OFF KILTER
Published in the January 18, 2025 edition.
We got an inkling that something was off kilter on Friday morning when we got to Gate C23 in Terminal 1 at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. It should have been a typical, busy getaway day for ice cold Midwesterners heading out for sunny Southern California. Beaches, Disneyland, temps in the 60s, not the 20s. But it was Friday morning, Jan. 10, about four days after the Eaton and Palisade fires rampaged through Los Angeles, leaving death and destruction. Uncertainty was hanging in the air as far away as Chicago. We didn’t know what to expect.
Instead of a crowd of eager, relaxed weekenders, the seating area around the gate looked deserted. There were whole banks of empty seats. That made us a little nervous. We double checked our gate assignment. It was correct. We were where we were supposed to be to catch a 9 a.m. flight to Los Angeles, LAX. The first row of industrial-strength seating right in front of the Gate Attendants’ podium was completely empty. We had never seen that before. Feeling a little guilty for landing such choice seats, we sat down and scattered carry-on luggage, backpacks, coats and $18 worth of snacks (two bottles of water and two candy bars) on the empty seats on both sides. We were prepared, if not resigned to having to move all that gear once our fellow travelers crowded into the gate area.
They arrived, but not as a crowd. More like random stragglers. We didn’t have to move anything.
The waiting area was oddly quiet. No bickering couples, no hissing orders from parents to rampaging kids, no click-clack from business travelers trying to pound out a few more emails before the flight. It was unnerving. We had the uneasy sense we were still in the wrong place, wrong gate, even though we knew we weren’t.
The Gate Attendants arrived and checked through the pilots and flight attendants.
Still plenty of empty chairs.
Boarding began. Haltingly. They announced early boarding for those with disabilities, active-duty military and families with young children. No families. No active-duty military. Several people with disabilities. And that was all. The first-class folks were a small clutch. The economy folks lined up, but in a short line. No snaking through the terminal, no trying to jostle into a better spot. Boarding was quick.
Once onboard, the reason became apparent. About half the seats were empty. Entire rows with no one in them. All the carry-on bags fit easily in the overhead bins. The flight attendants let people spread out and sit about anywhere. Can anyone even remember when they were on a plane with more than a handful of empty seats, much less dozens and dozens? Airlines figured out years ago how to pack every seat on every flight, so it was pleasant, but a bit unnerving to enjoy the empty spaces on a 200-seat plane. We guessed that people had taken the advice of the airline which texted LA travelers to reconsider their flights and travel plans due to the fires. We disregarded that message, but apparently, many did not.
Uneventful flight. The only mention of the destruction came from two women heading to Altadena because one of their mom’s house had burned down.
Flying into LA from the south, we skirted the visible bank of smoke from the fires. There were a couple of times when the mountains were hidden by smoke, a few glimpses of smoke clouds rising, alternating with plenty of blue sky. It was a bit schizophrenic. We didn’t know what LA had in store for us. As soon as we started the drive home, the answer arrived sooner than we expected.
The traffic around LAX wasn’t the typical mad dash weaving around cars, vans, taxis and buses. Instead of the usual, white-knuckle, stress test the drive through LA on the 405 was almost unrecognizable and relatively routine. Except, of course, for the ominous sight of rising plumes of wildfire smoke, visible at times on the right (Eaton Fire) and left (Palisades Fire) of the freeway. Traffic, for the first time in my experience, was what could only be called light by LA standards. Plenty of room to merge, pass and maneuver. No bumper-to-bumper stretches. No dead stops across all six lanes. Just little slowdowns and then surges. It felt somehow wrong to be cruising calmly on the dreaded 405 on a Friday afternoon. There were virtually no instances of obnoxious drivers dashing across lanes with a “get-out-of-my-way” attitude. Also missing were the throngs of SUVs and trucks loaded with gear and heading out of the city, so the crazy get-out-of-town vibe was also not there.
The drive shriveled into a busy, restrained, subdued chore.
It’s as if all the sunny swagger and confidence had been drained out of the city, replaced by a tenuous dance between holding a collective breath in fear while trying to gingerly, carefully recreate a sense of normal, everyday life.
Jon Klusmire of Bishop is glad to be home.
