Rebuild:LA Episode 052: Just Because Your Home Is Still Standing, Doesn’t Mean You’ve Escaped the Fire with Eaton Fire Residents United’s Nicole Maccalla

Dr. Nicole Maccalla spent the first two days of the Eaton Fire on the ground, fighting to save her home. She thought that if she could just keep her house from burning, she would be okay, and when the fire was finally out, she could return to the place she and her children had called home for the last 11 years. But what she found was a house that might have been still standing, but could not be lived in. Everything inside was covered with ash, and she soon found out, other things more dangerous things that you couldn’t see, like lead, asbestos, and other heavy metals. Since then, Nicole has been trying to navigate insurance, federal aid, and state loopholes to make her house a home again. She and several fire survivors formed Eaton Fire Residents United and have created a website filled with invaluable resources and hard lessons they’ve had to learn firsthand, in their efforts to recover and rebuild. Cameron Barrett talks to Nicole Maccalla this week about her work.

Resources:

• Eaton Fire Residents United
• Share Your Testing
• What the Eaton Fire Left Behind
• Contamination Map

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:01

Standing homes, it's a different kind of hard. It's just a different kind of recovery, and the challenges are unique, right? Um, it's almost like the analogy of ripping off the band-aid quickly, right? It's like the slow torture kind of uh experience with a standing home.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

You're listening to Rebuild LA, a production of My Safe LA. I'm Cameron Barrett, and that was Nicole McCallagh from Eaton Fire Residents United. The Band-Aid analogy she's talking about is comparing someone whose home burned down to tearing off the bandage quickly. And the slow torture she mentions is being experienced by thousands of homeowners like Nicole, who had a structure still standing when the fire was finally contained. But Nicole, like thousands of others, found out almost immediately that the house left behind was no longer a home, but instead a contaminated place she would have to gut before it was safe to return. The nonprofit organization she and her fellow Eaton Fire survivors created has made a remarkable resource for those who are concerned about fire contamination in their homes. Their website not only offers countless resources for navigating remediation, but also data-rich maps made by dedicated volunteers showing the extent of positive testing for contaminants in homes in and around the fire. Find out all the work of Eaton Fire Residents United. Next welcome Nicole McCallow from the Eaton Fire Residents United.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Thank you so much, Cameron, for having me with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

You have had a lot of uh media attention and press coverage, um, all richly deserved from the work that your group is doing. So I want to I want to first drill down to that, the Eaton Fire Residents United. Uh what do you do? Why, why did you, why were you created?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Thank you so much. Um, EFRU was created in response to the Eaton Fire. So we came together as a coalition of concerned residents really about the safety of our standing homes. Um, there was not much talk at all about the uh what to do and how we get home from smoke-damaged homes or even homes with some structural damage and smoke damage. So all these standing structures, um, that's really where we came together. And um EFRU promotes a safe, just, and transparent public health recovery process. So we are really helping monitor the indoor contamination of the community, reflect that back, and then um empower residents um uh to um leverage that information um to return home safely.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

This is a a theme that's been coming up a lot now that we're 10 months out from the fires, uh even more than that. And um our late uh the the interviews that we've been doing lately, we're finding out that it's almost as if it's easier if you had had a total loss instead of you your your home managed to escape the fire, but it did not manage to escape the effects of the fire. Can you explain that a little bit? How a standing home has its a whole unique set of issues that you have to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah, standing homes, it's a different kind of hard. It's just a different kind of recovery, and the challenges are unique, right? Um, it's almost like the analogy of ripping off the band-aid quickly, right? It's like this slow torture kind of uh experience with the standing home. Um, and I can use my daughter's bedroom as an example, right? Like her bedroom, we we got to come home after remediation, but everything was thrown out. So it's like you come home, but it's a new, right? And so new beds, new furniture, some of the pieces we were able to keep, and not sure if that was the best move, but you know, like some of the the the furniture, right? Um uh but as far as like mattresses, toys, stuffed animals, like so much of that, you know, you have to go through item by item and decide do we try to wash it? Do we just throw it away? Is this something special that we're trying to recover? Is it worth the possible risk of contamination? Is it something that's washable? Is it, you know, um, there's just item by item. So we have to do the same inventory that folks with um total losses do. Um, but each one of those items we have to fight with insurance about do was it salvageable, right? And there's not this consensus on what is or isn't salvageable, so everything is a fight. So instead of all those thousands of items you catalog being agreed upon, they're a loss. We have to fight about every single item. And um, yeah, it's like torture. It's it's a slow torture, and that's the only way I can think of describe it. It's torture, it's it's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Well, you obviously are an eat and fire survivor. I should I should back up a little bit and ask you tell us your fire story. Where do you live and and how did the eat and fire affect you?

