Six months after the fires that wiped out thousands of homes and structures in Los Angeles, where is the city in terms of recovery? Some personal stories reflect the challenges individuals are facing.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It’s been six months to the day since the Los Angeles wildfires ignited and then went on to destroy thousands of homes and businesses, mostly in the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Erin Stone with member station LAist has been reporting on the recovery process and the challenges people are still facing. Hi there, Erin.
ERIN STONE, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: Hi. So paint us a picture. When you go out, drive through these neighborhoods, what do you see at this point?
STONE: Well, instead of January’s landscape of chimneys and staircases rising up from these piles of rubble, there are empty dirt lots block after block. That’s because by now, the Army Corps of Engineers has cleared debris from most of the properties that burned, and they expect it to be fully done by midsummer. Now, that is really quick progress, but when it comes to where people are at emotionally and logistically, with all the paperwork they have to fill out to get insurance coverage, it’s a really different story. Many survivors are still just at the beginning of recovery.
KELLY: The beginning of recovery – what does that look like? What are the biggest challenges people are facing?
STONE: I would say insurance and lack of it. My colleague Libby Rainey and I have been speaking with fire survivors and experts, and what we heard from folks who have already decided to rebuild is there’s a big gap in how much their insurance will pay them and how much they need to cover the cost of rebuilding.
David Russell, an insurance professor at California State University, Northridge, told me that is quite common. Rates for materials and labor tend to jump after disasters. And even though the coverage limit does usually rise with inflation, it does not rise with the surge in demand after a disaster. So there can still be this big gap. And Steve Gibson is one of the many survivors facing down this gap. He estimates he and his wife are more than $100,000 short of what they need to rebuild. And most survivors like Gibson are also still making the list of everything they lost to get it covered.
STEVE GIBSON: We all feel like it’s the hardest thing in our lives. It’s hard to remember. It’s painful to remember.
STONE: Even for those whose homes survived the fires, many still have not moved back in. That’s because their insurers have yet to pay for cleaning smoke and other toxins. Meanwhile, renters are dealing with a brutal housing market. According to LA County data, right now, hundreds of displaced renters are still in temporary and insecure housing.
KELLY: Well, and I’m listening to you and thinking, insurance, paperwork and bureaucracy is a hassle at the best of times, which this is not. These survivors you’re talking to have just gone through something incredibly traumatic. What are people telling you about where they are emotionally?
STONE: Yeah, exactly, Mary Louise. The emotional trauma is still really, really fresh. Here’s Robin Hughes, who lost her home in Altadena.
ROBIN HUGHES: It is ever-present, so it does feel like it just happened yesterday. Like, the passage of time is so muddled.
STONE: Most survivors I’ve spoken with feel similarly – that the trauma of the fires continues to lurk behind every conversation, every task they have to do in their daily lives.
KELLY: Before I let you go, Erin, just let’s go back to the why – to the stage of the investigations and to what actually caused these fires in the first place. What do we know?
STONE: Yeah, the investigations for both the Eaton and Palisades fires are still ongoing. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is leading the investigation for what caused the Palisades Fire, and they turned down my request to share their preliminary findings so far. As for the Eaton Fire, according to statements that the local utility has made, their electrical equipment may have started it. Southern California Edison’s CEO Pedro Pizarro has said publicly that there is evidence that seems to support the theory that an idle transmission line somehow got reenergized and potentially sparked the Eaton Fire. The LA County Fire Department, along with the state, are leading that investigation.
KELLY: Reporting there from Erin Stone, with member station LAist. Thank you, Erin.
STONE: Thank you.
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