'Trauma Bonded for Life': A TV Director's Home Burned Down. Now He's a Lifeline
Jeff Hunt advised around 90 Hollywood people who lost it all this week on what to do now. Says Julie Plec: 'He's embodying the true definition of community'
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Hello, Series Business fam, I hope you’ve stayed safe during this awful time. It’s been devastating to see the damage the Palisades and Eaton fires have caused our great city and to know so many friends and colleagues whose homes have burned down or who have had to evacuate. Industry figures from Lesli Linka Glatter and Michelle Satter to Jeff Bridges and Tina Knowles have seen catastrophic losses, and this week there’s risk of even more devastation with a severe fire warning in Los Angeles for Tuesday and Wednesday.
I’m doing something different with the newsletter this week — I’ll be back to covering the gyrations of the TV market soon, with an update on who’s buying what in unscripted programming — in order to share the incredible story of one industry veteran who in recent days has become a key advisor and lifeline to those in need.
Jeffrey G. Hunt, a prolific director known for his work on CSI, The Vampire Diaries and Gotham Knights, lost the Malibu home he shared with his wife and four kids to the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which destroyed more than 1,500 structures and burned nearly 100,000 acres.
The remains of his house in 2018 from his Instagram:
After one showrunner reached out to ask for guidance last week on what to tell a friend who had lost their home, Hunt quickly became a sought-after resource for industry workers and others affected by the current fires — everyone from editors to animators to writers across the county have been impacted, and the community is circulating spreadsheets with GoFundMe links and other resources (see additional information below). As of this morning, he has counseled nearly 90 people whose houses were destroyed in recent days.
Hunt, 51, makes no claims to being an insurance expert, but he’s been sharing his own two-year journey navigating home insurance claims and the process of rebuilding his house (and life). On Saturday alone, Hunt spent more than 14 hours on the phone talking to those whose homes burned down, even reading callers’ individual insurance policies.
Hunt says he’s paying it forward because he remembers the kindnesses afforded him and his family when they had reached their lowest days. Also, “I’m an out-of-work TV director,” quips the veteran, who moved to Georgia for a TV series several years ago. “I have nothing else to do.” Hunt, like so many others, has not worked since the strikes.
Just during our hourlong chat yesterday, he received three calls and five texts from new unknown numbers.
“I’ve had several people reach out to tell me what an angel he is for doing this, and how crucial his advice has been,” says Vampire Diaries showrunner Julie Plec. “He’s embodying the true definition of community with his compassion and generosity.”
‘That Total Stranger’ Who Helps
On the night of Nov. 8, 2018, while he was working on a TV series in Utah, Hunt got a call from his wife Kitty, who told him they might have to evacuate their 6,500-square-foot Malibu home of six years. Both are native Angelenos, so wildfires weren’t shocking to them. Still, “you never think it’s gonna be yours,” he says.
At around 3 a.m., Kitty decided to gather up their then-16-year-old, 12-year-old, 8-year-old twins, the dogs and their guinea pig, and head to her father’s place in Redondo Beach. The next morning, from several states away, Jeff switched on KTLA’s livestream of the fires and saw, via an aerial shot of the canyons, what was most likely his house — in flames from the Woolsey fire.
“It took everything,” including his father’s fighter pilot medals from the Korean War, Hunt says.
“If you ever lose your faith in humanity, have your house burned to the ground,” he recalls writing online in the wake of his own experience.
Back then, three showrunners he had previously worked with were particularly generous — Plec, Caroline Dries (Batwoman), and Carina Adly Mackenzie (Roswell, New Mexico). But even strangers were compassionate. His wife had taken his son to Target to replace a Chewbacca stuffed animal that had been lost in the blaze. The store was sold out, except for one last Wookiee in another customer’s cart. At just one mention of the fire, however, the stranger bought the toy for Hunt’s son.
“Total strangers came from everywhere to help, and that's I just wanna be: the total stranger,” says Hunt. “We can never go back and thank any of those people; there are so many of them because we don't know who they were and, yeah, I just wanna be the total stranger.”
Today, Hunt shares his wisdom on what to do (save receipts) to what not to do (go back to your home when it’s still possibly burning). While he understands the impulse to pack up and leave L.A. after the fires, it wasn’t the right choice for his family at the time.
“We thought long and hard about returning to that spot,” he says of rebuilding. “Time heals many things. In the end that was our home, and we loved that spot.”
The recovery wasn’t quick or straightforward. Here’s what he learned that can help people who’ve lost their homes map out their next steps:
I. Don’t Go Back to Your Home Right Away
After Hunt returned to L.A., his nephew, a local sheriff, escorted him back to his Malibu house just one day after the fire.
“I went to go look in the rubble,” Hunt recalls. “I stepped on a board and put a nail all the way through my foot.”
Even though you may be eager to see your home again and survey the damage, “Don't do that, because the day your house burns to the ground, you just don't wanna do an emergency room visit for stitches and a tetanus shot,” Hunt recalls dryly.
“Everyone keeps asking me, ‘Should we go? Should we go?’ I'm trying to tell them, like, you don’t need to go,” he continues. “Wait ’til it’s time, and for goodness sake, wear some steel-toed boots.” Hunt also recommends wearing a painter’s respirator and thick gloves. “You're going to reach down to touch something,” he says. “[Even] a week later there are still embers in there that are super hot.”
Weeks later, he and Kitty would return to their home with rakes to try and salvage personal items. “The only thing we salvaged from the fire was a Christmas teacup that was broken.”