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, thank you. Um, I am a Altadena resident. I've lived in Altadena with my family uh since 2014, so 11 years. Um my daughter who's 12, this is really the only uh, you know, community that she remembers. Um we moved here when she was a baby. So um, you know, my kids have been raised here. Um our home is just on the edge of the burn line, and so our roof burned, but our structure still stood, and so we had to completely re-um build the roof and um you know, some structural pieces on windows and things. Um, but the home still stands, and um, you know, obviously a lot of smoke damage as well. Um, and it has been difficult. Like we my son and I stayed for, you know, um two days battling fired, putting out spot fires, and and with our our street, our street still had water. So we were able to save a lot of the homes at the time. We thought that that was the right decision. Um, you know, you're doing everything possible to save your um life that you've built, and at the same time not realizing that you know, some of it's not saveable. And that's the part I that's really hard to wrap your mind around. Um, you save something that then becomes so inundated with toxic contaminants that it's not the same home. Like you didn't save the same home that you remember. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

And insurance is is a nightmare because you it's a whole other uh process of trying to prove, like you said, that that what we threw out could not be saved. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

It is a nightmare, and it's um there's not clear guidance, or maybe there's an expectation that insurance is supposed to properly investigate um each claim, right? So part of that investigation would include testing for the contamination that's present in the home, but they want to fight you tooth and nail for that, and what they're willing to test for, or if they're only willing to do it at the post-remediation stage. Um, so even just getting the investigation of our claim uh taken care of is a huge, huge battle. And then each aspect of the claim, right? Of how much remediation is appropriate, or should you try to clean the mattress first, you know? Um, and you can't clean a mattress, right? You can't put it in the washer. But they want you to try to do this, so they're gonna try and run up all of your policy limits on things that really should be redirected to replacement, but they try to salvage things first, and then you have to, you know, my insurance company asks, well, who says it wasn't salvageable? You know, it's always the question I'm getting. I'm like, it's actually cheaper to buy a new shower curtain than to try to salvage the shower curtain, you know, the blackout curtains in my home. Like, you know, we didn't necessarily have like super fancy things. So some of this, it's a silly conversation of why we're gonna try to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to try and salvage five-year-old curtains and and wash them and restore them, than to just buy a new pack, you know. Um, so it's really uh it's it's torture, right? And that's every imagine every single item in your house having to go through that um and get permission and uh approvals to move forward and you know, remediation companies, it's a it's a disaster and nightmare trying to deal with that. And um, there's no consensus about a lot of this stuff. So unfortunately, like there is no standard that just says insurance companies should replace a mattress in a wildland urban interface fire situation, and how far out in the ash zone or impact zone, right? So everything is a battle.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah. Oh my god. Well, I'm I'm completely understanding why Eaton Fire Residence United came together. It's very clear to me. So can you bring us through the process that you went through and that perhaps most people um in the Eaton Fire Residence United have gone through who have standing homes? So you came home and and uh either say you knew that you had saved your home or you you came home after the fire had swept through. You saw that you have a standing home, and the first the first thing you needed to do was was it call in the Army Corps of Engineers or was it calling the remediation? What was that first?

