Steve Guttenberg’s emotional update on Palisades Home

Steve Guttenberg has remained in the public consciousness for decades thanks to his upbeat persona and memorable roles in 1980s touchstones such as Three men and a baby, Short circuit and that Police Academy franchise. But he’s made a special impact lately, as his recent televised remarks about the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed his longtime Pacific Palisades neighborhood made the rounds on newscasts and social media.

After processing the week’s devastation, Guttenberg joined in The Hollywood Reporter to offer his honest assessment of his beloved community and the support it still desperately needs. His home is still standing, but his family has been without water and power, so the actor borrowed a neighbor’s satellite service to share an update on the dire situation and offer encouragement on ways to help.

It is last Tuesday morning, at 9 o’clock. Everything was idyllic. At 10:45 the sky was dark and it was a plume of smoke as high as the tallest skyscraper you’ve ever seen.

I got on the road to Sunset Boulevard and it was a parking lot. Two miles of bumper-to-bumper. Before I knew it, the fire was coming down the hill on both sides. The public school started to release their children and all the parents were out. The police asked everyone to leave their cars because the fire was so close.

But I saw that the streets were full and the fire department and any emergency vehicles could not get through. So I just started driving cars up the curb. Most people left the keys, but people who didn’t, that was a real problem. Then people flooded the sidewalks.

I helped a lovely elderly man in a wheelchair. His feet dragged on the ground. He was very scared and I held his face in my hands and I said to him, “Everything will be all right and you will have a good dinner tonight.” People just need to be comforted at this moment. There were many mothers looking for their children.

My neighbor was out of the country and I knew his dogs were up there. I just started walking up and a neighbor I didn’t know who lives within a mile of me, he gave me a ride to my house. These poor doggies were shaking and I took care of them and fed them.

But our area was untouched. We had 80 homes in our development. It looked like we would be safe.

That night I went to a friend’s house to sleep and got up early and came back to our neighborhood. I couldn’t get up there but I stayed back and started moving more cars and they rumbled all these cars. I spent the day seeing what I can do for the people, whatever they needed.

So on Thursday morning I drove back and it was hard to get on PCH, but luckily someone recognized me and let me in. I made this movie years ago called The day after about nuclear war. PCH just looked like that.

The sky has been black every day – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. At 1 in the afternoon it seems like 6 at night.

If you are healthy, help when you can: people in wheelchairs, small children, mothers. Try to be thoughtful and kind all year round because we are not one street, one town, one city, one nation. We are one planet – one society.

The resources have been amazing. The fire department is so well coordinated. It takes a unique human being to be able to be physical and emotional and sensitive at the same time. It takes a very special person to do what they do, and we have 3,000 of them here.

We have to realize that right now we are in shock, but we don’t really know what happened. One of my good rabbis told me that when someone passes by, it’s too much for the brain. It doesn’t seem right – it’s just too much. If you were aware of what’s going on, you couldn’t handle it.

Everyone is in shock and it’s a bit of a weird adventure, but I think in a week or so, it’s going to be very real indeed. We are going to have a lot of psychological problems, and we have to take care of that. We are going to have some depressions and a lot of sadness because we have nowhere to buy our food anymore. We have nowhere to get a haircut. We have nowhere to take our shoes.

The only thing that still exists: Rick Caruso built this beautiful new area in the Palisades, and the material itself is fire retardant. All his buildings will be, thank God. But our schools – they are all gone. Ralphs, Gelsons – gone. Restaurants – gone. Buildings that have been there for 80, 100 years – gone.

It’s really gross. When you see a palm tree on fire, you know you’re on another planet. It’s a cliché, but in 20 minutes everything can change everything, and you have to be very aware of that.