After sheltering in place with a large part of the Pepperdine community as they were surrounded by flames and no power for the Franklin Fire, many Pepperdine athletes found themselves in a similar situation during the Palisades Fire.
While most Pepperdine students were still home for winter break during the Palisades Fire, many of Pepperdine’s athletes — including those on Women’s Swim and Dive, Women’s Track and Women’s Basketball — were on campus and had to navigate their second wildfire in two months.
The Franklin Fire started Dec. 9, and was fully contained contained Dec. 18, while the Palisades Fire started Jan. 7, and was fully contained Jan. 31. During the Palisades over 100 Pepperdine athletes were on campus, in Malibu or elsewhere in the area.
“It definitely got really exhausting, and the uncertainty that it could happen another time after that was really worrisome to me and obviously my family too,” said Caroline Graham, Women’s Track junior mid-distance runner.
Evacuating their Homes
On Jan. 7, Women’s Basketball senior forward Maggie Vick said after returning to her off-campus apartment at Malibu Canyon Apartments in Calabasas, she saw the evacuation warnings were spreading and packed a bag of valuables just to be cautious.
Just as Vick was finishing up packing a go-bag, she said she lost power in her apartment, also causing her to lose cell service. Afterward, she drove up the road and after speaking with her dad, decided she would stay in a hotel where she ultimately stayed for a week.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep here [her apartment] knowing that even if I end up having to evacuate, I wouldn’t know — I would [have to] rely on somebody having to knock on my door,’” Vick said.
Emily Garrison, Women’s Swim and Dive sophomore flyer and individual medley, said Women’s Swim and Dive went to Anaheim the morning of Jan. 7, for a team retreat. The team tried to monitor what was happening from afar but stuck with their plan of returning to Malibu later that day.
By the time the team returned to campus, Garrison said some of her teammates were not able to go back to their homes, so every member of the team spent the night on campus just so they could all be together. They went to bed planning to practice the next day, but that was eventually cancelled.
“That next morning, they notified us that we wouldn’t be having swim for a lot of reasons, like air, power, etc.,” Garrison said. “And then later that day, they told us that we were just gonna evacuate, so then we left campus that next day.”
Multiple athletes said Pepperdine Athletics helped pay for the hotels athletes stayed in while they were displaced.
Competing in the Midst of Disaster
Women’s Basketball was in the midst of conference play during the Palisades Fire, scheduled to play the University of Portland on Jan. 9, and Loyola Marymount University on Jan. 11, but both games were postponed, according to Pepperdine Athletics.
After having to stay in a hotel for a week, Vick said the team traveled for an away game against Saint Mary’s, and while basketball felt insignificant during this time, it did help take her mind off the current tragedy.
“That’s just how I treated it — it was an hour or two out of my day where I didn’t have to be sad or watch the news or see people’s houses burning,” Vick said. “I could just take a break from it for a minute.”
After evacuating, Garrison said the team stayed in a hotel in Fresno because the team had an away meet against California Sate University, Fresno on Jan. 10 and 11. Even after that meet ended, it was still unsafe to return to Malibu, so the team went straight to San Diego and stayed in a hotel room there as they had a meet against the University of San Diego on Jan. 17.
While staying at hotels, Garrison said the team was still able to get some practice by using the pools at Fresno State and San Diego. One issue with this is that teams aren’t given the same access to facilities they would have if they were on campus.
“A lot of girls on our team have class conflicts anyway, and so they’d get their own pool time,” Garrison said. “Here at Pepperdine, that’s a lot easier to do, but when you’re asking strangers to help you, there might be only a two-hour block that they can give you.”
Pepperdine Women’s Track evacuated to the Holiday Express Inn in Simi Valley on Jan. 10, but in the days leading up to their evacuation after the fire started, Graham said the team had to run indoors on treadmills because the air quality was poor.
Even after relocating, Graham said it was very difficult for the team to practice to the best of their abilities during this time.
“Even the air quality inside when we were running on the treadmills was just so bad,” Graham said. “And then when we were at Moore Park, our lungs were just working overtime when we were at school, so they were just trying to recover.”
Despite these conditions, Women’s Track went to their meet in Washington on Jan. 17, where Graham and sophomore distance runner Lizzy Crawford broke the school record for the 800-meter dash and 3,000-meter run, respectively, according to Pepperdine Athletics.
Navigating Online Classes
Once classes started online for Pepperdine, many of the athletes were still displaced, and since they were in a rush to evacuate, multiple athletes said their clothes and school supplies were limited.
Garrison said she didn’t have her laptop, so she had to attend Zoom classes through her phone.
“Online school is a lot easier to do when you have all your things with you and when you are at home, but we were with none of those things,” Garrison said. “And so the start to the semester was pretty hard for a lot of us who just didn’t have what we needed.”
Another difficulty Graham said came with online classes was spacing. In a hotel room, there isn’t a common room like there is in a dorm or apartment, so two people can’t be in separate rooms if they need to be in class at the same time.
Many of the athletes weren’t able to return to campus until the day before in-person classes started, multiple athletes said.
“It was just difficult because a lot of us are roommates with each other and live together, and so trying to find space to be able to focus on schoolwork and focus on class while we’re all living so close to each other was really difficult,” Graham said. “Because a lot of us needed to be in class at the same time.”
While she was navigating through the Palisades Fire, practices and online school, Graham said she was also trying to keep her family in Philadelphia updated on everything going on.
“It did become draining trying to balance doing my schoolwork once school had started and running and trying to support my teammates and also trying to keep my family in the loop,” Graham said.
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Contact Tony Gleason on Twitter (@tony__gleason) or via email: anthony.gleason@pepperdine.edu
