Red Flag warnings and dangerously high winds created rapidly changing conditions during the recent Franklin and Palisades fires. Due to these fast-changing conditions, students turned to various platforms to stay up to date with information.
The Franklin Fire ignited Dec. 9, while students were studying for finals. One month later, the Palisades Fire sparked as students were preparing to return to campus for the spring semester. The Palisades Fire was the first of several fires that spread throughout L.A. County. To keep up, some students said they turned to social media, local news and fire tracking apps as a way to stay informed throughout the blazes.
“I think again, going back to watching it through a screen, I felt like I couldn’t do anything as it was happening and that was really hard for me,” sophomore Nicole Sleiman said.
Students Stay in the Loop
Sleiman said her heart dropped when she initially found out about the fire in the Pacific Palisades because of its close proximity to Pepperdine and the effects of the recent Franklin Fire. As she kept up with the fire from her home in Orange County, Sleiman said everything started to feel real when the places on her screen began to look familiar.
“It really felt real when places I’ve been to started to burn down such as Cholada,” Sleiman said. “It was like another home for me and my friends — we would always go when we were feeling down or weren’t feeling well.”
Sleiman said she has primarily kept up to date with the fires through ABC7’s broadcasts as well as social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. She said she found TikTok to have more personal footage, as many evacuees and residents who lost their homes shared their stories through the platform.
Sophomore Lizzy Crawford is a member of the Women’s Track and Cross Country teams, so she had to return to Malibu before the spring semester. As a result, Crawford and her teammates were in Malibu when the Palisades Fire began, and she said she felt heartbroken as the fires were close to her physically but also close to the Pepperdine community.
“It’s hard to be so close to everything but to not be able to be there on the front lines to stop it,” Crawford said. “I had to keep opening the news and social media for my safety, but as that was going on I just kept feeling such grief and sadness to see everything that was being lost.”
Crawford said her suitemate told her to download the Watch Duty app during the Franklin Fire, and that she felt lucky to have already had it at the start of the ongoing L.A. County fires. Watch Duty alerts users of the latest updates, evacuation areas and fire spread.
Crawford has also turned to The New York Times as a main source of information throughout the recent fires. She said it has been surreal to not only read about the fires, but to also be a part of them.
“It’s been crazy to experience both the Franklin and now Palisades and Kenneth fires, and the fact that I’ll be getting a New York Times email about the natural disaster that I’m currently living in,” Crawford said.
Crawford has also used KTLA as a more local news source, as she said the station showed her things others didn’t, such as the gridlock and bulldozing of cars in the Palisades. She said she made a point not to go on social media as a source of updates and information.
Sleiman said she has immense admiration for the news reporters who have been on the front lines keeping the community and world updated during such a devastating time.
“It’s definitely a dangerous situation, but they [news reporters] kept all of our communities informed,” Sleiman said. “It’s something that you have to be really, really strong to do, to put yourself in that position.”
Local Journalism
Brianna Willis (‘21), Pepperdine alumna and former Graphic Digital Editor, reported on the scene at the Palisades and Eaton fires. Willis is a live reporter for ABC30 in Fresno and traveled to Southern California to cover the fires. Her coverage aired on ABC30 and other local ABC stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
While reporting on the fires, Willis said it was important that she stayed up to date with the latest information. To do this, Willis turned to county and city alerts, as well as social media.
“Every time there was going to be a press conference, once they announced it I knew that it was happening, and I filed that away,” Willis said.
Willis said she recommends others do the same to stay up to date.
“Make sure you’re up to date and following all of the city and county pages and websites, because they put the information when they send out a blast,” Willis said. “They put it basically in all those same locations.”
Aside from county alerts, Willis said journalists reporting on the fires worked together to share the most up-to-date information. She recalled a time when she was watching a press conference and learned about the current containment and fatalities. Willis immediately sent a message in her work group chat to update a reporter who was about to go live on air.
“I sent it immediately to our station group chat, and the reporter that was airing for the 6 o’clock story for the Palisades fire, they were able to tell her in her ear while her package was airing, ‘Hey, also say this about the containment and the deaths,’” Willis said.
Willis, an L.A. native, said local journalism plays an integral role in keeping communities informed during times of disaster and tragedy. Journalists who are familiar with the community they are reporting on tend to approach stories differently.
“It’s the care, it’s the heart, and it’s the fact that it’s your community,” Willis said. “I think that’s what makes a difference, and it really shows in the reporting and the stories that you do.”
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Contact Amanda Monahan via email: amanda.monahan@pepperdine.edu
Contact Gabrielle Salgado via email: gabrielle.salgado@pepperdine.edu
