FEMA is often seen providing aid victims of hurricanes and tornadoes, but Caldor fire survivors say the agency has done little for them.
It took a wildfire just a few hours to destroy it.
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency is often seen providing trailers and money to victims of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, survivors of this California wildfire complain that the agency has had little to offer them when their homes were destroyed by flames. The Times spoke with a dozen Grizzly Flats residents whose houses burned. Some were first-time homeowners who had their lives upended. Others had worked for decades and have been forced to postpone planned retirements or start working again to pay for housing. Not one of them has found that their insurance, if they had it, was sufficient to cover the cost of what they lost.
“Just because we reside within the borders of El Dorado County doesn’t mean we are rich,” Tyler said. Tyler estimates it could be two years before they are able to rebuild, and months before they can even park the trailer on their property. Tobe Magidson attends a remembrance event to mark the 6-month anniversary of the Caldor fire. Magidson is living with his girlfriend and daughters, 15, and 16, in a trailer on their burned property in Grizzly Flats.
When Hannah Hammonds called her insurance provider to file a claim following a wildfire that destroyed her home, she learned her mortgage company hadn’t been paying the $6,000-a-year premium. Hammonds and her husband had saved up for years to buy their first home, a tranquil spot where they could watch deer gather in the frontyard. Now, she visits the property two or three times a week and sits on a hill overlooking the rubble.Pandora Hammonds, 9, climbs on a Red cedar that was burned on the land where her house once stood in Grizzly Flats.
That puts California at a relative disadvantage from the start, as its economy is larger than any other U.S. state and most countries.At the same time, there are no exact thresholds for what metrics a disaster must meet in order to qualify — the Stafford Act prohibits apportioning assistance solely using income- or population-based mathematical formulas — which has helped fuel complaints that the process is inconsistent and difficult to understand.
“As insurance policies are tied to the valuation of the residence, this gap in home value is directly correlated to survivors having drastically insufficient coverage to remain in El Dorado County,” Ghilarducci wrote. “If survivors are unable to rebuild or relocate nearby, the recovery of Grizzly Flats remains bleak.”When Marilyn Brown, 51, returned to her property to survey the damage, the scene reminded her of black-and-white warzone photos she’d seen in textbooks.
Padilla has introduced legislation to amend the Stafford Act, which a statement from his office described as having been written when FEMA primarily focused on hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.
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