REGION : PASADENA : Glen Residents Are Undaunted Despite Disaster

During 27 years of disasters, Stevan Young has been dragged through the mud.

Literally.

The 36-year-old Pasadena Glen resident lost his home--as well as the house he grew up in--to last year’s fires. Plus, he’s been through three major mudslides.

People in safer neighborhoods look at the disasters that historically befall the Glen and say, “What kind of person would live in a place like that?”

Stevan Young is the ultimate answer. Disasters of epic magnitude are a trade-off for living in what Young calls a sanctuary from the urban jungle.

“You love it for what it is,” he said. “You take what it throws back at you, but you love it for what it is.”

Born in Pasadena, Young moved to the Glen in 1967 with his parents and brother.

In 1969, an almost biblical rain pounded the Glen for a week straight. When the water burst loose, Young said, “we could hear the rumbling, and we could see cars rolling down like surfboards.”

In 1980, another flood hit, on Feb. 14. Young was returning from a party at 2 a.m. Noting signs of trouble, he rushed up the road to warn his family and neighbors.

He reached them in time, but as he turned to leave, the crashing mud overtook him, flipping his truck and throwing him out the back window.

Neighbors fished Young out as he neared the bottom of the canyon. His clothes, except for a belt and belt loops, had been ripped entirely off. The skin was torn off his knees, his teeth were chipped, and his head was gashed.

When the Altadena firestorm struck before dawn on Oct. 27, Young rushed from his own place in the middle of the Glen to fight the fire, which was threatening his parents’ house at the top of the canyon--the home he grew up in.

When the flames ignited the house next door, Young decided it was time to escape. But when he sprinted down the road to his own home, he found the pines next door ablaze. The fire had eaten so much oxygen from the air that his truck would barely start.

His parents’ house burned to the ground, as did Young’s own.

Then, in February, the Glen was struck yet again, this time by floods that raged down the fire-denuded canyon.

Still, like many of his neighbors, Young plans to rebuild.

“What are you going to do, find someplace better?” Young asked. “Well, there is no place better. This is the best there is.”