express mixed feelings about the escalating tension .
Some support the effort to sell or rent the homes to needy families , but strongly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their activist allies .
After hanging a banner protesting the home seizures on her fence , Salas said she has had rocks and empty beer cans thrown in her frontyard .
Another neighbor , Aaron Mauricio , said drill-wielding activists shoved him while he was trying to stop them from getting inside a vacant home on his street .
“ There ’ s families here .
There ’ s kids here .
They were breaking the law and they had no right to do what they were doing , ” said Mauricio , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the community question whether the people seizing the homes truly need them the most .
Maria Elena Durazo , a Democratic state senator who represents the area , said everyone arrested as part of the Thanksgiving protests gave police a permanent address , and that occupiers declined hotel room vouchers that would have provided immediate shelter .
“ The particulars here were not about homeless people wanting a place to stay , ” Durazo said .
Atkins bristled at the suggestion that her years of bouncing between friends and family ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t need a permanent place to live .
“ Right now , I ’ m sitting outside of a motel with my son who is doing his homework , ” she said .
“ I am homeless.
” For now , Caltrans has once again boarded up the vacant homes after the attempted Thanksgiving occupations .
While Durazo has introduced a new state bill to speed property sales , it wouldn ’ t require the transportation agency to act until mid-2022 .
Activists , meanwhile , are adopting more subtle ways to keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than $ 58,000 as of Tuesday in support of their efforts .
And on Monday night , a bouquet of flowers alight with Christmas ornaments appeared in front of vacant homes .
In a tweet , Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community said the flowers were an “ offering ” for the homes they could be living in over the holidays .
Atkins isn ’ t sure if activists will try to seize more properties .
But she ’ s ready .
“ If someone was to say , ‘ Let ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ my bag ’ s already packed.
” Times staff writers Laura J. Nelson and Sarah Parvini contributed to this report .

Capt. Heckmann with IC Inter-Con Security tapes up warning signs against trespassing at a publicly owned vacant home in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles in late November.
Weary after months of sleeping on other peoples’ couches, Martha Escudero walked through the broken door of an empty home in El Sereno and started bringing it back to life.
She fixed the garbage disposal, turned the garage into a classroom for her 11- and 8-year-old daughters and harvested squash and sweet potatoes from a vegetable garden she planted.
Her homesteading, part of an organized effort by tenant activists in March, was illegal, but it worked. The L.A. Housing Authority this fall granted occupancy rights to the family of Escudero and others who had seized numerous homes that the state acquired as part of now-abandoned plans to extend the 710 Freeway.
Advertisement
“I feel like it was the best decision of my life,” said Escudero, 41, who works as a caregiver for seniors. “Everyone deserves this.”
Other families agree and are willing to trample the legal niceties. Aided by activists armed with bolt cutters and drills, some have descended again and again on vacant homes in El Sereno, most notably on the day before Thanksgiving when clashes erupted between California Highway Patrol officers and people trying to take 19 more houses.
These days an uneasy calm hangs over the community. Some residents have confronted the activists and hung signs outside their homes saying, “Squatting is not the answer.” Would-be occupiers, meanwhile, continue eyeing the houses, which are owned by the California Department of Transportation. Police and private security stand guard in driveways, ready to drive them off.
“The first time around it was very shocking,” said Marie Salas, who lives across the street from the house Escudero occupied. “But the audacity, the carelessness, the I-don’t-care attitude about the neighborhood to say, ‘We’re going to break in again?’ It’s just disgraceful.”
The story of how the state transportation agency came to own over 400 properties — including more than 80 now-vacant single-family homes — is decades old and newly urgent. Caltrans began acquiring the properties in El Sereno, Pasadena and South Pasadena in the 1960s as part of efforts to expand the 710 Freeway, but protests and lawsuits delayed the project and it was officially killed two years ago.
Caltrans owns more than 200 residential properties in El Sereno acquired to make way for the now-abandoned 710 Freeway extension. (Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office)
Caltrans now holds a real estate portfolio of modest bungalows, Craftsman mansions and, most famously, the Pasadena childhood home of chef Julia Child, which has been empty for 35 years.
Advertisement
While Caltrans has rented out homes for some time — Salas has been a Caltrans tenant since 1997 — the agency has let many deteriorate.
But the dilapidated conditions are no deterrent to families pummeled by the once-in-a-century global health pandemic and housing affordability crisis.
The spark for the El Sereno takeovers actually came from Northern California, where a group of impoverished Black mothers in November 2019 seized a vacant corporate-owned home in Oakland. The occupation, done with the help of a statewide tenants group, made national news. Public pressure led Gov. Gavin Newsom to help broker a deal to sell the house to a community-led organization.
El Sereno activists, also assisted by the tenants group, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, mounted 13 home seizures in March, just as government officials issued their first pandemic stay-at-home orders. To leave Escudero less vulnerable to arrest, supporters — Escudero says she doesn’t know exactly who — broke into the house beforehand so she could just walk inside without incident.
Martha Escudero with her daughters Meztli, 8, left, and Victoria, 10, stand in the window of a vacant state-owned house they occupied in March in El Sereno. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Caltrans allowed those who seized the homes to stay. The effort ultimately led to the Los Angeles housing authority agreeing to lease 25 homes for use as temporary housing. Eight families, including Escudero’s, are living in the homes now; the others are being repaired. Escudero began paying rent this month.
As for the remaining vacant homes and apartments, which number at least 120, there’s little indication they’ll be filled any time soon.
Agency officials say these properties, which suffer from electrical, flooring and plumbing problems, are unsafe and uninhabitable. And Caltrans must comply with a lengthy and complicated legal process to sell them, with former owners and current tenants given the first chance to buy. Only 10 have been sold thus far. State legislation aimed at speeding the sales failed earlier this year.
Why Caltrans decided not to remove those illegally occupying homes in March isn’t clear, but some people interpreted the move as a green light.
One day in early August, an unemployed hair stylist decided she had waited long enough.
With the help of some friends who jimmied the back door, Sasha Atkins, 31, walked into an empty home in El Sereno with plans to stay.
Atkins was inspired by the initial occupations. She’d been staying in motels with her 9-year-old son for a few months after losing her job. Pandemic health fears had limited her ability to double up with friends and family, as she had been doing over the past three years.
After five hours in the Caltrans house, police found Atkins and she left the property.
She tried again the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, picking a lock to force her way into a duplex. She spent the night but left the next afternoon as officers prepared to enter the building.
She said the daily pressures of trying to keep a roof over her head made her do something she otherwise wouldn’t.
“I have to stress on educating my kid. I have to stress on where my kid’s going to sleep. If we had a home, it’d be so different,” Atkins said.
Multiple activist groups have organized the mass home seizures, adding to the confusion as neighbors worry about unknown outsiders descending on their community and government officials struggle to determine with whom to negotiate. In March, those behind the occupations called themselves Reclaiming Our Homes. A separate group called Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community emerged later and arranged the attempted takeovers over Thanksgiving.
Unlike Atkins, others who occupied houses over Thanksgiving didn’t leave so peacefully. Videos showed police, clad in riot gear, using battering rams to enter properties and handcuff and drag out the occupants as crowds spilled into the streets. By Thanksgiving night, more than 60 people had been arrested, officers said.
Juna Serna, 8, waits next to a press conference held by Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles in late November. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Neighbors in the community of well-maintained properties in the $675,000 range express mixed feelings about the escalating tension. Some support the effort to sell or rent the homes to needy families, but strongly oppose the methods of the families and their activist allies.
After hanging a banner protesting the home seizures on her fence, Salas said she has had rocks and empty beer cans thrown in her frontyard. Another neighbor, Aaron Mauricio, said drill-wielding activists shoved him while he was trying to stop them from getting inside a vacant home on his street.
“There’s families here. There’s kids here. They were breaking the law and they had no right to do what they were doing,” said Mauricio, 48, a middle-school teacher.
Some in the community question whether the people seizing the homes truly need them the most. Maria Elena Durazo, a Democratic state senator who represents the area, said everyone arrested as part of the Thanksgiving protests gave police a permanent address, and that occupiers declined hotel room vouchers that would have provided immediate shelter.
“The particulars here were not about homeless people wanting a place to stay,” Durazo said.
Atkins bristled at the suggestion that her years of bouncing between friends and family’s homes and motels meant she didn’t need a permanent place to live.