Hunt also hopes parents can learn from what he now sees as a mistake: showing his young kids their home in the aftermath of the fire.
“There was no reason to take 8-year-olds to go see that horrible thing and put that in their mental Rolodex forever. Kind of regret that one,” Hunt says. “So I’ve advised people with younger children [that] they don’t need to see that.”
II. Be Prepared for the Claims Process to Take Months
Initially nervous about the claims process (“the kind of attitude we had was that insurance is gonna screw me”), Hunt had to adjust his expectations about how long it would all take and how helpful the insurance company would actually be.
“You walk up and you're like, ‘I read the policy.’ I knew what I was owed and I expected to be handed a check,” says Hunt. “That is not how this works.”
He advises patience, even if it may feel difficult to access right now.
“The actual adjuster who's going to show up — you're going to work with [them] for the next year and a half. [But] you might not see them for weeks [at first],” he says. “These companies are massively overwhelmed, and your adjuster [may not even be] from California. Mine was from Ohio. I think I met him the fourth day after the fire, and I think that was pretty quick.”
It could take “months and months and months to finally get the full amount that you deserve,” Hunt says, a process that caused him many sleepless nights. But he urges people to trust that process.
“Don't freak out. Your insurance is going to give you your money,” says Hunt. He and his wife struggled with daily anxiety. “‘Why hasn't our house been cleaned up yet?’ Six months to nine months, your house is going to sit and look exactly the same way, which is rough.” He says it took about a year for his insurance company to write the final check that would allow them to rebuild their house. “There’s going to be hoops and lists.”
(President Biden has said that the federal government will cover all of the initial disaster response costs, while California’s insurance commissioner has put a yearlong moratorium on insurance cancellations and non-renewals following the declaration of the state of emergency.)
But it did work out.
“My family, and every family I know closely through this, got every single penny that was written in their insurance policy. You absolutely don’t need anyone to fight for that money and take 10 percent of it,” Hunt says, alluding to third-party adjusters. “You need every penny to rebuild.”
Speaking of pennies, he adds, maximize yours by documenting all expenses during this process. “When you're in the homeless period, everybody’s got to be keeping every single receipt,” says Hunt. “Depending on what your particular fire insurance policy is, the way it's written out, hopefully that’s going to come out of your loss-of-use money and not your personal property money.” (“Loss-of-use” refers to insurance coverage that accounts for household expenses during the period where a home is uninhabitable.)
III. ‘Don’t Buy a Home Two Days After the Worst Day of Your Life’
Hunt understands the panic that many might feel, particularly with the number of structures that have been razed to the ground. There’s worry that there won’t be enough rental properties available, or enough contractors or materials to build a home.
“We have friends who are running out to buy another home,” he says. “For God’s sake, don't buy a home two days after the worst day of your life. Do not make rash decisions right now.”
He remembers the months of frenzy in 2018 and early 2019 — “people freaking out and making really quick decisions that they should've thought through a little longer,” he says. “And none of [those fears], in the end, played out. I don't know one person in the Woolsey fire who couldn't find a rental house.”
Thanks to Kitty’s ingenuity and determination (Hunt calls her the “permit master”), his family was one of the first in their neighborhood to acquire a permit to build. With the help of a close family friend, a contractor, they started drawing up plans for a new home at around three to five months, during which the claim process was still ongoing, justifying the per-square-footage cost with the insurance company. Plans for their new home were finalized seven months after the fire, and the permitting process took another three to four months.
“We moved back into our home almost 24 months to the day” from when it burned, Hunt says.
IV. You Will Survive
Most of all, Hunt wants people to know that they can and will get through this.
“You know, my son was 16, my daughter was 12, and the twins were 8, roughly — they [came] through it,” he says. “Children are wonderfully resilient. It bonded our family.”
The Hunts are now at a stage where they can laugh about the whole ordeal, even as he counsels scores of others facing similar challenges.
“Before this call, I was talking to two guys — I asked them, ‘How long have you guys been married?’ And they were like, ‘18 years.’ And I'm like, ‘Well, my wife and I have been married for 20 years. If you guys make it through this, which I totally believe you will, you are totally fucking trauma bonded for life now. Like, you’re solid forever.’”
More: How to Help (and How to Find the Help You Need)
If you’ve been looking for ways to help those in the entertainment community and beyond, here are a few places to direct your donations:
Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
GoFundMe has centralized its efforts in a Wildfire Relief Fund, and there are also several community-built lists that highlight the fundraising pages of individual entertainment industry workers. Here’s one focused on the animation community, one focused on writers, and here’s a separate list — compiled by TV writer Liz Alper — of affected Hollywood crew members. This mega-list from industry WhatsApp group MomTown has several tabs, covering items that are being given away, services needed and offered, and links to individual GoFundMe pages. (Use your common sense and do your due diligence to weed out scammers.)
Separately, if you’ve been impacted by the fires and need financial assistance or housing, here are some resources. SAG-AFTRA has posted a comprehensive list of organizations and government agencies and nonprofits offering help, including some of the following:
Entertainment Community Fund Emergency Financial Assistance
IATSE Catastrophic Relief Application
Motion Picture Television Fund
SAG-AFTRA Foundation Disaster Relief Fund
World Central Kitchen Meal Distribution Sites
My colleagues at the Ankler have been collecting stories from industry workers who are affected by these disasters; if you have a story to share with us, please get in touch.
Thanks for this. Sharing with friends. Shedding some light in the dark.
Wow! What a read! So helpful. So inspiring … esp in these hard days of the aftermath !! #LAStrong