As roaring winds carried flames closer to Altadena the night of Jan. 7, Cynthia Carter scrambled to evacuate with her five-year-old son, Kashton.

The power was out, leaving the single mother without light or Wifi. Frightened, Carter, 26, couldn’t wait for an evacuation order.

“It was as if Armageddon was happening. That’s how the sky looked,” Carter recalled. “I wasn’t going to take that risk, staying with my 5-year-old child.”

She handed Kashton a flashlight and told him to stay in the living room and play with his toys. Meanwhile, Carter gathered what she could of her belongings. She grabbed only a few things: documents, clothes, a bin of toys for Kashton, whatever she could fit into her car.

The mother and son drove out of Altadena, their neighborhood illuminated by the fire, and made their way to the City of Industry to stay with a relative. It was dark. Hundreds of cars were lined up on Lake Street. She could see flames in the distance.

Six months ago, the Eaton fire , from its origin in Eaton Canyon, tore into the foothill communities of Altadena, disproportionately impacting the Black community and leaving more than 14,000 acres charred and thousands displaced, struggling to rebuild their lives.

For countless others of those displaced, the months that followed were restless, posing an arduous and often uncoordinated set of challenges. For Carter, she juggled finding aid and housing and keeping her barber business alive — all while driving between Los Angeles and Riverside to take Kashton to school.

The months that followed

Before moving to Altadena, Carter lived in Riverside. But she’d become wary of the area. Though she wasn’t in an evacuation zone, she was between the Bridge, Line and Airport fires last summer and saw, firsthand, the area’s proneness to such blazes.

And after going through a separation from her husband, Carter said she was hoping for a fresh start. She picked Altadena to be closer to friends and family.

Before evacuating in early January, Carter had not been in the Altadena home for more than a week.

“I had just gotten settled. I’d prepped for months for the move for L.A. and I’d just given my deposit,” Carter said.

A few days after being displaced from her new home, Carter started a GoFundMe to go towardsrebuilding her life.

She braced for the worst — the possibility of her home, and everything in it, gone. It wouldn’t be until three months later, when officials let her back into Altadena, that Carter saw her home was still standing. But it was inhospitable. Some items were salvageable but the roof was scorched and the interior, covered in soot.

She’s been trying to get reimbursed by her insurance company, but communication has been slow and the process increasingly confusing and complicated, Carter said.

In a few months, her GoFundMe raised just more than $25,000. The bulk of it went toward gas and keeping Carter and her son housed. For nearly six months, Carter and Kashton moved between 6 Airbnbs in Riverside. In February, her insurance had set her up with a hotel room in Glendale, but it wasn’t practical for Carter to stay in Los Angeles.

Kashton had to go to school.

Carter planned to send him to the Waldorf School in Altadena after Winter Break but the campus was significantly damaged by the fire. So Carter made the decision to keep Kashton in school in Riverside. But that meant that she’d regularly have to commute between Riverside and Glendale.

As a barber, she’d curated clients in Los Angeles before moving to Altadena. But with little funds and the GoFundMe aid quickly drying up, Carter had to drive back and forth between Los Angeles and Riverside — more than 50 miles and over an hour-long commute each way — to handle clients in both counties. Sometimes, she’d wake up early to drive Kashton to school, head to Glendale to work, and commute back to Riverside to pick her son up.

“For months, I tried to keep my head on straight, go to work and handle my clients,” she said. “I’m very proud of myself.”

Settling in

In early June, Carter and her son moved to Long Beach. The place is unfurnished, but she’s enjoying having a home of her own again.

She’s near family and friends. She sometimes visits her sister, who lives in the area.

With little savings and the donations dwindling, Carter is focusing on working, with the money going towards settling into the new home — buying furniture, a new wardrobe for Kashton, all that she’d lost in the Eaton fire.

Carter still hasn’t received anything from her insurance company, but she says she’s trying to look forward. She’s touring salon spaces in the area and hopes to get her business growing in the coming months.

Out of school for the summer, Kashton stays with his mother most days. Carter was hoping that she’d be able to enroll him in summer school, to focus on getting settled and building her business. But by April, when she decided to make the move, summer school enrollment in Long Beach was full.

Carter says she’s taking things day by day — “going on walks, doing yoga.”

“It’s been navigating challenges I didn’t expect. Nobody expects to be displaced,” she said. “I’m glad I can roll with the punches.”

Victoria Le is an intern with the Southern California News Group, through a partnership with the Asian American Journalists Association’s L.A. chapter (AAJA-LA).