“Right now, I’m sitting outside of a motel with my son who is doing his homework,” she said. “I am homeless.”
For now, Caltrans has once again boarded up the vacant homes after the attempted Thanksgiving occupations. While Durazo has introduced a new state bill to speed property sales, it wouldn’t require the transportation agency to act until mid-2022.
Activists, meanwhile, are adopting more subtle ways to keep up the pressure. They have raised more than $58,000 as of Tuesday in support of their efforts. And on Monday night, a bouquet of flowers alight with Christmas ornaments appeared in front of vacant homes. In a tweet, Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community said the flowers were an “offering” for the homes they could be living in over the holidays.
Last night we brought an offering to the homes we could have been living in with our children this holiday.
At some homes, we were met with hostility by neighbors who don't think we deserve housing. At others, we were met with grace & support.
All are guarded 24/7 by CHP. pic.twitter.com/CJS0i5mqo9 — Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community // RROC (@rroc_la) December 22, 2020
Atkins isn’t sure if activists will try to seize more properties. But she’s ready.
“If someone was to say, ‘Let’s try again,’” Atkins said, “my bag’s already packed.”
Times staff writers Laura J. Nelson and Sarah Parvini contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-12-23--Billions of dollars spent on fighting California wildfires, but little on prevention

When COVID-19 blew a hole in California ’ s spending plans last spring , one of the things state budget-cutters took an axe to was wildfire prevention .
A $ 100-million pilot project to outfit older homes with fire-resistant materials was dropped .
Another $ 165 million earmarked for community protection and wildland fuel-reduction fell to less than $ 10 million .
A few months later , the August siege of dry lightning turned 2020 into a record-shattering wildfire year .
The state ’ s emergency firefighting costs are expected to hit $ 1.3 billion , pushing the California Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ total spending this fiscal year to more than $ 3 billion .
The numbers highlight the enormous chasm between what state and federal agencies spend on firefighting and what they spend on reducing California ’ s wildfire hazard — a persistent gap that critics say ensures a self-perpetuating cycle of destruction .
This year ’ s wildfires scorched more than 4 million acres — a modern record — claimed 31 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 10,000 structures , according to Cal Fire .
In early September , smoke choked much of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turning Bay Area skies an ominous orange .
“ There was a particular day where my wife said , ‘ Maybe we just need to leave California , ’ ” recalled Michael Wara , director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University ’ s Woods Institute for the Environment .
“ We are fifth-generation Californians .
My great-great-great grandparents are in the ground in Colma .
It ’ s not a place I ever want to leave .
“ The system we had for managing this problem doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I think the reality is , just like we need to pay for fire protection , we probably need to be paying something like that much money for fire-risk reduction in the state.
” Climate change is exacerbating California ’ s wildfire problem .
But it didn ’ t create it .
There are a variety of reasons why wildfires have grown larger , more intense and more destructive in recent decades .
A big one , experts say , is that 40 million people live in a fire-prone landscape that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a century .
In a widely cited 2007 research paper , UC Berkeley scientists estimated that prior to 1800 , about 4.5 million acres of California burned every year in fires ignited by lightning and Native Americans .
The elimination of Indigenous burning and the government ’ s 20th century fire-suppression policies put an end to that , producing a long-term fire deficit and fuel buildup across much of the state that Californians are now paying the price for .
At the same time , development has continually pushed into wildlands , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk .
Fire scientists have long called for a dramatic increase in the use of prescribed fire — that is , controlled burns that trained crews deliberately set in forests and grasslands during mild weather conditions .
They have urged federal agencies to thin more overgrown stands of young trees in the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada and let nature do some housekeeping with well-behaved lightning fires in the backcountry .
They point to the dire need to retrofit older homes to guard against the blizzard of embers that set neighborhoods ablaze in the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after year , state and federal funding for such work remains a pittance compared to the billions of dollars spent on firefighting .
“ When everybody knows what to do and they don ’ t do it , there ’ s something deeper going on , ” said Wara , who helped draft a recent independent report on the costs of California wildfire that noted the state ’ s “ long history of underinvestment in prevention and mitigation.
” The problem , he says , is largely institutional .
“ You developed firefighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ institutional advancement for people has to do with how well you perform the firefighting mission ” — not how well you reduce wildfire hazard , ” he argued .
“ So we have to create something new.
” Wara stressed that he was not suggesting the state cut firefighting funding , but that it spend far more on abating the growing severity of California ’ s inevitable wildfires — and that it do so through a new state entity apart from Cal Fire .
“ There ’ s been a lack of willingness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spend money .
This is a deferred maintenance issue , ” he added .
Wara is not alone .
Environmentalists and tribes are calling on the state to ramp up prevention spending .
A diverse coalition of groups — including Defenders of Wildlife , the Wine Institute and the California Cattlemen ’ s Assn .
— recently urged Gov .
Gavin Newsom to spend $ 1.5 billion next year on what it called wildfire resilience : Wildland fuel reduction , prescribed fire and making rural communities more fire-resistant .
That would be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when even modest efforts to boost prevention funding have stumbled .
In 2011 , the Legislature imposed an annual fee on homes in areas protected by Cal Fire .
The assessment , which paid for a variety of department activities , including fire prevention and hazardous fuel reduction , proved so unpopular in rural counties that it was essentially killed six years later .
Lawmakers then turned to the state ’ s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund , funneling $ 200 million a year in cap-and-trade auction proceeds to community fire prevention grants and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Most of that evaporated early this year when the COVID-related economic downturn slashed industry demand for the program ’ s pollution allowances .
Budget problems also killed the Newsom administration ’ s proposal for a November $ 4.75-billion climate resilience bond , which included $ 750 million for wildfire community protection and forest health .
“ We know what is needed to do fire resilience , ” said Jessica Morse , deputy secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency , which oversees Cal Fire .
“ We had laid out a plan … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plans.
” Though cap-and-trade auction revenue has rebounded since May , she said “ conversations are underway ” to find a more stable funding source .
But she dismissed the idea of a new state department devoted to fire-hazard reduction .
“ I don ’ t think new bureaucracy is the solution , ” Morse said .
“ We have identified what the solutions are .
We need to be able to invest in them consistently at scale.
” She cited an August agreement between the state and the U.S. Forest Service in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 500,000 acres of California forest and rangelands by 2025 with a variety of fuel-reduction practices , including prescribed fire , thinning overgrown woodlands , timber harvest and grazing .
Yet this memorandum of understanding is non-binding and includes neither money nor staffing .
Moreover , the state ’ s claim that it is already well on its way to meeting its commitment does not withstand close scrutiny .
Of the nearly 400,000 acres the resources agency says were treated in the last fiscal year , work by Cal Fire crews constituted only 55,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was prescribed fire .
Community grant projects , such as fuel break construction , represented another 35,000 acres .
The rest , some 300,000 acres , largely consisted of work by private landowners , including 115,000 acres of commercial timber harvest , as well as 114,000 acres of dead-tree removal that may never have been completed .
Landowners can cut down dead , dying and drought-killed trees under a program that exempts them from having to file a costly timber harvesting plan with Cal Fire .
They apply to remove the trees on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ requirement that they actually do all the work , nor does the state check to see if they have , said Helge Eng , Cal Fire ’ s deputy director of forestry .
The logging also doesn ’ t necessarily remove the small growth and dead material on the forest floor that helps fuel more intense wildfires .
“ Generously , I ’ d say half of those acres are probably effective fuels reduction , ” UC Berkeley forestry specialist Bill Stewart said of the roughly 300,000 acres of timberlands the state touted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He also questioned the focus on timberlands , given that much of what has burned in California ’ s big , destructive wildfires isn ’ t forest .
It ’ s grassland , oak woodland and shrubland .
The first two landscapes are in need of prescribed fire , not logging .
The third is unsuited to fuel reduction .
If cleared or burned too often , chaparral — or brush as Cal Fire calls it — turns to invasive grass that ignites readily and feeds fast-moving flames .
Keith Gilless , chair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fire Protection , defended the state ’ s treatment numbers .
“ I don ’ t feel that this is an attempt to claim more progress towards an elusive goal than we are actually making , ” he said .
“ I do believe that the activities … move us in the right direction .
“ Are they in aggregate what we should be doing to allow us to reduce fire risk and reintroduce fire on the landscape successfully ?
