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America’s unluckiest family lose their most precious possession to LA wildfire

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The couple runs NewVine Music & Publishing, but has struggled financially since COVID-era shutdowns hurt their business.

A Los Angeles couple have spoken of their anguish after losing their one-year-old daughter’s ashes in the catastrophic wildfires.

Fighting back tears, Giorgi and Leonardo Antinori revealed how they lost the remains of their first-born daughter, Vita, who died 15 years ago, when their house went up in smoke.

Worse, the couple has no idea how to rebuild their lives, having stopped paying their rapidly rising insurance premiums when COVID-era lockdowns left them in financial ruin.

TO GoFundMe So far it has raised $68,000 for the couple and their two-year-old daughter, but that won’t be enough for them to recover from the devastating fires.

‘We had a daughter 15 years ago. He was 15 years old and he died when he was one year old, and his ashes were in our house and they are no longer there,” Giorgi, 37, a music producer, told CNN.

‘Every memory, every piece of physical evidence of his life, has simply disappeared. And that hurts. I feel numb right now because I feel like I’ve cried out all my emotions.’

The Antinori family lived in a blue wooden bungalow in Palisades Bowl.

The mobile home community on Pacific Coast Highway is right across the street from the beach; all of its almost 200 houses were destroyed.

The couple runs NewVine Music & Publishing, but has struggled financially since COVID-era shutdowns hurt their business.

The couple's first daughter, Vita, died 15 years ago, they said in a tribute to the beloved infant.

The couple’s first daughter, Vita, died 15 years ago, they said in a tribute to the beloved infant.

They evacuated with their two-year-old daughter as the fire spread, and returned later to find nothing left but piles of ashes and a few charred palm trees swaying in the breeze.

“What happened is so mind-blowing and so tragic that there are no words to express it,” said Antinori, 41, who runs NewVine Music & Publishing with his wife.

The Antinoris say they will have difficulty rebuilding their lives after the calamity because they could not continue paying their home insurance premiums.

They had struggled to make their business profitable during the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns and couldn’t keep up with the rising cost of insurance premiums.

“Like hundreds of other people, insurance prices went up a lot,” Giorgi said.

“We were still trying to recover from the last four years where everything changed after COVID and we thought, ‘We’ll recover quickly and then we’ll get our insurance again and everything will be fine.'”

He added: “Never, ever in 100 million years did we think our house would burn down.”

Other residents of the mobile home community have shared similar stories of their upended lives and their inability to cover insurance costs.

Premiums had increased rapidly due to the high probability of a natural disaster occurring in this picturesque but fire and landslide-prone area.

An online fundraiser for the Antinoris says they have not yet received any help from the state or federal government.

The couple evacuated their mobile home park in Pacific Palisades before flames engulfed their property. They appear in the photo with their second daughter.

The couple evacuated their mobile home park in Pacific Palisades before flames engulfed their property. They appear in the photo with their second daughter.

When they returned home, Giorgi and Leo Antinori discovered that nothing remained but ashes.

When they returned home, Giorgi and Leo Antinori discovered that nothing remained but ashes.

1736837626 973 Americas unluckiest family lose their most precious possession to LA

“All the memories, all the physical evidence of his life, are just gone,” says Giorgi, 37, a music producer.

Nothing remained of the blue wooden bungalow where the music producers raised a family

Nothing remained of the blue wooden bungalow where the music producers raised a family

They say nothing was left in the rubble of their property, on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway

They say nothing was left in the rubble of their property, on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway

All 200 homes in the mobile home community on Pacific Coast Highway were destroyed

All 200 homes in the mobile home community on Pacific Coast Highway were destroyed

“We are asking all of our friends, family, community and even strangers to join in and help in any way they can,” the fundraiser says.

“Your generosity will not only be a financial pillar for this new beginning, but also an emotional blessing.”

The Palisades Fire is the largest of the wildfires hitting Los Angeles.

Although it has already burned 23,000 people and is still not under control.

At least 24 people have died in what California Governor Gavin Newsom said could be the most devastating natural disaster in US history.

The fires destroyed thousands of homes, forced 100,000 people to evacuate, and burned an area the size of Washington, DC.

Dangerously high winds were expected to return to Los Angeles on Monday, jeopardizing efforts to contain two massive wildfires that have devastated entire neighborhoods.

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