LAKE ALMANOR, Calif. —
The people burned out of Paradise, Calif., began settling here during the winter, wending their way up into the snowy mountains to rent studio apartments, buy spacious houses or, in the case of Dan Breland, to find a place to park the battered RV he used to flee November's devastating fire.
"It will never be over for me," said Breland, 48, who relives his escape in nightly sweats. The side door he flung open to scoop up his wife when her car stalled is held together with duct tape. The air conditioning overheated and doesn't work.
"But we got out with our lives," the former truck driver said. "This is home now."
"Home" has meant finding their son a new school for 10th grade, signing up with a local clinic for health care and, like many others in Northern California's strained housing market, embarking on the arduous search for a place they can afford to live.
Breland and others like him are part of a population that is likely to grow as the climate changes, experts say: Americans uprooted from their communities by natural disasters and extreme weather events, then forced to reestablish themselves in new settings.
"Local communities and local authorities are on the front line," said Elizabeth Ferris, a professor at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration. "Displaced people have an immediate and ongoing impact on schools, health services and housing."
A swing outside the Ramey home that was burned during the Camp Fire remained behind caution tape in early June. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
About 50,000 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills were displaced by the Camp Fire, when high winds ripped through desiccated woodland. In Paradise, where the firestorm reduced almost all of the housing to rubble, a little more than 10 percent of residents have returned. Thousands more have scattered across the country — some to neighboring Plumas County and others as far away as Florida and Hawaii.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a nongovernmental group that tallies people who have to flee their communities and resettle elsewhere in their countries, estimates that 1.2 million people in the United States were displaced by natural disasters in 2018. The data, which the IDMC began collecting more than a decade ago, shows elevated levels of displacement during the past three years.
Because the United States lacks a comprehensive system for tracking evacuees, not much is known about their welfare after they leave shelters, said Justin Ginnetti, head of data and analysis at IDMC. That has prevented the development of policies and interventions that ensure evacuees resettle in safe places and receive assistance to rebuild productive lives. It also limits understanding of how displaced people affect the communities in which they land.
Dan Breland fled the RV camp where he was living with his wife, Suzette Breland, their 16-year-old son and dog, Meatball. The charred site has been cleared, and Breland is hoping to put down roots in the town of Westwood, Calif., by Lake Almanor. "We got out with our lives," the former truck driver said. "This is home now."
IDMC has called for Congress to designate an agency to collect and share data about people displaced by natural disasters as many other countries have done, including the Philippines and Japan. Camp Fire evacuees have resettled in almost every state, according to a Washington Post analysis of various data sources, moving far beyond the designated disaster area that receives state and federal aid.
Major disasters all too often lead to long-term dislocation and homelessness, researchers say.
"You don't think about 'refugee' and 'USA' in the same sentence," said Cat Graham, chief operating officer of Humanity Road, a charity that monitors social media to track and help people after disasters. "But we're going to see more and more of it. And we need to make plans today for how we are going to assist with it."
Dan Breland hugs his wife, Suzette Breland, inside their RV with their dog, Meatball, at the Lassen West Village RV Park in Westwood, Calif., in early June. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency does record forwarding addresses for natural disaster victims who receive aid. But those records omit the homeless, undocumented immigrants, and many people who are well insured. It also omits some in unstable living situations, such as Breland, who said he could not provide FEMA with proof of residence in an apartment he used to rent.
In the Zip codes affected by the Camp Fire, the U.S. Postal Service lists more than 13,000 households as "moved, left no address." Confirming the whereabouts of former occupants of burned buildings has been an ongoing challenge for Butte County officials, where the assessor's office has been processing about 100 address changes each day, said county Chief Administrative Officer Shari McCracken.
Phone and tech companies, such as data analytics group Thasos, have become a rich source of post-disaster data, able to track in real time the evacuation of different socio-economic groups with cellphone location data, for example. Facebook uses its app location data to create immediate disaster maps identifying where survivors flee but does not provide long-term analyses because of concerns including accuracy and privacy.
"What we have is not a panacea; it's a piece of the truth," said Laura McGorman, who manages the company's Data for Good portfolio.
After losing their physical communities, some evacuees have built digital ones. On Facebook pages like Camp Fire Relocation, users suggest cities to relocate to, advise on appealing FEMA decisions, provide mental health tips, offer to adopt evacuee families and request help paying for basic needs, such as gas.
Accessing resources becomes more challenging the farther evacuees move from the disaster area, according to David Forsyth, who set up the Camp Fire Survivors Map Facebook group where evacuees have written in from 525 communities across the country — from Abbeville, Ala., to Thermopolis, Wyo.
Tiffany Jenkins posted an appeal in the group for people in Talent, Ore., seeking help for her boyfriend who had found a job in the area: "would anyone be willing to just go to his work and maybe put some food in his truck so he can at least eat if he can't come home?" she wrote. "After the fire, it has been nothing but a struggle to get back on our feet."