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Nobody knew, right? Nobody really knew. There, we were just asking each other, our neighbors. Um, I think many of us came home and opened the door and realized, uh-oh. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Uh-oh, I should be getting some advice, right? When Ash is covering your kid's bed and all their toys and their desk and you know, everything is covered in this stuff, you're like, um, this doesn't look right, you know. Um, and what do I do? Um, so you know, insurance claims, then they got to come inspect, and then, you know, depending on what they approve, maybe you're lucky to have some um contamination testing done by an industrial hygienist. You gotta find one of those that's available that your insurance approves or doesn't approve and pay out of pocket. Wow. And then hopefully they've got good recommendations the month after you know they analyze your data. Um, hopefully they have some good recommendations, and some of them are just sending reports back to homeowners without any recommendations. And then you get these results, and then people are coming to us. What does it mean? How do I interpret it? What do I do? Or you get a great report and insurance says, I don't like that. I want to I want to get a new report, right? Because I don't like those recommendations, I don't agree. Um, and so then they might want to redo all the testing and send out their own people, and then they want to test in certain spots that are less likely maybe to, you know, come back with these. And in the meantime, in the meantime, you you're you're not living in your home. No, you can't live in your home. So this whole time they're hashing it out, or maybe they found asbestos in your kids' room, but not in the master bedroom. So then they only want to abate the kids' room. But if you have asbestos in your house or in your HVAC, like, you know, you take a swipe and and if you find asbestos anywhere, the saying is you find asbestos everywhere, right? That should be the assumption. Um, if you find it, like, you know, um chances are it's in other parts of your house, right? And so then, oh, it's only on this sample, so then they only want to, you know, clean that room. And you're like, well, that's not what the experts say is reasonable, you know, that doesn't sound right. Um so it is it has been extremely challenging and finding information, it has been a vacuum. Um, and so this is why we came together to try and help residents figure out what do we do? Um, what does it mean? Where do we go from here? Um, and then put some pressure on different government agencies and insurance industry, and you know, um all these different levers. It's it's a complex problem, it's gonna require complex solutions. We need everybody on deck helping, and there hasn't been enough for standing up.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Here we are 10 months out, yeah, and there's still all these questions, yeah, which is remarkable. So your and we will absolutely link to the to the website. Um, the uh Eaton Fire Residents United website is uh a wealth of information. You also have a map that I find um pretty staggering. This map um is basically a map of the homes that have been tested and the results of that environmental testing. Of the 213 that were tested for lead, 100% tested positive. You are a data person in your in your other full-time job. I know you're a full-time uh fire survivor right now and a full-time how to get back into my home safely person right now, but you are also um in your full-time work, a data specialist. Give us the data that the um that your group has organized and has put on this map and in your website.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yes, thank you. So we actually have two maps now published. Um the one that you were just referring to has the most amount of cases, and that is the pre-remediation map. So this means uh, like we're talking about, you open up your house and you say, uh-oh, what do I do next, right? One of the uh appropriate next steps is to have an industrial hygienist come in and um take samples from your home to see what kind of contamination we're dealing with, right? Because if you have asbestos, you need a specific crew that's licensed for asbestos. We've got worker protections, we need, you know, specific approaches, right? So it's important to know what's in there. Um, that map, uh, our pre-remediation map basically has a bunch of those test results displayed and is showing the peak level of contamination for lead, asbestos, and other heavy metals, such as um arsenic, chromium, beryllium, um, all these different things that pose all the good stuff. Yep, all the good stuff, yep, that pose unique uh threats to human health. And you put a cocktail of these things together, we actually don't even know what happens to humans, right? There's there's most of these things are studied individually, right? And so now we've got a whole cocktail put together of contaminants in your home. Um, and so what we've done is really display that information um so that it can be used um uh by our community to help advocate for the kind of recovery support we need. Um, historically, this information just lives with the individual resident as well as their insurance company. Sure. And so they would they wouldn't know what their next door neighbor was dealing with or their community was dealing with. And so it's a lot harder to um get the kind of resources you need as a community when it's kind of a masked problem. But what we've done is been able to turn that into a transparent problem, that this is not just my problem, it's our community's problem. And we need an actual systematic, system-wide, community-wide response to this, right? Because our community can't recover if we have this extensive contamination that's going all the way down to the 210 freeway, right? And beyond. So our our our uh map displays cases in Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre communities, and the story is the same: 100% of contamination um uh with lead, just zooming in on lead, right? And when you zoom in on, well, what level of lead? Are we talking about a little bit of lead? Are we talking about a lot of lead, right? That matters. We're talking about a lot of lead.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

