FEATURE

A wArninG

Camp Fire revisited

A speciAl report

“It’s a warning for other communities.” That’s how Melissa Daugherty, the editor of the CN&R, the RN&R’s sister paper in Chico, California, described this week’s cover story package. “It’s really fucked up here still,” she added.

Nov. 8 marked the one-year anniversary of the Camp Fire. Long after national media outlets—and charity organizations—left the region, the CN&R continues to lead the coverage of a community still just barely recovering.

For Northern Nevadans, this coverage represents a cautionary tale from a similar community less than 150 miles from Reno.

Ground zero

Historic Magalia church is the epicenter for ongoing, much-needed relief efforts

The dragon chased Willie Snow out of Magalia, California.

That’s the way he remembers the Camp Fire. A ferocious blaze that he said seemed to instinctively track and pursue the living.

Snow and his longtime partner, Laurette Smith, both 60, snaked through Paradise in a Nissan Sentra to escape the flames—at times surrounded by fire and pitch black conditions.

Vehicles lined either side of the road. Some had people in them. Others were abandoned.

“When we left, I remember going through three, maybe four walls of fire, and the only reason we didn’t run off the road is because I knew it was a straight road, and I didn’t want to turn around,” said Snow, whose cadence mirrors that of Sam Elliott’s as the cowboy narrator in The Big Lebowski.

The fire destroyed the couple’s home. A recycler paid $35 for their scorched car.

In the months that followed, Snow and Smith lived out of a white Ford van—first at the Walmart parking lot in Chico, then at Lowe’s. About five months ago, the pair moved to the campus of the historic Magalia Community Church, a ground zero of sorts for survivor relief efforts on the Ridge, a residential area, consisting of Paradise and Magalia, that was almost entirely consumed by the Camp Fire. A year after the fire, the property surrounding the house of worship is filled with RVs, including the one donated to Snow and Smith. Since December, it’s also been the site of a recovery center offering clothes, furniture and food.

The couple consider themselves lucky.

Smith works as a security guard in Chico, clocking 40-plus hours a week. Snow is a former mechanic. He helps around the church, acting as a parking adviser and keeping watch on the grounds.

But did they envision being nomads a year after the Camp Fire sparked?

“No, man,” Snow said. “I thought we’d be back to normal by now. At least in a different place.”

“At least have a permanent home,” Smith added.

Pastor Kevin Lindstrom presides over the Magalia Community Church. He landed there eight years ago, after working in the film industry in Culver City as an editor and then earning his master’s degree in education and leadership from the Golden Gate Southern Baptist Seminary. A family friend who attended the historic nondenominational Ridge church had told him the former pastor was set to retire.

Before the fire, the future of the church was in question. Its congregation was aging and shrinking, Lindstrom said. On Nov. 8, he and his wife, Sandy, fled their home in upper Magalia and traveled to Southern California, where they have another house. The Woolsey Fire was raging at the same time, and the couple’s Simi Valley residence was on evacuation watch.

“We said, ‘All right. If the [Magalia] house burns and the church is OK, we’ll move back into the church,’” Lindstrom said. “‘If the church burns and the house is OK, then we’ll come back and rebuild the church.’ We said, ‘If they’re both gone, I guess we’ve got a lot of work to do.’ Our philosophy is that we will be here as long as the need is here.”

About a month passed before the Lindstroms returned to the Ridge. They found their home intact and scorched buildings and burned-out sheds at the church property. But the historic chapel, whose construction traces back to the 1850s, had survived. The couple credit neighbors who fought the fire by throwing dirt on the flames and felling threatening trees.

Nearly a year after the fire, the church is greatly needed. But it’s the practical necessities—more so than spiritual offerings—that the region has come to rely upon.

Each month, the church serves thousands of fire survivors. According to data collected for September, nearly 4,000 families—323 of which were new to the congregation—used the recovery center. Most reported they either live or had lived in Magalia or Paradise. Others had

Kevin and Sandy Lindstrom of Magalia Community Church jumped into fire-relief efforts as soon as they returned to the Ridge.

Photo/Andre Byik

traveled from surrounding cities and hamlets.

The church also saw a sharp increase in September of survivors living in a house, apartment or rental property. Nearly 600 families reported living in such accommodations, up from about 250 in August.

“That is very concerning to me,” said Doreen Fogle, a recovery center volunteer who has been lending a hand since Christmas, “because it says people that have been in homes and haven’t needed help all of a sudden now need help.”

