FILMMAKERS ANALYZE PARADISE FIRE: Blame Residents for Town's Fire-Prone Location

[18Montclair]

PG&E probably paid for that--wouldnt put anything past that evil @ss company

[mgforshort]

Five years after the fire there are still people living with friends, family, in trailers and motor homes, or entirely homeless.

The FVT or Fire Victims Trust was authorized by the PG&E bankruptcy court to make payments to the victims. These payments are especially important to the victims without adequate insurance. They still have their land, but there aren't enough funds to pay for materials and labor needed for a rebuild or buy another residence someplace else.

The FVT is not in a hurry to make payments because it has become a bureaucracy with their members earning excellent paychecks, all out of the fund PG&E paid to the trust. The previous director of the trust, by now resigned, a former judge, had a yearly pay higher than President Biden. In the meantime the victims waiting for a check to start building only received a portion approved by the courts, such as 30% or 15%.

The problem is that the courts, or our government, allowed PG&E make payment with their own stock. When the stock price is low the FVT won't sell any, in hope that it would go up, therefore more money for the victims, and more money for the FVT bureaucracy.

If our governor had the guts to force PG&E to pay cash only, from their own reserves or taking out loans, most of the victims would be living in their new homes by now. The way these payments come, a bit here and another bit a year later, that might never happen.

To offer an example, someone lost his home, and the courts gave him a settlement like $ 300 K. ( One could purchase a nice home in Paradise before 2018 for $ 300 K). Out of that 300 K comes 33% attorney's fees. So he gets $ 201 K only. Out of that the very first payment he gets is only 30%, in this case $ 60,000. Out of that the guy must or must not pay federal and state income taxes - this part is very complicated and I can't explain it well. Then the following year the guy gets another 15%, such as $ 30,000. He might be forced to spend that on rental expenses, therefore the house he lost won't rise again, not ever.

I'm not whining for myself, our home survived, and any damages and costs were generously covered by our insurance company. They treated us like family.

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by CalWorth

It was the fires in ‘07. They were everywhere, we were surrounded. I remember that they were in October, it was exceptionally hot. The fires jumped I-15. The air was smoky & ash was everywhere. I could see flames from every direction from my house. Everybody thought, “how is this possible in the middle of San Diego County?” It was frightening & contributed to the reasons that we left our state.

My thoughts too for both incidents.
The '03 fires hit closer to home for us and our neighborhood was deluged with cinders as those fires merged. We didn't get as much from the ones in '07 but relatives in North County did. There had always been fires in their area, five decades of being there, but nothing with the speed and ferocity of that one. When they evacuated, a neighbor stuck behind and spent the night putting out spot fires on multiple properties. Other than some trees that went up here and there, he saved the place. A true hero.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by kavm

Did you really read the article? It is not trying to do a post-mortem on the fire but the rebuild. That, I believe, is the reason it does not rehash that topic.

And, here is a quote from the article "...Mr. McAfee’s girlfriend used her sizable settlement with Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the state’s most notorious setter of fires, whose faulty equipment burned down Paradise, to construct the 2,000-square-foot house.

So, yes - there is a mention of PG&E and its responsibility in the Paradise fire. It even refers to the money from PG&E that is sustaining the tax base of the rebuild.

"...to keep Paradise afloat when the PG&E money runs dry in 20 years, it’ll take at least a doubling of both.

There are valid questions concerning the rebuild but your post leads us in a direction the opinion piece is not about. I have no idea whether the opinion piece is good but the authors did spend a lot of time visiting there. While their word is not gold, it carries more weight that outsiders who have been there since the fire - at least to me.

I re-read the article after you posted this. I see the passages you're referring to. I remember even scanning the article before posting that PG&E wasn't mentioned, to ensure accuracy, but I missed it. All I can say is, the first few paragraphs made such an overwhelming impression on me, that I must have completely glossed over the key sentence or two that did mention PG&E. Mea culpa.

