Y&R’s Joshua Morrow On The ‘Emotional Roller Coaster’ Of Wildfire Aftermath
Although his home is still standing following the devastating wildfires that tore through Southern California in January, Young and Restless star Joshua Morrow (Nick) and his family have unfortunately been displaced, as their neighborhood was destroyed by the Palisades Fire. In a new interview with Woman’s World, Morrow reflected on the rushed evacuation wife Tobe, and kids Crew (who plays Bold and Beautiful’s Will), Cooper, Cash, and Charlie Jo and he faced — along with thousands of other Los Angeles-area residents.
From The Ashes
Speaking to the outlet, Morrow noted that in the aftermath of the wildfires, “With thousands of families displaced, it was pure pandemonium,” he noted, adding that it wasn’t always easy to find shelter for his large brood, which includes two dogs and a pet turtle. “It was a very stressful situation and not knowing what we were going to do was pretty emotionally taxing,” he admitted.
Several of Morrow’s Y&R co-stars —his on-screen father, Eric Braeden (Victor), his Genoa City sister Amelia Heinle (Victoria) and former love interest Melissa Claire Egan (Chelsea) — saw their properties completely destroyed by the raging wildfires. Although the actor’s family home didn’t burn down, it did sustain substantial smoke damage, he reported, noting that he was able to retrieve some photos and valuables but was crushed that many of his neighbors were not as lucky. “It’s a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to see,” he said of the “piles of rubble” around his community and so many houses completely gone.
After the evacuation orders were lifted at the end of January, another disaster hit Morrow’s community when a mudslide wiped out the street leading to their home. “You could go in and clean up the house that we lived in, but the neighborhood, it looks like bombs went off,” he lamented, noting that there is “just devastation everywhere you look.”
It will take some time for their Palisades community to be cleaned up and rebuilt, but the actor knows that it won’t ever be the same place that it once was. “My family began and was raised there,” he pointed out. “My kids played in those parks, went to those schools and yogurt shops.” Thinking about all that has been destroyed “hurts,” added the Y&R star. “The best years of my life, without question, were formed there, and it’s just been wiped off the face of the earth. The memories I have, that’s all that’s left now.”
After six weeks of hopping from one temporary base to the next, the actor shared the good news that he has found new digs for his family of six. It wasn’t an easy decision to move his family to a new area, but Morrow and his wife are now focused on getting their clan settled into a new home. “We’re in there for a couple of years,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know when — or if — they will be able to return to their old home. “The unknowing is daunting and we feel sort of guilty about bailing on this community we love,” Morrow admitted. “But I’ve got a family to raise. And now, we can begin to piece things back together.”
Throughout the “emotional roller coaster” of the past six weeks, Morrow said he held firm in his determination to keep his family together. “It was a lot of prayer and honestly, it was a lot of belief in who we are as people and a family,” he mused. “I just tried to keep a positive attitude about it, and know that no matter where we ended up, my family was safe.” After all, he concluded, that was what was most important in the grand scheme of things. “At the end of the day, that’s truly all I care about. So, we’re good.”
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