More stats from that month: 400 families reported living in an RV, and about 200 were living with friends or family. Fewer reported living in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supported housing. Fewer still told the church they live in cars or tents.

Willie Snow and Laurette Smith have lived in an RV on the church grounds for about five months.

The cost to rebuild or find a new home is a common, significant barrier, Fogle said.

That’s true for Ridge resident Michael White. Before the fire, he lived in an RV park in Magalia. When he returned after the evacuation was lifted, he discovered his RV had been vandalized and ransacked. It was moldy and uninhabitable. But because his home on wheels didn’t burn, he received no government assistance, he said. Homeless and jobless, White spent the majority of the past year living in a tent.

He says he recently secured an RV in Berry Creek—he’s just had trouble finding a place to park it. A Butte County resident for more than 20 years, he’s determined to stay on the Ridge.

“I love it up here,” he said. “I love the people.”

White visits the church recovery center once a week and says volunteers have been “extremely helpful.” Life has been rough since the fire, so he takes it one day at a time.

“It’s about all we can do,” he said. “When you are surrounded by it all day long every day, it’s hard to put it in the past. … It’s a lot more than just rebuilding ourselves. It’s rebuilding the entire infrastructure of our community.”

Sandy Lindstrom recalled the early weeks following the fire, when the Red Cross asked if the church could serve as a distribution center for supplies, including nonperishable food and warm clothes. The Lindstroms agreed, and the relief organization dumped “tons” of supplies in the church’s hall, said, “Thank you,” and left, she said.

“We looked at each other,” Sandy continued, “and said, ‘Um?’”

The Red Cross was the primary relief organization immediately after the fire, but the last of its facilities closed at the end of January.

The Lindstroms called in support in the form of friends and church members. Other outside relief—such as Operation Blessing, the relief arm of the Christian Broadcasting Network—began coming in as well. After the camp site set up for survivors at the Walmart parking lot in Chico was cleared, the church was asked if it could provide meals and a place for some people to stay.

“Basically, our whole response to any question is … if God is leading us to do it, we do it,” said Kevin Lindstrom, adding that the church, which has a commercial kitchen, began serving three meals a day and started allowing church members who lost everything to live on the property. An electric company installed RV hookups on-site.

The pastor estimates about two dozen people still live on the property, mostly in RVs. Folks living on the grounds say that number is higher.

“Originally, when people asked us how long we’d be here, we thought about other disasters and we said, ‘Well, probably 18 months to two years,’” Sandy said. “Because that’s … pretty much what you hear before people are back on their feet.”

But the unprecedented level of destruction wrought by the Camp Fire has upended those expectations.

Church officials say the biggest need nowadays is food. People are forgoing groceries to pay for gas to get to work below the Ridge. Survivors can “shop” at the church’s hall once per week, walking away with bread, cereal and assorted canned foods. Toiletries also are available. Everything is free.

On a recent Tuesday, a line snaked through the lobby of the food distribution center and spilled outside. Indoors, survivors checked in with Fogle, who was quick to offer a warm smile and help new visitors register. More of the church’s volunteers— many of whom lost their homes in the fire—were waiting in the wings, leading each household through rows of shelves with canned and boxed goods, various toiletries and even some novelty items: small succulents and LEGO sets.

Kaitlin Norton was there with her 18-month-old son, Josh. While her home in Magalia wasn’t destroyed, her family lost it all the same. They were renters, and the owner needed to move back in after losing his home in the fire. For now, they’ve been staying in an RV on a friend’s property—they are looking to buy, but the cost of living is steep, and fire insurance is tricky to secure.

“We’re in this gray zone nobody thinks about [after disasters],” she said. It’s been a struggle “just trying to get back to everyday normal life.”

Norton said she has felt financial pressure mounting after the fire, with more of her family’s expenses going to rising gas and food costs. “There’s just not enough to cover everything,” she said.

The church has been a “lifesaver,” she said. Without it, “there’d be months where we didn’t have diapers or wipes or food.”

Carey Livingston can relate.

Her husband, Tony, had to quit working because of the toll the fire had taken on his health, she said. That day, they were able to grab a case of water, fresh veggies and fruit, cereal, paper towels and other miscellaneous items.

Livingston recalled the first time her family returned to Paradise following the evacuation. Seeing the devastation, each standing home here and business there stood out in her memory. As they cried together, Livingston told her children: “These are little heartbeats. We have a pulse up here that’s not going anywhere.”

Until September, the family lived in an apartment in Chico. Recently, they moved into an RV on a friend’s property in Paradise. Their plan is to purchase a lot and build.