No , we are not doing enough acres , ” Gilless acknowledged .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for ways to ease barriers to controlled burning , including air quality concerns and liability for escaped fires on private land .
The Forest Service in California also devotes most of its money and effort to firefighting rather than hazard reduction on the nearly 21 million acres of federal wildlands it manages in the state .
In the last fiscal year , the agency conducted controlled burns on just 16,742 of those acres , according to the regional office .
Between 2010 and 2017 — the last year for which data was available @ @ @ @ @ @ @ timber sales to reduce forest fuels on an annual average of 103,000 acres .
Barnie Gyant , who until recently served as deputy regional forester , blamed the low numbers on a familiar litany : A shortage of money and staff to complete projects ; public complaints about smoke from controlled burns ; and the lack of a commercial market for the small trees that crowd many national forests .
“ I ’ m always hoping there is more money , ” he said , “ but the reality is , that depends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exist in the country for all the other programs.
” In September , as fires raged up and down the West Coast , UC Berkeley forest ecologist and climate change scientist Patrick Gonzalez proposed a major shift in federal wildfire policy to break what he called a vicious cycle : Bigger , more intense wildfires boost carbon emissions , which accelerate climate change , which promotes more intense fires .
Washington , he wrote on a science policy website , should redirect federal firefighting funding — which nationally topped $ 3 billion in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and managing moderate lightning fires in remote areas are the cheapest and most effective ways to tackle the West ’ s catastrophic fire problem , Gonzalez said .
“ Fire is the key , natural ecological process that outdated policies have removed .
Only the restoration of natural fire can completely address the root causes of the problem .
”

A Butte County home burns in the Bear fire, part of the lightning-sparked North Complex that left 15 dead.
When COVID-19 blew a hole in California’s spending plans last spring, one of the things state budget-cutters took an axe to was wildfire prevention.
A $100-million pilot project to outfit older homes with fire-resistant materials was dropped. Another $165 million earmarked for community protection and wildland fuel-reduction fell to less than $10 million.
A few months later, the August siege of dry lightning turned 2020 into a record-shattering wildfire year. The state’s emergency firefighting costs are expected to hit $1.3 billion, pushing the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s total spending this fiscal year to more than $3 billion.
Advertisement
The numbers highlight the enormous chasm between what state and federal agencies spend on firefighting and what they spend on reducing California’s wildfire hazard — a persistent gap that critics say ensures a self-perpetuating cycle of destruction.
This year’s wildfires scorched more than 4 million acres — a modern record — claimed 31 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 10,000 structures, according to Cal Fire. In early September, smoke choked much of the state, obscuring the sun and turning Bay Area skies an ominous orange.
A ship passes beneath the Bay Bridge as smoke from Northern California wildfires blanketed San Francisco in early September. (Philip Pacheco / Getty Images))
“There was a particular day where my wife said, ‘Maybe we just need to leave California,’ ” recalled Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “We are fifth-generation Californians. My great-great-great grandparents are in the ground in Colma. It’s not a place I ever want to leave.
“The system we had for managing this problem doesn’t work anymore,” he lamented. “I think the reality is, just like we need to pay for fire protection, we probably need to be paying something like that much money for fire-risk reduction in the state.”
Climate change is exacerbating California’s wildfire problem. But it didn’t create it. There are a variety of reasons why wildfires have grown larger, more intense and more destructive in recent decades. A big one, experts say, is that 40 million people live in a fire-prone landscape that has been largely deprived of flame for more than a century.
Advertisement
In a widely cited 2007 research paper, UC Berkeley scientists estimated that prior to 1800, about 4.5 million acres of California burned every year in fires ignited by lightning and Native Americans.
The elimination of Indigenous burning and the government’s 20th century fire-suppression policies put an end to that, producing a long-term fire deficit and fuel buildup across much of the state that Californians are now paying the price for.
At the same time, development has continually pushed into wildlands, putting ever more homes and people at risk.
Fire scientists have long called for a dramatic increase in the use of prescribed fire — that is, controlled burns that trained crews deliberately set in forests and grasslands during mild weather conditions.
They have urged federal agencies to thin more overgrown stands of young trees in the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada and let nature do some housekeeping with well-behaved lightning fires in the backcountry.
They point to the dire need to retrofit older homes to guard against the blizzard of embers that set neighborhoods ablaze in the most destructive, wind-driven fires.
Yet year after year, state and federal funding for such work remains a pittance compared to the billions of dollars spent on firefighting.
“When everybody knows what to do and they don’t do it, there’s something deeper going on,” said Wara, who helped draft a recent independent report on the costs of California wildfire that noted the state’s “long history of underinvestment in prevention and mitigation.”
The problem, he says, is largely institutional.
“You developed firefighting institutions that are very powerful, where institutional advancement for people has to do with how well you perform the firefighting mission” — not how well you reduce wildfire hazard,” he argued. “So we have to create something new.”
“The system we had for managing this problem doesn’t work anymore.” — Michael Wara
Wara stressed that he was not suggesting the state cut firefighting funding, but that it spend far more on abating the growing severity of California’s inevitable wildfires — and that it do so through a new state entity apart from Cal Fire.
“There’s been a lack of willingness to say … We just need to spend money. This is a deferred maintenance issue,” he added.
Wara is not alone. Environmentalists and tribes are calling on the state to ramp up prevention spending. A diverse coalition of groups — including Defenders of Wildlife, the Wine Institute and the California Cattlemen’s Assn. — recently urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to spend $1.5 billion next year on what it called wildfire resilience: Wildland fuel reduction, prescribed fire and making rural communities more fire-resistant.
Iris, 4, and Castle Snider, 8, look on as the Bobcat fire burns the hillsides behind their Monrovia home in September. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
That would be a radical departure from the past decade, when even modest efforts to boost prevention funding have stumbled.
In 2011, the Legislature imposed an annual fee on homes in areas protected by Cal Fire. The assessment, which paid for a variety of department activities, including fire prevention and hazardous fuel reduction, proved so unpopular in rural counties that it was essentially killed six years later.
Lawmakers then turned to the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, funneling $200 million a year in cap-and-trade auction proceeds to community fire prevention grants and prescribed burning by Cal Fire crews.
Most of that evaporated early this year when the COVID-related economic downturn slashed industry demand for the program’s pollution allowances. Budget problems also killed the Newsom administration’s proposal for a November $4.75-billion climate resilience bond, which included $750 million for wildfire community protection and forest health.
“We know what is needed to do fire resilience,” said Jessica Morse, deputy secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, which oversees Cal Fire. “We had laid out a plan … COVID and our budget crisis undermined those plans.”
Though cap-and-trade auction revenue has rebounded since May, she said “conversations are underway” to find a more stable funding source.
But she dismissed the idea of a new state department devoted to fire-hazard reduction. “I don’t think new bureaucracy is the solution,” Morse said. “We have identified what the solutions are. We need to be able to invest in them consistently at scale.”
She cited an August agreement between the state and the U.S. Forest Service in which they each committed to annually treating 500,000 acres of California forest and rangelands by 2025 with a variety of fuel-reduction practices, including prescribed fire, thinning overgrown woodlands, timber harvest and grazing.
Yet this memorandum of understanding is non-binding and includes neither money nor staffing.
Moreover, the state’s claim that it is already well on its way to meeting its commitment does not withstand close scrutiny.
Of the nearly 400,000 acres the resources agency says were treated in the last fiscal year, work by Cal Fire crews constituted only 55,000 acres — and just half of that was prescribed fire. Community grant projects, such as fuel break construction, represented another 35,000 acres.
The rest, some 300,000 acres, largely consisted of work by private landowners, including 115,000 acres of commercial timber harvest, as well as 114,000 acres of dead-tree removal that may never have been completed.
Landowners can cut down dead, dying and drought-killed trees under a program that exempts them from having to file a costly timber harvesting plan with Cal Fire. They apply to remove the trees on certain acreage.
But there is no requirement that they actually do all the work, nor does the state check to see if they have, said Helge Eng, Cal Fire’s deputy director of forestry.
The logging also doesn’t necessarily remove the small growth and dead material on the forest floor that helps fuel more intense wildfires.
“Generously, I’d say half of those acres are probably effective fuels reduction,” UC Berkeley forestry specialist Bill Stewart said of the roughly 300,000 acres of timberlands the state touted as treated in fiscal year 2019-20.
