The Franklin Fire burns on a hillside near Malibu campus Dec. 10. Junior Matthew Miller said he received photos from friends on campus while he was thousands of miles away studying abroad in Switzerland. Photos courtesy of Matthew Miller
For many incoming juniors, the December Franklin Fire and January Palisades Fire created a sense of terror from thousands of miles away. Despite studying abroad across various programs and countries, students said they had a unique experience when coping with the destruction of the wildfires from afar.
Junior Quinn Dougherty spent her sophomore year in Switzerland for the full-year program. She returned to Malibu for the summer after her program ended, but said she felt heartbroken upon returning to a different Malibu.
“I think any type of natural disaster feels like it’s not real unless you see it or experience it,” Dougherty said. “Nothing could have prepared me for coming back to Malibu.”
Staying Up to Date While Abroad
Several of Dougherty’s friends who were in Malibu during the fires told her how different the city and Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) were in a post-fire era, but she said she could not comprehend just how different it was really going to be.
Junior Tabitha Vanderhorst was in Buenos Aires for the entirety of her sophomore year. She said she woke up the morning after the Franklin Fire started to a flood of calls and voicemails from Pepperdine Emergency Services.
Vanderhorst said she immediately turned on the news to stay up-to-date with what was happening in Malibu and track the evacuation areas.
“I was absolutely terrified for Malibu,” Vanderhorst said.
Vanderhorst said she felt overwhelmed with the information she was receiving from various news outlets, so she reached out to friends she knew were on the Malibu campus. She remembers feeling helpless, wishing she could evacuate her friends to her family home, which is only a few hours away from Pepperdine.
“I was terrified being so far away knowing that there was nothing I could do to help and I couldn’t help get my friends out of there,” Vanderhorst said.
Dougherty said she also recalls feeling helpless.
“It’s definitely hard to watch something like that happen to a place and people you love and not be able to help or even be there,” Dougherty said.
Junior Matthew Miller, who also spent his sophomore year in the Switzerland full-year program, said with Switzerland’s time difference, it was around 3 a.m. when the Franklin Fire broke out. By the time he woke up, the news, photos and videos he saw were already several hours old.
“I had videos on my phone that people were sending me of them trying to get off campus, palm trees exploding right next to their cars, cars on fire,” Miller said. “The craziest one was the video of the flames coming up the sides of the library — that was wild. It was so terrifying.”
Similar to Vanderhorst, Miller said he reached out to his friends in Malibu to make sure they were OK. One of his first thoughts afterward was wondering whether or not he would have a campus to return to the next year.
Miller said he received more information from friends on campus than news outlets or Pepperdine. His fraternity had a group chat where the brothers constantly sent updates and offered anyone who needed it a ride off campus.
The Franklin Fire erupts on the night of Dec. 9, with smoke and flames visible from Seaside. Miller said he was grateful to know his friends were taking care of one another while he was abroad.
Coming from out of state, Miller said he knew there had been several fires in California in the few years before. Yet he never expected one during his four years there.
A few weeks before the Franklin Fire broke out, a group of staff and faculty members from Pepperdine’s Malibu campus visited the Buenos Aires campus, Vanderhorst said. One of these visitors was Pepperdine’s fire safety officer.
“When that fire broke out, he completely reassured us that Pepperdine would be OK because of how the campus is built and that it’s literally built so that if it catches on fire that everything’s gonna be OK,” Vanderhorst said.
But the rest of Malibu did not have this same assurance. With several businesses and homes burning down to ash, students said they had to prepare themselves for a vastly different Malibu.
Both Vanderhorst and Miller said they were devastated to find out Cholada — an immensely popular Thai dining spot along PCH — had burnt down during the Palisades Fire.
Miller said he made a short trip to Malibu a month before the new academic year started so he could set up his new apartment. He expected Malibu and PCH to be different, but described his first drive on PCH as “bizarre.”
“Honestly, I knew it was going to be bad, and it was bad,” Miller said. “There’s burnt up cars on the side of the road and there’s construction everywhere and road work.”
Dougherty, who returned to Malibu during the summer, said she has seen firsthand the businesses she loved from her first year either struggling or closing down.
“I also started working in a store in the Country Mart and I have customers come in every day who tell me that they lost their homes or are struggling,” Dougherty said.
An Unchanged Community
Despite the tragedy and loss the Malibu and Pepperdine community experienced during the fires, Miller said he is so grateful to be able to come back and be with his community again.
“I’ve seen a bunch of people these last couple of days and just giving them hugs and saying hi and asking how they are has been awesome,” Miller said. “I’ve waited for it for a long time.”
Dougherty said she has noticed a new sense of purpose within the Malibu community while navigating this post-fire era.
“I’ve also seen people come together in a way I might not have noticed before the fires and it’s clear that people are committed to restoring PCH and Malibu,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty said she greatly missed Malibu while abroad and above all is grateful to have a campus and community to return to.
“Some of my favorite restaurants and stores aren’t here anymore, but what I love about Pepperdine and Malibu is the amazing community, and that hasn’t changed at all,” Dougherty said.
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Contact Amanda Monahan via email: amanda.monahan@pepperdine.edu