Steve Newnom was able to rescue only a few treasures from his home, including some photos. "I'm having more trouble coping now," the 63-year-old said.
The ripple effect
The Camp Fire's effects have rippled outward from Paradise as evacuees have crossed county and state borders. More than 50 families have settled in the resort area of Lake Almanor, about a two-hour drive north of Paradise, drawn by the availability of cheaper housing or offers of shelter in empty vacation cabins.
Members of the community, which briefly set up shelters for survivors following the fire, opened their closets and their wallets, providing clothing, kitchenware and $25,000 that helped pay for groceries and gas for those living from unemployment check to unemployment check. The North Valley Community Foundation in Butte County, a group that has made donations to communities receiving survivors, gave $10,000.
Schools here have taken in new students. The area hospital, with its one-doctor emergency room, is sending some patients in need of skilled nursing to units as far away as San Francisco, about 250 miles from here.
Bob Grimm kept the few molten parts of his truck as souvenirs of the fire that splintered his community in Paradise, Calif. "We're so scattered, there is somebody wherever you go," he said.
The small, rural facility was not equipped to accommodate Ellice Jones, 46, an evacuee who had scheduled a hysterectomy in Paradise in December. After the fire destroyed part of that hospital, her doctor moved to Colorado. Unable to work because of debilitating pain, she tried for months to reschedule, settling on a hospital in Reno, Nev., until her insurance denied coverage because it was out of state.
She finally received the procedure at another California hospital — more invasive and expensive than originally planned — in mid-June.
"It cost them more money because they waited too long," Jones said.
The greatest impact of the influx of displaced residents may be housing prices. Evacuees who leave a disaster zone often have insurance payouts or FEMA hotel vouchers or rental assistance, allowing them to move quickly into new real estate markets.
Christi and Heath Chase, who run a small year-round restaurant close to the lake called Cravings, said the rent on their three-bedroom house soared this year from $1,100 to $1,500 a month. Several weeks ago, they were asked to move out so that their landlord could sell the property.
"We're homeless," said the mother of two, taking a break on an early June day from waiting on customers, including a young couple from Paradise strategizing over lunch about purchasing a property here.
'Nothing is permanent'
Even as they have settled into new homes, the Camp Fire evacuees describe the psychological challenges of their still nomadic lives, shuttling back to Paradise to sift through charred lots or traveling farther afield to deal with business or help displaced relatives. One couple now in Lake Almanor said that, out of 23 structures where relatives lived, 21 were destroyed, scattering their once-close knit family.
Mike and Bobbi Kemp, with daughter Evalene, still decided to move out of their house after it survived the fire because their daughter is disabled and they didn't want her exposed to toxins. Mike's parents live there now. "We're in a good place," he said.
The evacuees arrived here knowing they had lost possessions. But it was only later that they realized what else they had lost, said Susan Bryner, a real estate agent who started a Facebook group to provide support and information to Lake Almanor's new residents: "Community, routines, book clubs, everything they did that made their lives make sense."
Jamie Ramey, 36, has bought a house and started offering dance classes. She has fixed up a studio, installing mirrors and new flooring and opening its doors to local residents, including other survivors of the fire.
But she doesn't feel rooted.
"Nothing is permanent," Ramey said.
For some, the process of putting down new roots has made their losses more acute.
The photos of adult children that take pride of place in the entryway of Steve Newnom's new cabin are searing reminders of other treasures he could not rescue. A story he heard of one elderly woman's unanswered cries for help has come back to haunt him.
Michael Kemp holds his daughter, Evalene, before dinner in June. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
"I'm having more trouble coping now," said Newnom, 63. Bryner later connected him with locals who shared his interest in fishing, an activity that has helped him move on.
Others describe sudden outbursts of anger and say their memories play tricks with them. Asked where they used to live in Paradise, several found they could not remember their old addresses.
Those delayed reactions do not surprise Tony Hobson, director of behavioral health in Plumas County, where therapists and counselors have been working with evacuees. It was months after the fire that his colleagues in Butte County began to see an increase in psychiatric crises, he said.
"You're in shock at first. Then, when the smoke clears you are at a loss," said Hobson, who lived in Paradise and lost his own home in the fire.
"I cry a lot," said Jamie Gallaher, 56, who moved with her roommate, a handyman, into a cabin here belonging to one of his clients. She still feels unmoored, she said, without the two grown sons who shared their home in Paradise. She now spends weekends traveling hundreds of miles to see them.
"I wake up each day wanting to go home," Gallaher said. "But there is no home to go to."
Clouds encompass a hill near Lake Almanor, a resort area where more than 50 families have moved after losing their homes in the Camp Fire. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
--
Groups.io Links:
You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#31962) | Reply To Group | Reply To Sender | Mute This Topic | New Topic
Your Subscription | Contact Group Owner | Unsubscribe [volcanomadness1@gmail.com]
No comments:
Post a Comment