Firefighters battle the Hennessy fire in Vacaville, Calif., in August. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
He also questioned the focus on timberlands, given that much of what has burned in California’s big, destructive wildfires isn’t forest. It’s grassland, oak woodland and shrubland.
The first two landscapes are in need of prescribed fire, not logging. The third is unsuited to fuel reduction. If cleared or burned too often, chaparral — or brush as Cal Fire calls it — turns to invasive grass that ignites readily and feeds fast-moving flames.
Keith Gilless, chair of the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, defended the state’s treatment numbers. “I don’t feel that this is an attempt to claim more progress towards an elusive goal than we are actually making,” he said. “I do believe that the activities … move us in the right direction.
“Are they in aggregate what we should be doing to allow us to reduce fire risk and reintroduce fire on the landscape successfully? No, we are not doing enough acres,” Gilless acknowledged. He added that the state is looking for ways to ease barriers to controlled burning, including air quality concerns and liability for escaped fires on private land.
The Forest Service in California also devotes most of its money and effort to firefighting rather than hazard reduction on the nearly 21 million acres of federal wildlands it manages in the state.
In the last fiscal year, the agency conducted controlled burns on just 16,742 of those acres, according to the regional office. Between 2010 and 2017 — the last year for which data was available — it used thinning projects or commercial timber sales to reduce forest fuels on an annual average of 103,000 acres.
Barnie Gyant, who until recently served as deputy regional forester, blamed the low numbers on a familiar litany: A shortage of money and staff to complete projects; public complaints about smoke from controlled burns; and the lack of a commercial market for the small trees that crowd many national forests.
“I’m always hoping there is more money,” he said, “but the reality is, that depends on Congress and the other needs that exist in the country for all the other programs.”
“Fire is the key, natural ecological process that outdated policies have removed.” — Patrick Gonzalez
In September, as fires raged up and down the West Coast, UC Berkeley forest ecologist and climate change scientist Patrick Gonzalez proposed a major shift in federal wildfire policy to break what he called a vicious cycle: Bigger, more intense wildfires boost carbon emissions, which accelerate climate change, which promotes more intense fires.
Washington, he wrote on a science policy website, should redirect federal firefighting funding — which nationally topped $3 billion in 2018 — to fire-use.
Prescribed burns and managing moderate lightning fires in remote areas are the cheapest and most effective ways to tackle the West’s catastrophic fire problem, Gonzalez said.
“Fire is the key, natural ecological process that outdated policies have removed. Only the restoration of natural fire can completely address the root causes of the problem.”


latimes--2020-12-23--COVID-19 surges at L.A. County shopping malls as holiday customers pack stores

Paola Hernández watched as shoppers at the Citadel Outlets bumped shoulders and ignored signs directing foot traffic under bow-adorned palm trees .
Two girls stood a few feet behind her licking ice cream cones , even though eating has been banned in malls .
Hernandez , 57 , and her daughter went to the outdoor mall in Commerce on Monday when they weren ’ t able to find the holiday presents they wanted to buy online , she said .
But even sitting on a bench outside had started to feel unsafe when , despite a sign stating it seated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down next to her .
“ I do feel scared .
... A lot of us don ’ t follow the rules .
That ’ s the problem , ” said Hernandez , who lives in El Monte .
“ The virus is in the air.
” In this latest , most dire phase of the pandemic , as millions of Californians have been asked to stay home and avoid their families for the holidays , packed shopping malls have become a flashpoint .
In recent weeks , Los Angeles County officials have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and shuttered nail and hair salons .
Yet , as case numbers continue to rise unabated and hospitals warn they may soon be forced to ration care , malls have continued to welcome holiday shoppers .
Shopping malls and retail businesses deemed nonessential must limit occupancy to 20 % of their maximum capacity , under county rules .
But in the eyes of many , even public officials , they remain unsafe .
L.A. County health services director Dr. Christina Ghaly said that recent images of busy shopping centers worried her .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outrage online after showing cars vying for parking spots at the Citadel .
“ If you ’ re still out there shopping for your loved ones for this holiday season ... then you are missing the gravity of the situation that is affecting hospitals across L.A. County , ” Ghaly said Monday .
“ Though they may seem benign , these actions are extremely high-risk.
” Indeed , as COVID spreads faster than ever in L.A. County , it has reached malls , too .
The vast majority of outbreaks reported at shopping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the past four weeks , according to a Times analysis of data posted on An outbreak is defined as three or more cases among staff in a 14-day period .
At the Northridge Fashion Center , 12 J.C. Penney employees recently tested positive for the coronavirus , as did 10 at Kohl ’ s in the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach and 24 at the Best Buy in the West Hollywood Gateway retail center , which prompted a six-day closure of the store .
New outbreaks have also been reported at Vans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Glendale Galleria and Forever 21 at the Montebello Town Center .
The cases don ’ t necessarily reflect unsafe practices on the part of companies as much as the difficulty of controlling spread when prevalence of the virus is this high , experts say .
Outbreaks are soaring across industries , with 505 businesses in L.A. County in the midst of one as of Tuesday , compared with 204 a month ago , according to county data .
To many , the flare-ups at retail stores and shopping malls exemplify the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Stores that sell nonessential goods , such as books , jeans and TVs , remain open for in-store browsing , while officials warn that it is dangerous to leave the house unless absolutely necessary .
“ It ’ s like telling little kids , ‘ You can ’ t have a lollipop , but I ’ m going to put one right there in front of you , ’ ” said Reina Morataya , a manager at a clothing store at Plaza El Segundo , where customers have been flooding in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stores open — compelled by a lack of federal relief to help ailing businesses — has muddied the public health message , said UCLA epidemiology professor Shira Shafir .
“ There ’ s been so much messaging in the pandemic that said , ‘ It ’ s not safe for X to be open , so we ’ re going to close X , ’ ” she said .
“ It ’ s totally reasonable for people to then interpret the inverse : ‘ If it ’ s open , it must be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in L.A. County careens toward catastrophe , public health director Barbara Ferrer said Monday she was not considering further closures , noting that retail is already at a “ much-reduced ” 20 % capacity .
At the Citadel Outlets on Monday , a line snaked outside the Calvin Klein store , where an outbreak infected three staff members earlier this month .
Inside the mostly empty store , shoppers had plenty of room to space out and employees in masks frequently approached the hand sanitizer dispenser .
But the rest of the outdoor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brushed past one another in their rush to their next destination , forming looping queues as they waited to get into stores .
At an outdoor kiosk selling anime figurines , an employee sprayed her hands with sanitizer .
She pointed to shoppers walking by , disobeying the one-way signs , and said she worries when customers get too close .
“ But what to do ?
We have to pay the rent , ” she said .
Shopping malls and retail stores were closed in the early months of the pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activities .
In-store shopping was restarted in early May , and indoor malls followed in October as COVID-19 spread in L.A. County hit a low point .
But when more people began to fall sick the following month , officials tried to curb the spread while also closing as few stores as possible , as federal relief for businesses had dried up .
So while taking a masked walk with a friend was banned under the new orders , retail shops remained open at 20 % capacity .
As comedian Johan Miranda , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Angeles stay at home orders I can ’ t see her unless we happen to be shopping at the same Target.
” The decisions to keep these stores open have not been without health consequences .
Workplaces are an ideal setting for the spread of COVID-19 — indoor environments where people interact in close quarters for hours on end .
Even a classic Southern California outdoor mall does not help much , since the workers spend all day inside the stores .
Outbreaks have been reported this month at the Apple Store at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Burbank Empire Center as well as Amazon Books and Nordstrom at the Los Cerritos Center .
Half of the outbreaks reported at Target stores in L.A. County during the pandemic were reported in December .
Five Costco branches have been hit with outbreaks in the past two weeks , and at least 135 staff have been infected , according to county records .
Representatives from impacted companies told The Times they have followed all protocols and that cases often originate outside the workplace .
Apple opted on Saturday to close all its California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caution as we closely monitor the situation , ” a spokesperson said .
Rachel Michelin , president of the California Retailers Assn.
, said the organization has asked the state for information that would help determine whether infections are coming from shopping centers , but the requests have gone unanswered .
Without that clarity , retailers are moving forward with their best efforts to keep shoppers and employees safe , she said .