A lot of lead. Um some um samples we receive are thousands and thousands um uh uh percent over what EPA has deemed safe for um indoor structures. So extremely high levels of lead that require abatement, right? 100% of the homes that that we've looked at were recommended for professional remediation.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Wow. So I have to ask, was the lead is is this a result of older homes and their older lead-based paint burning? Or is this the result of something that came from the urban conflagration that the Eaton Fire became? I mean, I we all know it started as a wildfire coming out of the canyon, but it became an urban conflagration, burning things that human beings made, which are not very clean. So what what where did this lead come from?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Um and that that may be um uh a question for you know an expert other than myself. Um I do know that there, yes, one explanation is that lead paint, right? Um we have uh an older housing stock. Um, you know, over 90% of the homes in the Eat and Fire area uh were built before 1970 when a lot of new regulations came into place. And so there are a lot of contaminants, right? Um and so um, sure, it can come from lead-based paint. There was actually a great um article, the LA Times, um um um, and um they broke down each one of those CAM17 heavy metals and um indicated the source, like likely sources of where these things came from, and then um the effects on human health. So that um I was uh nice to kind of look at. Um, you know, it really kind of breaks down where some of this stuff is coming from. And you've got you think about appliances, electronics, you've got cars, businesses, we had schools, um, you know, we had all kinds of things. Um, and so uh, you know, you've got all this composite furniture, you've got um, you know, uh building materials, all this stuff. And so um, you know, there's I think a multitude of sources from it all. What we do know, just even looking at our asbestos numbers, the type of asbestos, right, is identified and it's christatile asbestos, which is a burned. So it is a burned form of asbestos, so which means it's got that footprint of the fire. This isn't stuff that just was in our homes, right? And even if you have lead-based paint, let's say, well, some of these standing homes, right? You how do you know it's not the lead paint from your home? These are not paint chips that are being sampled. This is somebody coming in, cording off an area, right? Um, um, and wiping that area one time, right? And lifting the dust, lifting whatever gets stuck to all that. Yeah, that wet wipe, right? And then testing what's in that. So, you know, if you're wiping the floor and you're finding lead on the floor, that can't come from the lead paint that's encapsulated on my wall, right? If you're wiping my countertop, that's granite and it's got lead, it didn't come from my countertop, right? So it's kind of silly some of these arguments of like, well, how do you know it wasn't there? Well, it's burned asbestos, right? You've got, even though these homes are um many of them, my home is 101 years old, um, but it's been remodeled pieces of it since then, right? So my floors were installed in 2019. I know that those floors were not loaded with asbestos and lead. And asbestos and lead, right? And so I my bathroom was redone at the same time, right? So when we're finding these things in newly remodeled spaces or spaces where, you know, you have to come up with some other logical explanation of how it got there. So if it wasn't from the fire, how did all this stuff make it onto our our desks and our um, you know, nightstands and our mantles and countertops and all that stuff, right? There is no other logical explanation. And there's been lots of studies that have analyzed the footprint of this fire, the chemical footprint, right? And and we're finding that those same exact things inside of our homes.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Wow. Let let's let's take a a brief little aside here and just talk about the outside of our homes really quickly. Um so the Army Corps of Engineers came in and scraped lots. Did they scrape yours? No. So I have a standing home. So they only scraped okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So the only place where um Army Corps of Engineers uh worked was on destroyed lots.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Right, right. So they pulled away. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

So it has to be a destroyed building, and then that's where that assistance came in. So standing structures, zero help yet from government agencies. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

And that was free. Right. That was free for folks who lost their home, but you got none of that help. So you were not just walking through contamination inside your home, but your home was also surrounded by contamination, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Yes. Um, and this is actually a point two, even for destroyed lots that we should clarify. The Army Corps of Engineers scraped the footprint where the footprint of the of the um original structure. So they didn't scrape their whole lot either. So they might have removed um, you know, um some of that contaminated soil, but then you've got a ring around it where they did not touch, right? So everybody in this fire-affected community, Palisades and Eaton has been left with contamination on their property, whether you are a destroyed lot or a standing home, right? So that's really important to understand. We are all left with soil contamination that insurance does not cover.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