“We were renters, so we didn’t think we were going to get the option of coming back up here,” she said, her voice breaking and tears welling in her eyes.

This past year has been exhausting, stressful and emotionally draining, Livingston said. There have been so many hoops to jump through to re-establish their lives post-fire. But she mostly feels overwhelmed with gratitude because of the kindness she has been shown by her community, like those at the church.

“I have cried, I think, more over my blessings than my losses,” she said.

Outside in the parking lot, Snow guided cars in and out of a designated area for RVs on the church property. He also talked to motorists arriving at the church to donate items, as well as departing volunteers.

“That’s what keeps this place going, bud,” he told one man who had dropped off clothing. “People donating.”

There are misconceptions people have about fire survivors, Snow said. Some carry the day-to-day burden of not knowing where basic necessities will come from, as well as a barrage of “what ifs.”

In terms of them getting back on their feet, people may ask, “Why don’t they just …” he said. “Well, it ain’t just.”

Securing long-term housing has been a challenge for Snow and Smith. They looked into FEMA housing, but would have had to relocate farther from Chico than Magalia, which would mean more wear and tear on the van during Smith’s commute to work.

Snow said he’d like to rebuild on the property where his home burned, but he’s been embroiled in an ownership dispute. If the couple are forced to leave the church grounds, it would mean living in the van again.

“I do appreciate the volunteers that come in here and help run this place, because a lot of people need it,” Smith said. “And the ones that donate.”

Shell Morley, the Magalia Community Church’s office manager, said the facility’s PG&E bill is about $5,000 per month; the trash bill is about $2,000, water runs about $500. And food costs can total about $2,300 per week.

The operation relies heavily on donations, though a $50,000 grant recently awarded through the North Valley Community Foundation will help keep it open during the winter months.

Sandy Lindstrom said the church was told early on in community meetings that area churches likely would carry much of the load for ongoing relief. After the news trucks left, she said, many efforts by various other groups evaporated.

The Lindstroms maintain they aren’t experts in this type of service, and, a year later, they say they’re still in triage mode. It feels at times like they are putting Band-Aids on survivors, trying to steer them in the right direction, they say.

“We’re dealing with stuff that’s way over our heads,” Sandy said, noting a difficult experience she had with a survivor suffering from a mental health crisis.

“They’re overwhelmed,” she said. “They don’t know what to do or where to turn.”

The church offers counseling services on the property, but more is needed, Sandy said.

The Lindstroms’ children ask them how they continue to operate the recovery center.

“It’s where the Lord wants us to be,” Sandy said. “And He said, ‘OK, this is here, and I’ll help you if you do what I ask you to do.’”

Her husband echoed her.

“I basically can’t imagine not doing it,” the pastor said.

Willie Snow and Laurette Smith have lived in an RV on the church grounds for about five months.

Photo/Andre Byik

—Andre Byik And AshiAh schArAgA

“A warning”

Weighing charges

Prosecutors consider felony counts against PG&E

More than a dozen environmental activists bowed their heads in silence for 85 seconds last Friday on Nov. 1 at Children’s Playground in Chico, recognizing the people killed in the Camp Fire.

The demonstrators also criticized PG&E, whose equipment was found responsible for starting the deadly blaze. Some carried signs reading, “People [over] profits,” “Let’s own PG&E” and “No more profits on electricity.”

A year after the Camp Fire, the Butte County District Attorney’s Office’s criminal investigation into PG&E’s role in the fire remains active. District Attorney Mike Ramsey said investigators have collected a large body of evidence, and prosecutors are viewing that evidence with two felony charges in mind: unlawfully causing a fire with gross negligence, and involuntary manslaughter. Ramsey did not disclose whether or when charges may be brought against PG&E.

There are several considerations he will take into account, including the interests of fire victims. The company, he said, could buckle under the weight

of billions of dollars in potential civil liabilities and possible criminal restitution, leaving fire victims in the cold. In conversations with some survivors, Ramsey said, he has asked what they would prefer: “To be made whole or to kill PG&E?”

“Both,” comes the reply.

Last month, Ramsey rang in 32 years as Butte County’s elected district attorney. During those three-plus decades, he said, his office has not investigated a case of this magnitude.

Billions of dollars in possible criminal restitution are on the line. Eighty-four counts of involuntary manslaughter are being weighed. (The Camp Fire death tolls stands at 85, but one person was found to have died by suicide.) One supervising deputy district attorney—an expert on arson—has been working the case full-time since shortly after the Camp Fire sparked. Two investigators also hav e been working nearly full-time on the probe. Clerical staff has contributed as well. Then there’s the assist from the state Attorney General’s Office, which has provided attorneys to help.

