Nothing prepares you for this amount of destruction: Survivor

Californians return to neighborhoods to find only ashen rubble and memories

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Survivors of the wildfires that have been sweeping through parts of Los Angeles have started to trickle back to their evacuated homes in recent days, hoping against the odds that they were spared the worst of the devastation.

Many instead found little more than concrete foundations, ashen rubble and memories.

The wildfires, among the worst natural disasters ever to hit California, have killed at least 10 people as at the morning of Jan 10 and destroyed or badly damaged more than 10,000 structures, the authorities said.

Aerial images of some scorched neighborhoods - including parts of Pacific Palisades, a mostly affluent enclave west of downtown, and Altadena, a diverse neighborhood on LA's eastern edge - show block after block of homes burnt to the ground, as if in a war zone.

Those who survived say they feel fortunate to have escaped with their lives. But many shed tears over family homes lost and fears about uncertain futures.

In a neighborhood of 60 homes ravaged by the Palisades fire, the only thing left standing at Mr Rick McGeagh's ranch house near the Will Rogers State Park is a statue of the Virgin Mary he installed when they moved there in 1998. It had belonged to his grandmother, who had died a year earlier.

He called the statue's survival an "amazing blessing" in a terrible time. "I think it's miraculous."