You know, you and I are talking on November 13th, Thursday, and we are about to, I mean, we're all braced for it. We're about to have a couple of days of rain. Yeah. Your organization and you personally must be uh pretty concerned about what is about to start running down the streets and into your lots.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Um, you know, it's it's funny that you mentioned this because for a long time I had a lot of sandbags out, you know, protecting part of my property. Um, and um I've now, you know, stacked those up um on the side. I was thinking about that earlier. Should I unstack the sandbags? Um, you know, when it rains, we still smell the fire. So it's really interesting because it actually gets a lot of things stirred up. Um, and it smells so much like fire when water hits the ground. Um, there's just this residue everywhere. Um and yeah, we have a huge debris flow uh um, you know, uh evacuation um sort of uh notice right now of a watch, of a of a warning for these areas. Um I'm not right at the base of the foothill, so my home should be okay, but many others, you know, are not in that same situation. And um, you know, this is why we need a community-wide response because of things like rain and and air flow, right? So you've got water flow, air flows when the wind blows, dust moves, soil moves. When water flows, you've got debris flow, right? And so it is um silly to think that these things will just stay on one property or one lot. They move around. And so if our community has not been cleaned and decontaminated, this stuff just keeps moving around. Um, not to mention it leaching into aquafers, you know, like this stuff goes also into groundwater, right? Like we've gotta learn how to um uh trap some of these contaminants, right? Um, and there's some natural ways to do that that are being um um you know explored right now. Um, but to ignore the problem makes the problem worse.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Or to, yeah, or to dig heels in like so many insurance carriers have done and and made this process um go longer and longer and longer until we're finally into what is traditionally um our rainy year season and our windier season. So, I mean, if it wasn't something that was critically important and time sensitive in February, April, July, I can't think of how critically time uh sensitive it is now in mid-November.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

And it's well time sensitive for a couple of reasons. The anniversary's coming up, you've got holiday seasons coming up, you've got ALE, so alternative living expenses running out. So many people already had that run out and are being forced home or have no other options. So we've got a rise in homelessness that's that's happening now, or people face moving back into contaminated structures or face homelessness, right? So the fact that so much of this has been drawn out is also putting people into new um uh situations where they have to choose their family safety, choose between family safety or homelessness, you know, and those are not good choices that we're putting on people.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

No, no. Tell me how is I it's it's it's like the hydra. I mean, it's just every time you think you've identified one problem, another one pops up. What is the what is the Eaton Fire Residents United uh trying to get their arms around and trying to solve? Is it just the fact that these issues have to be approached as a community, or are there more specific things that your group is doing?

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah, thank you. And that's a lot to unpack. So yeah, it sure is. Here we go. Start with one I think that's the the most clear, right? And that is our recent campaign around clearance before occupancy, right? So one thing that we are really pushing for, and this would go for schools, businesses, residents, um, um, is that these buildings have been cleared of contamination related to the disaster-related debris, right? And these buildings can be returned to normal use. So whether that's operating a business, running a school, or you know, a residence, right? Um, free of contamination before normal use, right? So clearance before occupancy, verificar antes de habitar. We want people in buildings that are safe for habitation and use. And that's gonna require a bunch of different government agencies working together to make that happen. All right, that is that is the bottom line, and then I can unpack some of our other priorities. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