“There has never been a case that … we’ve devoted that [many] resources to,” Ramsey said. “We’ve never had billions of dollars on the table before, either.”

DA investigators have seized critical evidence from the highvoltage PG&E transmission tower near Pulga—the utility’s equipment,

according to Cal Fire, failed and sparked the Camp Fire. Specifically, Ramsey said, they collected a broken hook that caused an energized power line to swing into the tower structure, causing an arc flash estimated at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The result was molten aluminum and steel spewing to the ground and surrounding brush.

Ramsey said that a piece of broken equipment was sent to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., to be analyzed, and investigators have been looking at the hook with some questions in mind. Should PG&E have known that the piece was worn and could fail? Or did it have undetectable—“secret”—cracks or fissures that no reasonable person or corporation could have known would cause a failure?

The district attorney declined to divulge any possible answers to those questions, but he did say investigators collected hooks from other towers in the vicinity of the Camp Fire tower, and found them similarly worn. “We’re happy with the results thus far,” Ramsey said, adding that if the hooks had undetectable cracks the investigation would have been “dead in the water.”

Details of the year-long investigation have been teased in the media and during hearings in PG&E’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. One detail, disclosed by a civil attorney, was that a grand jury has been impaneled. Ramsey said he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a body.

PG&E has been cooperating with investigators, according to the DA. Prosecutors have met periodically with the utility’s “platoon” of attorneys. Multiple witnesses, including current and former PG&E employees, have been interviewed. And prosecutors have been poring over maintenance records and spreadsheets, decoding and interpreting the utility’s corporate language. Most records are digital, and there are a lot of them.

“We used to say—on large murder cases—I would say, ‘Oh, my God, we’re going through reams of reports,’” Ramsey said. “Now it’s, ‘We’re going through terabytes of data.’”

In a spokesperson’s statement, PG&E said it has been cooperating with the District Attorney’s Office but did not intend to discuss details of Ramsey’s investigation.

“We have been open and transparent since the Camp Fire occurred and have been proactive in supplying information about our infrastructure to the [California Public Utilities Commission], Cal Fire, the Butte County District Attorney and the California Attorney General,” the statement reads.

PG&E said its “most important responsibility” must be the safety of the public and its employees. The families affected by the Camp Fire are “our customers, our neighbors and our friends,” according to PG&E’s statement. “Our hearts go out to those who have lost so much, and we remain focused on supporting them …”

Prosecutors are looking at individual players within PG&E, in addition to the corporation itself. The challenge, Ramsey said, with charging people instead of a company is responsibilities for decisions can be diffused to the point where it’s difficult to prove individual responsibility. The downside of prosecuting a corporation, he said, is that it can’t be hauled off to jail for misdeeds. (PG&E already was convicted of six felony charges and placed on federal probation in connection with the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion.)

A conviction of 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter could result in penalties reaching about $2.5 million, Ramsey estimated.

“For PG&E, that’s not much,” he said. “Where they would be hurt in a sense—where the real penalty is—is the criminal restitution. The criminal restitution being that loss of all the property. That loss of all of the income. That loss of the businesses. Those, which right now is obviously estimated into the billions of dollars.”

Criminal restitution, the district attorney said, could be ordered if PG&E were charged and convicted of unlawfully causing a fire with gross negligence. However, he said PG&E’s bankruptcy case could add wrinkles into any possible prosecution. There is a “strong line” of statutory interpretation that concludes corporations can have criminal restitution payments discharged in bankruptcy, meaning they would not have to pay. Ramsey said he disagrees with the interpretation but conceded that fighting it would be an “uphill push.”

The considerations go back to the additional factors the DA’s Office has been taking into account.

“Do you kill PG&E in the bankruptcy court?” Ramsey said. “They don’t come out of the bankruptcy court and then they can discharge their criminal restitution—even if we convict them.”

PG&E was the target of a group of environmental activists that honored victims of the Camp Fire last Friday (Nov. 1) at Children’s Playground in Chico.

Photo/Andre Byik

—Andre Byik

Focus on the future

Learning from mistakes, preparing for potential disasters

When the Camp Fire ignited a year ago, nobody knew how fast it would spread or how many lives it would imperil. In fact, by the time local officials recognized they needed to start evacuating the town of Paradise, people were already losing power and cell towers were burning down.

“We relied on technology for notifications and it failed us miserably,” said Jody Jones, mayor of Paradise.