“ We ’ ve openly said if retail is a major problem in transmission of COVID-19 , show us the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We can ’ t just blame businesses for behavior of people who are going out and having parties or going to other households.
” L.A. County chief medical officer Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser said the high number of workplace outbreaks is mostly a reflection of how widespread the coronavirus is in the county — currently 1 in 80 residents are believed to be infectious .
Contact tracing interviews from the first half of December found that among people who contracted COVID-19 and were employed , 8 % worked in retail , he said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot more outbreaks in facilities , they think there ’ s a lot of transmission going on there , and that isn ’ t necessarily true , ” he said .
“ It ’ s just because there are so many cases.
” Since late August , county investigators have fined businesses up to $ 500 each time they seriously violate COVID safety precautions .
The Citadel has been fined four times since November , according to county records .
In response , the mall “ took the feedback from health officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to eat or drink , made walkways wider , ensured proper spacing in lines , canceled all live events and expanded curbside pickup options , said Citadel general manager David Blagg .
“ We ’ re pleased to share that we received another visit from Los Angeles County Department of Public Health yesterday and were found compliant , ” he wrote in an email Tuesday .

Soumya Karlamangla, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

People walk against the suggested flow of foot traffic for coronavirus precautions at the Citadel Outlets in Commerce on Tuesday.
Paola Hernández watched as shoppers at the Citadel Outlets bumped shoulders and ignored signs directing foot traffic under bow-adorned palm trees. Two girls stood a few feet behind her licking ice cream cones, even though eating has been banned in malls.
Hernandez, 57, and her daughter went to the outdoor mall in Commerce on Monday when they weren’t able to find the holiday presents they wanted to buy online, she said. But even sitting on a bench outside had started to feel unsafe when, despite a sign stating it seated only two, a third person sat down next to her.
“I do feel scared. ... A lot of us don’t follow the rules. That’s the problem,” said Hernandez, who lives in El Monte. “The virus is in the air.”
Advertisement
In this latest, most dire phase of the pandemic, as millions of Californians have been asked to stay home and avoid their families for the holidays, packed shopping malls have become a flashpoint.
In recent weeks, Los Angeles County officials have banned outdoor dining, temporarily closed playgrounds and shuttered nail and hair salons. Yet, as case numbers continue to rise unabated and hospitals warn they may soon be forced to ration care, malls have continued to welcome holiday shoppers.
Shopping malls and retail businesses deemed nonessential must limit occupancy to 20% of their maximum capacity, under county rules. But in the eyes of many, even public officials, they remain unsafe.
L.A. County health services director Dr. Christina Ghaly said that recent images of busy shopping centers worried her. On Saturday, an NBC News video sparked outrage online after showing cars vying for parking spots at the Citadel.
“If you’re still out there shopping for your loved ones for this holiday season ... then you are missing the gravity of the situation that is affecting hospitals across L.A. County,” Ghaly said Monday. “Though they may seem benign, these actions are extremely high-risk.”
Advertisement
California Coronavirus wave pushes California to brink of 2 million cases The numbers show the coronavirus circulating statewide; behaviors thought to be relatively safe weeks ago now carry a higher risk of infection.
Indeed, as COVID spreads faster than ever in L.A. County, it has reached malls, too. The vast majority of outbreaks reported at shopping malls during the pandemic were reported in the past four weeks, according to a Times analysis of data posted on the county’s website. An outbreak is defined as three or more cases among staff in a 14-day period.
At the Northridge Fashion Center, 12 J.C. Penney employees recently tested positive for the coronavirus, as did 10 at Kohl’s in the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach and 24 at the Best Buy in the West Hollywood Gateway retail center, which prompted a six-day closure of the store.
New outbreaks have also been reported at Vans in the Burbank Town Center, Zara at the Glendale Galleria and Forever 21 at the Montebello Town Center.
The cases don’t necessarily reflect unsafe practices on the part of companies as much as the difficulty of controlling spread when prevalence of the virus is this high, experts say.
Outbreaks are soaring across industries, with 505 businesses in L.A. County in the midst of one as of Tuesday, compared with 204 a month ago, according to county data.
To many, the flare-ups at retail stores and shopping malls exemplify the contradiction of L.A.’s current COVID rules: Stores that sell nonessential goods, such as books, jeans and TVs, remain open for in-store browsing, while officials warn that it is dangerous to leave the house unless absolutely necessary.
“It’s like telling little kids, ‘You can’t have a lollipop, but I’m going to put one right there in front of you,’” said Reina Morataya, a manager at a clothing store at Plaza El Segundo, where customers have been flooding in recent days.
The economic decision to keep stores open — compelled by a lack of federal relief to help ailing businesses — has muddied the public health message, said UCLA epidemiology professor Shira Shafir.
“There’s been so much messaging in the pandemic that said, ‘It’s not safe for X to be open, so we’re going to close X,’” she said. “It’s totally reasonable for people to then interpret the inverse: ‘If it’s open, it must be safe.’”
Even as the situation in L.A. County careens toward catastrophe, public health director Barbara Ferrer said Monday she was not considering further closures, noting that retail is already at a “much-reduced” 20% capacity.
“Stay home,” she said.
At the Citadel Outlets on Monday, a line snaked outside the Calvin Klein store, where an outbreak infected three staff members earlier this month. Inside the mostly empty store, shoppers had plenty of room to space out and employees in masks frequently approached the hand sanitizer dispenser.
But the rest of the outdoor mall was a free-for-all, where customers brushed past one another in their rush to their next destination, forming looping queues as they waited to get into stores.
At an outdoor kiosk selling anime figurines, an employee sprayed her hands with sanitizer. She pointed to shoppers walking by, disobeying the one-way signs, and said she worries when customers get too close.
“But what to do? We have to pay the rent,” she said.
Shopping malls and retail stores were closed in the early months of the pandemic, as widespread shutdowns prohibited almost all indoor activities. In-store shopping was restarted in early May, and indoor malls followed in October as COVID-19 spread in L.A. County hit a low point.
California A family wonders if they should hope a loved one with COVID-19 lives or help him die Bob Harris told his family he didn’t want to be on a ventilator, but when his family wasn’t ready for him to stop fighting COVID-19, he agreed to be intubated. One week on the ventilator turned into three, and the Harris family faced a terrible decision.
But when more people began to fall sick the following month, officials tried to curb the spread while also closing as few stores as possible, as federal relief for businesses had dried up.
So while taking a masked walk with a friend was banned under the new orders, retail shops remained open at 20% capacity.
As comedian Johan Miranda tweeted , “Just told my mom under Los Angeles stay at home orders I can’t see her unless we happen to be shopping at the same Target.”
The decisions to keep these stores open have not been without health consequences.
Workplaces are an ideal setting for the spread of COVID-19 — indoor environments where people interact in close quarters for hours on end. Even a classic Southern California outdoor mall does not help much, since the workers spend all day inside the stores.
Outbreaks have been reported this month at the Apple Store at the Beverly Center, Michaels in the Burbank Empire Center as well as Amazon Books and Nordstrom at the Los Cerritos Center.
Half of the outbreaks reported at Target stores in L.A. County during the pandemic were reported in December. Five Costco branches have been hit with outbreaks in the past two weeks, and at least 135 staff have been infected, according to county records.
Representatives from impacted companies told The Times they have followed all protocols and that cases often originate outside the workplace. Apple opted on Saturday to close all its California stores “out of an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation,” a spokesperson said.
Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Assn., said the organization has asked the state for information that would help determine whether infections are coming from shopping centers, but the requests have gone unanswered.
Without that clarity, retailers are moving forward with their best efforts to keep shoppers and employees safe, she said.
“We’ve openly said if retail is a major problem in transmission of COVID-19, show us the data,” Michelin said. “We can’t just blame businesses for behavior of people who are going out and having parties or going to other households.”
L.A. County chief medical officer Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser said the high number of workplace outbreaks is mostly a reflection of how widespread the coronavirus is in the county — currently 1 in 80 residents are believed to be infectious.
Contact tracing interviews from the first half of December found that among people who contracted COVID-19 and were employed, 8% worked in retail, he said.
“When people hear there’s a lot more outbreaks in facilities, they think there’s a lot of transmission going on there, and that isn’t necessarily true,” he said. “It’s just because there are so many cases.”
Since late August, county investigators have fined businesses up to $500 each time they seriously violate COVID safety precautions.
