Weeks after Southern California Edison announced initial details of its compensation program for survivors of the deadly Eaton Fire, residents are pushing back. In an open letter to the company released this week, a group representing thousands of people from Altadena and the surrounding areas laid out their concerns with the program.
In the letter and at a press conference Thursday, they said they are most frustrated that the maps Edison uses to determine eligibility exclude some impacted residents from the program and that the company’s payout offers incorrectly assume that residents will receive the full value of their property insurance policies. They are also worried about the fact that children will receive less compensation than adults and that the company is not offering to pay for testing in local schools for toxins released by the fire.
“We’re trying to prevent a situation where the most vulnerable people take way less than they should be getting,” Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, said in an interview with CalMatters.
Edison spokesperson Jeff Monford did not address specifics about the criticisms, saying that the company’s program “offers a streamlined approach to quickly and fairly provide compensation to eligible community members affected by the Eaton Fire.” He added that “we will update the program as needed” based on concerns shared by community members.
The concerns about Edison’s plan mirrors similar criticism three years ago of how Pacific Gas & Electric paid survivors of two fires that its equipment caused, the Mosquito and Dixie fires.
The Eaton Fire, which is believed to have started in or near Altadena, killed 19 people and burned about 22 square miles of Los Angeles County in January. While state authorities have yet to release an official cause of the fire, the leading hypothesis is a reenergized transmission line Edison owned. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the utility last month for reimbursement of the cost to rehabilitate 12.5 square miles of national forest the fire burned, alleging Edison was responsible for the blaze.
Edison announced a program this summer to rapidly compensate the thousands of survivors of the fire in exchange for survivors waiving their right to sue the utility over the blaze. It released more specific details about the coverage in recent weeks, hosting several “community input workshops” in late September to collect feedback on the program’s current structure.
Unanswered questions
But residents said the format of the workshops — a structured set of questions asked by proctors who were not experts on the compensation program — was too limited to adequately capture the breadth of their concerns.
Chief among them is who can participate. Edison’s program limits compensation to structures marked as damaged or destroyed on the “Damage Inspection Notification Summary” map created by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, as well as those in the perimeter map of the fire. The survivors’ network said this excludes many community members who were affected and that geographic restrictions should be lifted in favor of a system that focuses on actual damages.
Rebuilding quickly is another concern. Many survivors, the group’s letter said, are hindered by “the gap — the difference between what insurance pays and what it actually costs to rebuild.” Edison’s program, the network argued, does not go far enough to close this. Instead, the utility deducts the full value of someone’s relevant insurance policy from what it will pay out, even if the insurer has not paid out the full amount, limiting what the network said is fair compensation.
And the funding available through Edison for temporary housing — capped at 10% of a home’s value before the fire over 42 months — isn’t enough to rent similar accommodation in nearby areas, the group said.
“They’re covering what insurance covers and not covering what (insurance companies’) don’t,” Chen said. But unlike opt-in insurance policies with known limitations, “we never agreed to be victims of Edison’s fire.”
Edison, the letter said, should also revisit how children are treated. Under its current offering, children would receive much less compensation than adults. Non-economic damages for smoke damage survivors, for example, is $20,000 for adults and $5,000 for children. And testing for toxins at nearby schools is not included under the current plan, something Chen said is important given the age of the community’s homes.
“Most of Altadena’s houses were built before 1976, and that means there’s lead and all this toxic contamination that are in our houses (and) our schools,” she said.
Edison’s Monford said the money for the compensation program comes from multiple sources. The first $1 billion will be from Edison’s customer-funded insurance, followed by the state’s wildfire fund, which covers damages from fires started by the three large investor-owned utilities’ equipment.
Pacific Gas & Electric had a similar program for two fires that its equipment was responsible for — the Mosquito and Dixie fires — and it also faced concerns about not paying enough to make survivors whole.
Ed Meyers’ Altadena home was deemed a total loss after the fire, as was he and his wife’s pet store in town. They plan to rebuild their home to match how it was before the fire struck. But where the money will come from and how long that will take is not clear.
“There’s a lot to think about,” Meyers said. “Will I have enough money in the short term to rebuild? How quickly will I need additional capital to rebuild? Can I get another loan versus taking what Edison’s paying out? I’m looking at my age, if I take money now and I can’t get any money later, is that what I want to do? I’m almost 60.”
Edison’s program is currently in draft stages and may change based on community feedback.
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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
By MALENA CAROLLO/CalMatters
CalMatters