Cindi Dunsmoor, the county’s emergency services officer, echoed that sentiment.

“You have to look at the topography and the demographics of the area,” she said, referring to not only the Paradise Ridge, where the population was aging, but also to other foothills communities like Forest Ranch and Cohasset, where cellphone and internet coverage is spotty. “We need a system that doesn’t rely on cellphones [to alert people to emergencies].”

Dunsmoor has held her position for three years but has worked in the Office of Emergency Management since 2004. She’s tasked with overseeing the hazard mitigation plan, which encompasses the entire county and aims to foresee potential disasters and prepare for them.

“We look at fires, floods, these public safety power shut-offs,” she said, “and then we look at our critical facilities and projects like road-widening.”

The county just finished updating its hazard mitigation plan, with input from over a dozen agencies ranging from municipalities and fire safe councils to parks districts and public utilities. In it, they outline projects that could help save people or infrastructure in the event of a disaster. Dunsmoor submitted it to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) last month and it was approved, she said, so now it goes to each of those agencies for adoption.

Thing is, not every project will be completed, nor are they required to be. So, while the county has set a priority for widening Cohasset Road, for example, the only way in and out of that community, there’s no guarantee it’ll happen.

“It’s a wishlist,” Dunsmoor said. Many of the projects laid out in the previous plan, completed every five years, were never realized, she explained. That’s because they tend to be costly—widening a road or executing large-scale tree and brush removal can run into the millions. But by including those projects in the hazard mitigation plan, they become eligible for annual grant funding, as well as for post-disaster FEMA assistance.

“We had more districts join [the plan process] because of the flooding that happened after the Oroville Dam [spillway disaster],” Dunsmoor said.

The Feather River Recreation and Park District, for instance, sustained significant damage during that flood, as did facilities owned by the South Feather Water and Power Agency and Lake Oroville Public Utility District. When the water receded, however, and entities like the city of Oroville began applying for FEMA assistance, they weren’t eligible.

An albeit dull silver lining of any disaster is the ability to rebuild with more insight. For Paradise, which lost 90 percent of its real estate, that opportunity is huge. While some say the town should not rebuild on its existing footprint because of the vulnerability against future fires, Mayor Jones says new codes and regulations will protect the community.

“Are we better prepared? We’re getting ourselves there,” she said. “The council adopted ordinances above and beyond wildland-urban interface standards set by the state. Couple that with our defensible space ordinance, and I think the town will be a lot safer.”

Jones pointed to the destruction of the Camp Fire as an indication they’re on the right path. Fifty percent of the homes built after 2008—when codes were updated to require sprinkler systems in every home, among other things— survived the fire. Only 9 percent of those built before then are still standing, she said.

“If anybody’s saying that rebuilding on the same footprint might not be the right idea—they say it about rural areas, but not in big cities. Look at the Getty Fire. It’s hypocritical,” she said. “If you’re going to say people should not live where there’s risk, then there should be nobody living where there are tornadoes, nobody where there are hurricanes, nobody where there are earthquakes. What we do is we adopt new building standards so they stand up in an earthquake. We build in a smarter, more resilient way. But it doesn’t mean we can’t live here.”

She, Dunsmoor and Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea all emphasized personal responsibility in preparing for future disasters. Have a communication plan that doesn’t rely on technology, get to know multiple routes out should a hasty evacuation be necessary, and take the proper precautions to safeguard your home, whether it be from fire or flood or power outage.

“I talked to a guy who lived in Paradise. As he was leaving [during the Camp Fire], the road was packed with traffic,” Honea said. “But he knew that the bike path used to be an old railroad bed that went from Paradise to Chico. So, he drove down the bike path and got to safety. You’ve got to be aware and know multiple ways to get out.”

The county and the town of Paradise also are working on improving their emergency alert systems. On the day of the Camp Fire, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office had one person on duty who was experienced with how to send alerts. That person sent them via CodeRED, an opt-in service, but by the time those alerts reached residents, many of them already were evacuating or in harm’s way. The fire moved so swiftly, Honea said, that it knocked out cell towers and power before a lot of people were notified.

The BCSO this past summer installed high-low sirens on its vehicles that are to be used only in the case of an evacuation, Honea said. In addition, Dunsmoor said she’s talked with, for instance, a group of people who do ham radio and could, with battery or generator backup, spread the word—assuming people know to tune in.

“At least the siren would say, ‘Something is happening,’” she said. “We recognize we need to build out our ability to notify people with methods that aren’t overly reliant on technology.”

—Meredith J. Cooper

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