The Citadel has been fined four times since November, according to county records. In response, the mall “took the feedback from health officials seriously” and improved signage telling people not to eat or drink, made walkways wider, ensured proper spacing in lines, canceled all live events and expanded curbside pickup options, said Citadel general manager David Blagg.
“We’re pleased to share that we received another visit from Los Angeles County Department of Public Health yesterday and were found compliant,” he wrote in an email Tuesday.


latimes--2020-12-23--A family wonders if they should hope a loved one with COVID-19 lives or help him die

He told them he did not want to be placed on a ventilator .
He was at peace and ready to meet Jesus .
Then , when his family was just not prepared for him to stop the fight against COVID-19 , he agreed to be intubated .
For a week .
His wife , Marilou , had dropped him off at the emergency room on Oct. 29 with a hopeful , “ Sweetie , I ’ ll come and get you tomorrow morning.
” The 61-year-old motivational speaker had felt sick enough that day to seek a doctor ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail bills and his absentee ballot en route to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills .
One week on the ventilator turned into three , and in early December the Harris family faced a terrible decision .
If Bob were to continue on the ventilator , he would have to have a tracheostomy — a surgical procedure in which a hole would be cut into his neck .
That way , the ventilator could pump oxygen into his lungs through a tube in his airway instead of one down his throat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not seen their husband and father in person for 36 days .
They hadn ’ t held Bob ’ s hand or stroked his forehead .
There ’ d been phone calls and texts and video meetings .
But once he was placed on the ventilator , even his voice was silenced .
In the cruel calculus of COVID-19 , there was only one way they could be with him in the hospital .
If the ventilator was turned off .
If he was about to die .
“ Remember , this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Dr. Marwa Kilani told the Harrises during a noon family conference .
She was on speaker phone , surrounded by the hospital ’ s palliative care team .
They were crammed into their tiny office on the hospital ’ s third floor .
“ We need to be Bob ’ s voice .
What ’ s the best thing for Bob ?
” asked Kilani , medical director for palliative care at Providence Holy Cross .
“ I know what you want for Dad .
I know what you want for your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to tell me what Bob would be saying.
” Palliative care is the medical specialty that helps improve the quality of life for patients with serious illnesses — everything from the curable , such as trauma or certain cancers , to those that bring people to the end of their days .
It aims to support the whole patient and the whole family with nurses , social workers , chaplains and doctors .
It is difficult to find a circumstance that has hit Kilani ’ s team as hard as the pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ County , infecting more than 636,000 and killing nearly 9,000 people , Holy Cross ’ palliative care team averaged about 20 cases at any given time .
In early December that caseload hit 60 .
In one recent four-day period , 12 of the team ’ s patients died .
During the second week in December , the hospital ’ s COVID unit reached capacity , and there was no longer room for families to visit loved ones as they died of the virus .
On Monday , a member of the palliative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has cared for more than 1,350 people with COVID-19 since March .
The current surge has forced the hospital to turn basement lab space into patient rooms .
COVID-19 patients now take up the hospital ’ s entire recently expanded south tower .
Half of all palliative care patients have the virus .
Or , as in Bob ’ s case , their families do .
Hope he lives or help him die .
Kilani was a medical student in the 1990s , during the last health crisis that rocked the nation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The similarities between that disaster and this one are glaring : The stigma .
The victim blaming .
The inequity .
Both diseases , she said , lay bare the wide chasm between the haves and have-nots , between who gets good care and who has little access to treatment .
In both crises , patients have been viewed , at least for a time , as “ untouchables.
” Which is why she does not wear gloves as she makes her rounds in the COVID unit .
Touch , she said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from constant scrubbing and sanitizer , her nails , dry and split .
Because hospital visits are largely banned in the age of the coronavirus , the palliative care team often steps in , she said , as a kind of “ substitute family at the bedside of a patient.
” The core team includes two nurses , two chaplains , one nurse practitioner and a social worker .
They focus on pain and symptom management , on advance care planning , on helping patients and families navigate an alien and often frightening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work more complicated , for patients with COVID-19 and those without .
Family meetings are on phone or video .
Time with patients is cut short .
And along with everything else , the team must treat yet another terrible ailment .
Kilani checked in one recent Friday on a COVID-19 patient who — on paper at least — was steadily improving .
His vital signs were good .
He ’ d needed less and less oxygen as the days went by .
But when she asked him how he felt , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like you took too much blood out , ” he told her .
“ I feel so weak.
” His appetite was gone .
He hadn ’ t eaten breakfast .
She asked if he would like some coffee , brought him a cup and sat with him .
“ He looked at me like he wanted to cry , ” she said .
“ It was heart-wrenching .
… I feel it ’ s the loneliness and fear that overwhelms him.
” He has a lot of family members for support , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very far away .
Kilani walked into Bob ’ s hospital room two weeks after he was admitted .
He was on 100 % high-flow oxygen delivered through a tube in his nose — the last step before intubation — but the oxygen level in his blood was “ horrible , ” she said .
Healthy people have an oxygen saturation level of around 98 % .
Bob ’ s was in the mid-80s — even with the supplemental oxygen .
Their first conversation came immediately to the point .
Kilani : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re going to take good care of you.
” COVID-19 can cause blood clots , stroke and other maladies , but Bob had straight-up lung disease .
The virus had caused so much damage that his lungs were failing .
He had already told his attending physician , and anyone else who would listen , how he felt about ventilators .
“ He ’ s at peace , ‘ if Jesus says it ’ s my time , ’ ” Chaplain Kevin Deegan wrote in his consultation notes .
“ Robert says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dead , but of the dying part.
” Being on a ventilator hurts .
Patients often try to pull out the tube that goes down their throat and into their lungs , so they are given anti-anxiety medication , pain killers and sedatives .
In the most serious cases , like Bob ’ s , they are also given a drug that paralyzes them .
Bob also was strapped into a mechanical bed , which rotated him so that he was lying face down .
He was in that prone position for 18 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down , then two face up and on and on .
It allowed his lungs to function more effectively .
It also caused his face to swell .
That was the reality facing Marilou , Michelle and Michael on Dec. 4 , during their regular Friday family meeting with the palliative care team .
Kilani , Deegan and the rest of the team who had been caring for Bob since the middle of November gathered around the phone on Kilani ’ s desk .
The hospital ’ s ugly Christmas sweater contest was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ garish woolens was slumped nearby .
First there were updates on Bob ’ s deteriorating condition .
Then , the question .
What now ?
Michelle spoke first .
She is 25 , an actor .
While her father was in a medically induced coma , she would play guitar and sing to him via an iPad that Deegan would set up in his room .
In 2016 , Michelle ’ s friends were trying out for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios .
She decided to give it whirl , maybe get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maze .
Since he was there anyway , Bob , a Messianic Jew who once gave stand-up comedy a try , auditioned too .
They were asked to do their best death scene .
Michelle “ did this big dramatic thing , ” she said , and fell to the ground as her grand finale .
Bob choked and grunted , swore , “ you ’ ll never take me alive , ” and died standing up .
And got the job .
“ He ’ s not even the actor in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ He also got to be Twisty the Clown in the Horror Nights commercial .
It was just a few seconds .
A girl screams , he dances away .
… He got residual checks.
” How do you say goodbye to a man like that in the middle of a pandemic ?
“ I just feel like my dad would want to keep fighting , ” Michelle told the palliative team .
“ I feel like we ’ ve got to give him more time.
” The team members , startled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say , “ Oh , no , they ’ re going to want to continue , ” Deegan recounted .
“ It ’ s against his wishes .
What are we going to do ?
” When Michelle was done , the chaplain asked Marilou what she was thinking at that difficult moment .
“ I ’ m sorry , honey , ” she began .
“ I just have to say , I feel really differently than Michelle does.
” Michelle began to cry , her sobs carrying over the phone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family .
It was time to call the ethicist .
D.W. Donovan ’ s formal title is chief mission integration officer , which sounds more NASA than Holy Cross .
But the former Catholic chaplain ’ s task is a completely human one — among other duties , to help patients , families , doctors and the hospital as a whole answer a daunting question .
Just because we can do something , in this case , keep a patient alive for an unknowable amount of time , should we ?
The answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ There ’ s no realistic medical chance that the patient will be able to be weaned off the ventilator without undergoing a tracheostomy , ” Donovan wrote in Bob ’ s electronic file .