So that's our number one. That's your number one.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Number one.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Um okay. Give us a few more of your priorities in your work.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Sure. So another um piece that we think is extremely important, and this would be something that um uh our governor, uh Gavin Newsom, or state agencies um can support is establishing an ash zone or an high impact zone, right? So right now, um in the immediate um aftermath of the fire, and I mean one, two, three days while the fire is burning and then you know um uh put out in the city limits, um there was the Cal OES, um, the Cal Fire, sorry, my my apologies, Cal Fire um damage inspection report. And these flagged homes that suffered structural damage that was visible from the street, mind you. So it did not include things like inspection of your roof or anything, right? So very limited. So it flagged homes and structures, businesses, whatever it was, that had been damaged from the fire. Um, that has been misused to determine eligibility for support and for services, like um, for example, um Red Cross support. So if you're not in that map, you don't get help, right? So what that map did not do is identify homes like mine where the roof burned, but it wasn't necessarily the fire department didn't come on and help me put that out. My neighbor actually put that out for me. And so my home, even though we repetitioned to get it added to the DINS map, even in the window when they were accepting those um uh suggestions, never made it onto the DINS map, right? And so you've got um thousands and thousands of structures that aren't on this official quote-unquote list of damaged homes that don't um qualify for support. Um, this also, so we've got this burn zone, we like to call it there's this perimeter, right? And a line that has been drawn basically around where they've identified these burned structures. But then immediately south of that, right, your next door neighbor could be part of the burned the fire, but you wouldn't be, right? Although your house heated up to 10,000 degrees, you know, and and the the um got all the ash and got all the target. And your roof melted, your entire roof melted, you know, the tar melted into your attic, right? But you wouldn't be part of that burned um list. And so you've got this whole ash zone, right? So that was there was a hundred mile-an-hour winds, hurricanes, hurricane force winds that night. It was a firestorm. There were fire embers flying through the air at 100 miles an hour. And that firestorm brought um this toxic debris into our homes, broke windows, went under doors, you know, made it through um our our home. And, you know, you've got roof vents, you've got attic spaces, there's, you know, all this basically made it inside these standing structures. Um and so this declaration of an ash zone, a high-impact zone that um uh has severe smoke damage would allow immediately those folks in that zone to be eligible for resources. Okay, but also raise awareness about whether or not you are a fire-affected, you know, um um individual. Like your family survived this fire, right? Your home maybe survived, but at what cost? And at what cost to your family's health for the rest of their lives, right? And so um this ash zone would help resolve some of these issues with insurance of like we need inspection, right? Yeah, um, there's been new um uh legislation SB610 that actually um is is graded, establish some protections for renters that this entire area basically was identified and assumed that all structures are contaminated. And so now landlords have to do testing and remediation and show clearance to renters, right? So if we're assuming rentals in this area are contaminated, can we also assume other buildings are contaminated? Our schools, our homes, our businesses, right? So it there's been some little movement, but an actual ash zone where we can assume all these buildings are contaminated, that's gonna help move the needle on getting these people resources and getting proper investigation of their claims in a in a path where we actually have the resolution right now, too. If we don't do that and people don't file smoke claims, then who pays for that later? It's gonna be the state, it's gonna be our taxpayers. Right now, this is why we have insurance. Right, right, right. And so we need folks to be filing smoke claims in this zone. But if you don't even know you've got the zone, then you've got people that haven't filed smoke claims.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Right? So we need awareness, we need an actual legitimate ash zone so that we can really raise that awareness and get the people in that ash zone the support that they need, which could be an insurance claim or it could be part of their SCE lawsuit or a settlement offer or whatever it is, or maybe there's actual gonna have to be some state resources to help those that were uninsured, right? Or or in situations like that, right? But right now we actually have a path to pay for some of this stuff if we can raise awareness that you are in a fire-impacted area.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Wow. I uh these are two giant issues that your your small but mighty group is taking on. Um how can someone one take advantage of what you're offering? Is it just going to the website and and and uh tapping into those resources or um is it is it something more uh substantial? Um so one, how can they um uh get the help that you're offering? And two, how can they be part of the these remarkable numbers that you've got up there?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, so a couple things. So our um if you go to our website, eFru.la, we have a ton of resources there, right? So we've got we've been doing about two speaker events a month, bringing in experts, bringing in the most, the most relevant, um hot off the press findings about what's being found in our community. We've been bringing that. So we have all of those recordings available if you want to know about risks to human health or what to do. Um, um, there's just a lot of amazing speaker events we've had. We also have um some resources on how to navigate some of this with insurance. Um, we also have our map portal where if you would like to participate in our mapping project, um, you can upload your uh test results and share those with us. We have a whole consenting uh process, a whole um safe storage and de-identification of that information. So some of that is explained to you in that portal. We're also happy to answer any questions that you might have. Um we also have weekly meetings or about at least three times a month. We have our Monday meetings and we change the topic of those. So we've had meetings around people sharing their experiences with getting um access to testing, what worked for them, what what are the challenges folks are encountering? We've had sessions on um uh pets and like what your pets are experiencing after the fire and the impact we've seen on the pets in our community, um, smoke, dance smoke and and um ash sort of impacts on pets, but also just the displacement experience of pets, right? Of moving from place to place to place every couple days or weeks, right? Um, so we've we we rotate those speaker events and we're happy to um host a topic that is of interest to our community, right? So um these are ways that you can get involved, you can reach out to us. Um, and um, we also have our social media channels where we've uh put out, you know, your rights and what you should know, um, what next steps that you can take. So you can find us on Instagram or Facebook, Eaton Fire Residents United, and we're trying to roll out those materials in both Spanish and English. Um there's lots of ways if you want to get involved with our organization, or um, you know, we want to be able to do more, but we're volunteers. Yeah. We are volunteers, and um, we're really trying to um uh receive uh support so that we can become a sustainable organization to continue to provide these services for the community. Um and so there's lots of opportunities to get involved.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I'm stunned at the resources that you have online. I mean, I've been going through some of the meetings that you have there for anyone to learn from. It is just a rich resource. Uh, but I I gotta ask, how did you do it? How how do you folks, when you're going through all that you're going through, how have you managed to create this pretty extraordinary um font of information?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Thank you. We we actually have had an amazing group of volunteers. Um, we could not have done this without all of our volunteers. So huge, huge shout out for all the names and and faces um uh that support our work. Um, we couldn't have done it without them. And um over time, we've had different folks come in and out and and help us with various aspects. So, what you see is really based on um volunteer um power. Um and um I think all of us love our community. We want to give back to our community, we also want to leverage our skills and resources, that social capital to um help. Um, and we found it so hard to personally navigate that we can only imagine if you start to layer on challenges that we know exist in our community from immigration challenges or language barriers or just different things, different levels of resources, and you start to layer these things on top one after the other after another, we know that that there are people really struggling in our community. And so if we can leverage and make it any bit any bit easier or any bit more equitable, um, we want to be able to do that. Um, we love our community and and so many of our neighbors came together and and and helped, um, and they're still doing so. It's really this recovery has been shouldered by our community um and led by our community, right? And so we're just a little teeny teeny piece of that story.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

