Elias is an Emmy Award-winning television comedy writer/producer with credits on over 30 shows, including “M*A*S*H,” “Frasier” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” Gail is a marketing-publicity consultant.
On the morning of the fire, “We knew there was a mandatory evacuation; by the time we got the automated alert calls, we were already on Pacific Coast Highway. We took some photos from our deck before we left, not realizing it was the last time we’d ever stand on it,” Gail said. ““We thought we’d be getting out of the way for the first responders and fire department, and we were following orders because the evacuation was mandatory.
“We also evacuated for personal safety, and because we’re not young and we don’t know how to fight fires – which we now wish we did, because some of those who stayed saved their homes and saved other people’s homes,” the couple said.
The day they evacuated, the couple ended up at a friend’s house watching the fire coverage on TV. Elias said, “KTLA5 had a ‘live unit’ stationed on Dume Drive, and a solid block of fire burning behind the reporter turned out to be our house. They kept panning back out to PCH and there was not a firetruck in sight.”
“Have you seen the video I posted of all the firetrucks idle at Zuma?” Gail asked. “Malibu Park is completely on fire – all these houses behind Malibu High School are totally on fire and eight to ten firetrucks are just sitting there without orders.”
“We spent the first night with friends, then in a hotel, then at the home of a friend who was out of town. People have been very kind. We could’ve been staying in people’s guest rooms for a year – but being someone’s guest comes with certain social obligations, and it’s difficult not having the privacy needed to process all the feelings and thoughts in your head,” she added.
The couple lost many cherished and irreplaceable items. “Elias is a writer and had typed scripts with no computer back-up. It’s a lifetime of a career that’s up in smoke,” Gail said.
Elias added that, “My step-daughter got on the phone with the Television Academy about replacing my Emmy, which I won for producing ‘Frasier.’ We all just laughed when the person at the Academy said, ‘We need to have a police report.’ I guess sometimes the awards get stolen or hocked. But it turns out all the awards lost in the fire are going to be replaced.”
Gail also experienced some devastating losses – her mother passed away just a few months before the fire, leaving her pre-WWII family heirlooms. “It’s really hard because my Mom is a Holocaust survivor from Germany, and some of her possessions were brought out of Germany by a relative in 1936. It was hard mainly for the legacy – and the irony that these things made it out of Germany, but I didn’t get them out of Malibu. Those are the things that make me cry.”
In college, Gail studied anthropology but never really used it except in her travels. “I now feel that, when we go back to where the house was, I’m like an archeologist excavating the modern era,” she explained. On their first visit back to the property after the fire, Gail said, “We found my engagement ring with something seared onto it. Other items, I was only able to recognize because of their shape.”
There’s also a way of life that’s lost after a house burns down. Elias and Gail realize that, even though their house will be rebuilt, some things will never be the same. “We’ll still be able to sit in the living room at night and look out at the ocean, or share our coffee while reading our tablets in the morning,” Elias commented. “I can’t describe how to you painful it is not to be able to do that anymore. Someday there will be something to replace it, but it’s not going to feel like that.”
Despite the sadness, Gail and Elias were extremely grateful for all the helping people they met after the fire. “We were invited to events where they were giving away clothing and all sorts of items. One place had a parking lot filled with boxes upon boxes of new clothes from brand names like Roxy and Quiksilver,” Gail said.
“The corporate largesse made a huge difference for us because we felt a little less deprived, a little less like our lives were turned over as much as they were, just to have clothes to put on our backs,” Elias said. “A guy we met by chance gave us a $1,000 gift certificate. I couldn’t believe the generosity and spontaneity. We had only evacuated with a few days’ worth of clothing – so I sent that guy a note saying he would always have a place in my heart.”
Weeks after the fire, Gail went to get her nails done. “A customer in the chair next to me heard my story and paid for my nails – it was the first time I’d had my nails done in five or six weeks and I hadn’t done anything for myself. After hearing our story, people on Craigslist gave us stuff like file cabinets.
“I’d like to dwell on the generosity of spirit of people with no connection to Malibu. There’s a lot of good that can come from terrible events. And I think it helps, going forward, to be mindful of the good things,” Gail said. “You can be in such a dark place and it’s easy to be dark and depressed when your life is thrown into such chaos.”
