National Nurses United

When Mary-Jane Perry, RN looked out the window as her airplane approached Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 19, she glimpsed some of the devasta- tion from the Palisades Fire. "It was unreal, post-apocalyptic," said Perry, who had flown down from Sacramento to volunteer with the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) in the wake of two of the most destructive fires in California history. "It was just ashes. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but then realized that's where homes were supposed to be." Several wildfires began burning in southern California in January, but it was the Palisades and Eaton fires that caused the most severe damage, destroying much of Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and surround- ing areas (see sidebar Fire Figures). Longstanding homes, apartment buildings, businesses, beloved restaurants, schools, and places of wor- ship were reduced to rubble, leaving behind charred trees and remnants of walls, chimneys, and roofs. Discolored cars sat in driveways, their windshields, upholstery, and tires melted away. Some homes survived the conflagration, but residents could not return due to downed power lines, lack of drinkable water, and dangerous debris and toxic materials. Hundreds of people displaced by the Eaton and Palisades fires were living in Red Cross shelters at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena and the Westwood Center in West Los Angeles. RNRN, a disaster-relief project of California Nurses Foundation and National Nurses United, helped to support an effort led by International Medi- cal Corps to provide medical and mental health care for the evacuees. International Medical Corps also provided its own volunteer doctors, nurses, and mental health professionals to care not only for people in shelters but also at community distribution centers and reentry points. International Medical Corps and RNRN also staffed a mobile medical unit in Altadena and a Red Cross shelter in north Los Angeles County for a few days, caring for people who evacuated from the Hughes Fire, which started on Jan. 22 but was contained by Jan. 30. In Roseann Devlin's Los Angeles neighborhood, located between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, it rained heavy ash from the Eaton Fire. Her address was under warning for another fire when she got RNRN's email alert. "I saw singed pieces of paper about the size of business cards coming down," said Devlin, a nurse in the oncology and telemetry unit at Little Company of Mary Medical 18 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y | M A R C H 2 0 2 5 Giving Back RNRN nurse volunteers answer the call to help people devastated by the Eaton and Palisades fires. By Chuleenan Svetvilas

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