The more I meet people like you, the more I am stunned at how cool Altadinans are. I mean, what what a remarkable group of people um have come forward after this terrible disaster uh in your in beautiful Altadena. Um just really amazing. Okay, we're coming up on the first anniversary.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

What does the Eaton Fire Residents United hope to hope to see at that first anniversary? And why not look out? How about at the fifth anniversary? Oh my goodness. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

This is a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

It is because it's almost, I mean, the first anniversary is is pretty concrete what you hope to accomplish, but the fifth is almost a bit of a dream, isn't it? It's a bit of a a hope, a hopeful question, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Um I think one of the biggest drivers of our community's recovery is getting people home that have standing structures.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Right. So the rebuild is gonna take longer. Um, and we know that you know, one year, two year, three, four, five years, we're gonna see more and more of that rebuild. And that's got to stay a priority for all of us. Um, but the getting people home is like a today priority, right? The rebuild is gonna take months, months, right? A project is gonna take a couple years, even for a single home to be rebuilt and all of that. We have standing homes here right now that are not occupied. So getting those homes decontaminated so we can get those folks home so that they can help keep our businesses alive that are still here that also survived, so that in five years from now, when these homes are rebuilt, there's businesses here that are thriving, right? That there's still a community to come home to. So if we can get folks home safely, we can help keep our community alive so that more and more people can return over time, right? But if all of our businesses that still remain go under because there's nobody here to even frequent those businesses, right, our our community's recovery is gonna be even more disastrous, right? Um, so getting people home safely is of top priority. And those that have already come home, that have been put in unsafe situations that don't have evidence that they're home or at school or business is clear of contaminants, we still want to be able to help those folks too. We wanna keep pressure on insurance to fully investigate these claims and do what the policy owners um have right to. Um, and that is, you know, removal of these wildfire-related disaster contaminants, you know, get them out so that we can be thriving. Um and we can't do it if we're uh living in contaminated units.

unknown 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Nicole McCalla from the Eat Fire Residents United. I you are tireless, you are inspirational, and um, what hard work you're doing. Thank you so much for coming on Rebuild LA and telling us all about it.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Thank you so much for having us. We appreciate your support and um yeah, just sending lots of love to all of our LA fire uh recovery communities. This is really LA fire recovery stories, you know. Um, and um we want to be part of that uh positive change. So thanks for supporting us.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Rebuild LA is a production of the Safe Community Project. It's produced by Cameron Barrett, David Barrett, and Chris Neville. Our gorgeous theme song and closing credits music were composed by Michelle Sutter. Help our podcast and our nonprofit continue the work we do by taking just a few minutes to rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast. And if you'd like to learn more about the work we're doing to rebuild LA, or even to lend a hand, go to our website at mysafela.org.