[apple92680]

Something that is hardly ever factored into this debate is wind. They mentioned it, briefly:

If you counted the new suburbs higher up spawned by the original suburbs, some 40,000 people were living straight in the path of western wildfire. When the epic one came on Nov. 8, 2018, carried by an odd wind out of the east, hot and dry like the years of drought that preceded it, no one could say they hadn’t been forewarned. By the old Concow-Maidu Indian, by the old gold miner, by their grandparents and parents who understood the nature they were tempting.

California is a windy state!

This is especially true in the mountains and foothills. The dry, cold wind generated by High Pressure zones that blows in off the Great Basin in Nevada and Utah is brutal. The wind dries out plywood, it buckles wooden fencing and strips the paint and stucco from houses. It zaps all flora of moisture and hastens the process of transforming brush back to dust.

The Indigenous people of California have known this for thousands of years. They talk about it frequently because they've had to live by and with this wind.

Developers and settlers have never respected this fact or the wisdom that the original Indigenous peoples attempted to impart on them. Ever.

[evening sun]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

Five years after the fire there are still people living with friends, family, in trailers and motor homes, or entirely homeless.

The FVT or Fire Victims Trust was authorized by the PG&E bankruptcy court to make payments to the victims. These payments are especially important to the victims without adequate insurance. They still have their land, but there aren't enough funds to pay for materials and labor needed for a rebuild or buy another residence someplace else.

The FVT is not in a hurry to make payments because it has become a bureaucracy with their members earning excellent paychecks, all out of the fund PG&E paid to the trust. The previous director of the trust, by now resigned, a former judge, had a yearly pay higher than President Biden. In the meantime the victims waiting for a check to start building only received a portion approved by the courts, such as 30% or 15%.

The problem is that the courts, or our government, allowed PG&E make payment with their own stock. When the stock price is low the FVT won't sell any, in hope that it would go up, therefore more money for the victims, and more money for the FVT bureaucracy.

If our governor had the guts to force PG&E to pay cash only, from their own reserves or taking out loans, most of the victims would be living in their new homes by now. The way these payments come, a bit here and another bit a year later, that might never happen.

To offer an example, someone lost his home, and the courts gave him a settlement like $ 300 K. ( One could purchase a nice home in Paradise before 2018 for $ 300 K). Out of that 300 K comes 33% attorney's fees. So he gets $ 201 K only. Out of that the very first payment he gets is only 30%, in this case $ 60,000. Out of that the guy must or must not pay federal and state income taxes - this part is very complicated and I can't explain it well. Then the following year the guy gets another 15%, such as $ 30,000. He might be forced to spend that on rental expenses, therefore the house he lost won't rise again, not ever.

I'm not whining for myself, our home survived, and any damages and costs were generously covered by our insurance company. They treated us like family.

While I do feel empathy for those who have not yet found a new permanent home, they should have carried insurance. The people who lost their home, ( like myself & others I know ) have moved on or rebuilt in Paradise, thanks to Insurance pay outs. It was a risky move that did not pay off.

[hikernut]

I expect there are hundreds, if not thousands, of communities in the western U.S. that face significant wildfire risk. Even suburban areas at the urban/wildland interface are at risk, as in the case of Louisville/Superior, Colorado. Are they all supposed to move? How about homes in areas which are at risk of flooding?

[evening sun]

Originally Posted by hikernut

I expect there are hundreds, if not thousands, of communities in the western U.S. that face significant wildfire risk. Even suburban areas at the urban/wildland interface are at risk, as in the case of Louisville/Superior, Colorado. Are they all supposed to move? How about homes in areas which are at risk of flooding?

It's not just fires, how about all the hurricane & tornado prone cities & towns?

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by evening sun

It's not just fires, how about all the hurricane & tornado prone cities & towns?

I'd agree with the hurricanes, at least within some distance from the water. Tornadoes not so much, as they don't tend to take out thousands of homes, and most of the breadbasket area in this country where crops are grown see tornadoes. Who would grow the food for this country if nobody could live in tornado areas?

People seem naturally drawn to places with natural hazards. Today we're kind of stuck. Rebuilding in destroyed areas could be prohibited, but then the government should compensate the owners for the loss of their property, and of course that could be a huge expense.