“ Given his prior statements , even as amended , it now seems most ethically and morally appropriate to honor the patient ’ s wish not to prolong the period of intubation , to extubate him and to allow natural death.
” Marilou , Michelle and Michael walk into room 1306 just after 11 a.m. Dec. 7 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The two women wear double masks .
Michael , who is 19 , tall and grief-stricken , stands to his father ’ s left .
His gloves are cobalt blue .
His hands rest on Bob ’ s arm .
He will barely move for the next half-hour or so .
Marilou stands at her husband ’ s right shoulder .
She strokes his arm .
Michelle reaches over and places her hand on Bob ’ s forehead .
Bob lies , motionless , in the hospital bed .
He has grown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West Hills home 39 days before .
The ventilator is strapped to his face by a slender band .
A clear tube comes out of his mouth and rests on his gray-gowned chest .
It is connected to an oxygen source by thick blue tubing .
His chest rises and falls with the machine ’ s rhythm .
His eyes are closed .
His loved ones look and look and look at the peaceful face before them .
In the hallway of the COVID ward , Deegan holds an iPad , monitoring Bob @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they call in to say goodbye via Zoom .
Even before the session begins , nearly 80 people have joined .
A disembodied voice asks the chaplain to pray with them .
“ Loving and merciful God , we come before you yet again , ” Deegan begins .
`` ... You know the prayers of our heart .
You know how we cry out to you .
We ’ ve sung songs to you in worship .
We are here yet again on a difficult day.
” A nurse removes her face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ above her masks , a teal N95 number beneath a yellow surgical covering .
Deegan enters 1306 , places the iPad on a table at the foot of the bed and a stream of loving voices warms the room .
They laugh .
They choke up .
A little girl calls out : “ I love you , Uncle Bobby.
” The chaplain places his gloved hand over his heart .
Kilani stands beside Deegan at the foot of the bed .
She nods as the sweet words pour into the room .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ midsection .
She hates goodbyes .
She walks to the door , bows her head , stands silent .
And listens .
I don ’ t want to say goodbye to you , Bob .
I don ’ t want to .
You were our first neighbor .
We shared the Northridge earthquake ... watching our kids grow .
We love you , good and faithful servant .
Hey , Bob , this is Pastor Neal from the Church at Rocky Peak ...
The Lord turn His face toward you and give you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drive at 13 .
You made such a positive impact on my life .
I will never forget it .
I will always talk about you , forever .
The call is over .
The room goes quiet .
The family prays , says goodbye , files out and into the rest of their lives .
The respiratory therapist turns off the ventilator .
A nurse turns the light down .
Kilani strokes Bob ’ s brow .
Deegan holds his feet .
Bob is breathing on his own .
His heart rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The monitor flashes the number of times his heart beats in a minute :

Bob Harris gave his family one final gift.
He told them he did not want to be placed on a ventilator. He was at peace and ready to meet Jesus. Then, when his family was just not prepared for him to stop the fight against COVID-19, he agreed to be intubated. For a week.
A week wasn’t enough.
His wife, Marilou, had dropped him off at the emergency room on Oct. 29 with a hopeful, “Sweetie, I’ll come and get you tomorrow morning.” The 61-year-old motivational speaker had felt sick enough that day to seek a doctor’s care — but well enough to mail bills and his absentee ballot en route to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.
One week on the ventilator turned into three, and in early December the Harris family faced a terrible decision.
Wearing blue isolation gowns, Bob Harris’ daughter Michelle Harris, from left, wife Marilou Harris and son Michael Harris, 19, are greeted by registered nurses Nikki Hollinger, Laura Geronga and Maria Garcia, outside Bob’s room in the COVID unit. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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If Bob were to continue on the ventilator, he would have to have a tracheostomy — a surgical procedure in which a hole would be cut into his neck. That way, the ventilator could pump oxygen into his lungs through a tube in his airway instead of one down his throat.
Marilou, Michelle and Michael had not seen their husband and father in person for 36 days. They hadn’t held Bob’s hand or stroked his forehead. There’d been phone calls and texts and video meetings. But once he was placed on the ventilator, even his voice was silenced. In the cruel calculus of COVID-19, there was only one way they could be with him in the hospital.
Marilou Harris, left, and Michael Harris, 19, right, reach out to Bob Harris. The COVID-19 patient had agreed to be placed on a ventilator for a week, but one week became three. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
If the ventilator was turned off. If he was about to die.
“Remember, this is Bob and Bob’s wishes,” Dr. Marwa Kilani told the Harrises during a noon family conference. She was on speaker phone, surrounded by the hospital’s palliative care team. They were crammed into their tiny office on the hospital’s third floor.
“We need to be Bob’s voice. What’s the best thing for Bob?” asked Kilani, medical director for palliative care at Providence Holy Cross. “I know what you want for Dad. I know what you want for your husband. But you’ve got to tell me what Bob would be saying.”
Palliative care is the medical specialty that helps improve the quality of life for patients with serious illnesses — everything from the curable, such as trauma or certain cancers, to those that bring people to the end of their days. It aims to support the whole patient and the whole family with nurses, social workers, chaplains and doctors.
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Dr. Marwa Kilani, right, listens to a nurse in the COVID unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. Kilani, who is the medical director for palliative care at the Mission Hills facility, is working closely with the Harris family. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
It is difficult to find a circumstance that has hit Kilani’s team as hard as the pandemic. Before the coronavirus swept through Los Angeles County, infecting more than 636,000 and killing nearly 9,000 people, Holy Cross’ palliative care team averaged about 20 cases at any given time. In early December that caseload hit 60. In one recent four-day period, 12 of the team’s patients died.
During the second week in December, the hospital’s COVID unit reached capacity, and there was no longer room for families to visit loved ones as they died of the virus. On Monday, a member of the palliative care team tested positive.
Holy Cross has cared for more than 1,350 people with COVID-19 since March. The current surge has forced the hospital to turn basement lab space into patient rooms. COVID-19 patients now take up the hospital’s entire recently expanded south tower. Half of all palliative care patients have the virus.
Many face harrowing choices.
Or, as in Bob’s case, their families do.
Hope he lives or help him die.
::
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Marilou Harris, from left, and her children Michelle and Michael stand by Bob’s bedside. The patient’s lungs were failing from the effects of the virus. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Kilani was a medical student in the 1990s, during the last health crisis that rocked the nation, when HIV/AIDs spread pain and panic. The similarities between that disaster and this one are glaring: The stigma. The victim blaming. The inequity.
Both diseases, she said, lay bare the wide chasm between the haves and have-nots, between who gets good care and who has little access to treatment. In both crises, patients have been viewed, at least for a time, as “untouchables.”
Which is why she does not wear gloves as she makes her rounds in the COVID unit. Touch, she said, is healing. Her hands are raw from constant scrubbing and sanitizer, her nails, dry and split.
Because hospital visits are largely banned in the age of the coronavirus, the palliative care team often steps in as a kind of “substitute family at the bedside of a patient,” said Dr. Marwa Kilani, medical director for palliative care. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Because hospital visits are largely banned in the age of the coronavirus, the palliative care team often steps in, she said, as a kind of “substitute family at the bedside of a patient.”
The core team includes two nurses, two chaplains, one nurse practitioner and a social worker. They focus on pain and symptom management, on advance care planning, on helping patients and families navigate an alien and often frightening system.
The pandemic has made that work more complicated, for patients with COVID-19 and those without. Family meetings are on phone or video. Time with patients is cut short. And along with everything else, the team must treat yet another terrible ailment.
Loneliness.
Kilani checked in one recent Friday on a COVID-19 patient who — on paper at least — was steadily improving. His vital signs were good. He’d needed less and less oxygen as the days went by. But when she asked him how he felt, his answer was dire.
Left: Michael Harris, 19, rests his gloved hands on his father’s arm. He will barely move for the next half-hour or so. Right: Chaplain Kevin Deegan holds a tube containing the paper image of Bob Harris’ heartbeat. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
“I feel like you took too much blood out,” he told her. “I feel so weak.”
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His appetite was gone. He hadn’t eaten breakfast. She asked if he would like some coffee, brought him a cup and sat with him.
“He looked at me like he wanted to cry,” she said. “It was heart-wrenching. … I feel it’s the loneliness and fear that overwhelms him.”
He has a lot of family members for support, she said,
But they feel so very far away.
::
Dr. Marwa Kilani and Chaplain Kevin Deegan look at an iPad that allows Bob Harris’ family to see him since he was diagnosed with COVID-19 in October. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Kilani walked into Bob’s hospital room two weeks after he was admitted. He was on 100% high-flow oxygen delivered through a tube in his nose — the last step before intubation — but the oxygen level in his blood was “horrible,” she said. Healthy people have an oxygen saturation level of around 98%. Bob’s was in the mid-80s — even with the supplemental oxygen.
Their first conversation came immediately to the point.
Bob: ”I’m dying.”
Kilani: “You’re not dying. We’re going to take good care of you.”
COVID-19 can cause blood clots, stroke and other maladies, but Bob had straight-up lung disease. The virus had caused so much damage that his lungs were failing. He had already told his attending physician, and anyone else who would listen, how he felt about ventilators.
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Chaplain Kevin Deegan, left, holds an iPad over Bob Harris so his family can see him. Harris is strapped into a mechanical bed that rotates him to allow his lungs to function more effectively. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
“He’s at peace, ‘if Jesus says it’s my time,’” Chaplain Kevin Deegan wrote in his consultation notes. “Robert says he’s not afraid of being dead, but of the dying part.”
Being on a ventilator hurts. Patients often try to pull out the tube that goes down their throat and into their lungs, so they are given anti-anxiety medication, pain killers and sedatives. In the most serious cases, like Bob’s, they are also given a drug that paralyzes them.
‘I just feel like my dad would want to keep fighting. I feel like we’ve got to give him more time.’ — Michelle Harris, daughter
Bob also was strapped into a mechanical bed, which rotated him so that he was lying face down. He was in that prone position for 18 hours each day — six hours face down, then two face up and on and on. It allowed his lungs to function more effectively. It also caused his face to swell.
That was the reality facing Marilou, Michelle and Michael on Dec. 4, during their regular Friday family meeting with the palliative care team.
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Kilani, Deegan and the rest of the team who had been caring for Bob since the middle of November gathered around the phone on Kilani’s desk. The hospital’s ugly Christmas sweater contest was coming up, and a stack of garish woolens was slumped nearby.
First there were updates on Bob’s deteriorating condition. Then, the question. What now?
The chaplain prays over Bob Harris, whose wife Marilou, left, and daughter Michelle join virtually via iPhone. The women were conflicted about the decision, so an ethicist was called in for consultation. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Michelle spoke first. She is 25, an actor. While her father was in a medically induced coma, she would play guitar and sing to him via an iPad that Deegan would set up in his room.
In 2016, Michelle’s friends were trying out for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. She decided to give it whirl, maybe get a part as a victim in a maze. Since he was there anyway, Bob, a Messianic Jew who once gave stand-up comedy a try, auditioned too.
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They were asked to do their best death scene. Michelle “did this big dramatic thing,” she said, and fell to the ground as her grand finale. Bob choked and grunted, swore, “you’ll never take me alive,” and died standing up.
And got the job.
“He’s not even the actor in the family,” Michelle said, laughing. “He also got to be Twisty the Clown in the Horror Nights commercial. It was just a few seconds. A girl screams, he dances away. … He got residual checks.”
How do you say goodbye to a man like that in the middle of a pandemic?
“I just feel like my dad would want to keep fighting,” Michelle told the palliative team. “I feel like we’ve got to give him more time.”
Bob Harris, who is receiving prayer from Chaplain Kevin Deegan, standing, had been clear about his view of ventilators. “He’s at peace, ‘if Jesus says it’s my time,’” Deegan wrote in his consultation notes about Harris. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Dr. Marwa Kilani prays beside Bob Harris. “We need to be Bob’s voice. What’s the best thing for Bob?” Kilani asked Harris’ family, who had to decide whether to perform surgery to keep him on the ventilator to live. Or to let him die. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
The team members, startled, looked at each other as if to say, “Oh, no, they’re going to want to continue,” Deegan recounted. “It’s against his wishes. What are we going to do?”
When Michelle was done, the chaplain asked Marilou what she was thinking at that difficult moment.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she began. “I just have to say, I feel really differently than Michelle does.”
Michelle began to cry, her sobs carrying over the phone line.
Clear patient wishes. Conflicted family. It was time to call the ethicist.
D.W. Donovan’s formal title is chief mission integration officer, which sounds more NASA than Holy Cross. But the former Catholic chaplain’s task is a completely human one — among other duties, to help patients, families, doctors and the hospital as a whole answer a daunting question.
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Just because we can do something, in this case, keep a patient alive for an unknowable amount of time, should we?
The answer, for Bob, was no.
“There’s no realistic medical chance that the patient will be able to be weaned off the ventilator without undergoing a tracheostomy,” Donovan wrote in Bob’s electronic file.
“Given his prior statements, even as amended, it now seems most ethically and morally appropriate to honor the patient’s wish not to prolong the period of intubation, to extubate him and to allow natural death.”
::
Marilou, Michelle and Michael walk into room 1306 just after 11 a.m. Dec. 7. They have donned protective gowns and gloves. The two women wear double masks.
Chaplain Kevin Deegan helps members of the Harris family — Michael, left, Michelle, center, and Marilou — put on their protective gear before they say their final goodbye to Bob Harris. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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Michael, who is 19, tall and grief-stricken, stands to his father’s left. His gloves are cobalt blue. His hands rest on Bob’s arm. He will barely move for the next half-hour or so. Marilou stands at her husband’s right shoulder. She strokes his arm. Michelle reaches over and places her hand on Bob’s forehead.
Bob lies, motionless, in the hospital bed. He has grown a salt-and-pepper beard since he left his West Hills home 39 days before. The ventilator is strapped to his face by a slender band. A clear tube comes out of his mouth and rests on his gray-gowned chest. It is connected to an oxygen source by thick blue tubing.
Dr. Marwa Kilani, left, and Kevin Deegan, the chaplain, observe Michelle Harris, foreground left, and her mother Marilou in Bob Harris’ room. The family could see Bob in the hospital only if the ventilator was turned off. If he was about to die. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
His chest rises and falls with the machine’s rhythm. His eyes are closed. His loved ones look and look and look at the peaceful face before them.
In the hallway of the COVID ward, Deegan holds an iPad, monitoring Bob’s friends and family members as they call in to say goodbye via Zoom. Even before the session begins, nearly 80 people have joined. A disembodied voice asks the chaplain to pray with them.
“Loving and merciful God, we come before you yet again,” Deegan begins. “... You know the prayers of our heart. You know how we cry out to you. We’ve sung songs to you in worship. We are here yet again on a difficult day.”
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A nurse removes her face shield, wipes tears from her eyes above her masks, a teal N95 number beneath a yellow surgical covering.
Registered nurse Maria Garcia removes her face shield to wipe tears from her eyes as Bob Harris’ family say their goodbyes. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Deegan enters 1306, places the iPad on a table at the foot of the bed and a stream of loving voices warms the room. They laugh. They choke up. A little girl calls out: “I love you, Uncle Bobby.” The chaplain places his gloved hand over his heart.
Kilani stands beside Deegan at the foot of the bed. She nods as the sweet words pour into the room. Her arms are wrapped tightly around her midsection. She hates goodbyes. She walks to the door, bows her head, stands silent. And listens.
I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Bob. I don’t want to.
You were our first neighbor. We shared the Northridge earthquake ... watching our kids grow. We love you, good and faithful servant.
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Hey, Bob, this is Pastor Neal from the Church at Rocky Peak ... The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace, Bob.
You let me drive at 13. You made such a positive impact on my life. I will never forget it. I will always talk about you, forever.
Chaplain Kevin Deegan, left, and registered nurses Nikki Hollinger, center, and Laura Geronga stand at the bedside of Bob Harris, who drew his final breath. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
The call is over. The room goes quiet. The family prays, says goodbye, files out and into the rest of their lives.
The respiratory therapist turns off the ventilator. A nurse turns the light down. Kilani strokes Bob’s brow. Deegan holds his feet.
Bob is breathing on his own. His heart rate slows, bounces around and slows again. The monitor flashes the number of times his heart beats in a minute:
Forty.
Six.
Zero.
Times staff photographer Francine Orr contributed to this report.