Margot Stueber, upbeat in her sporty sunglasses and hot-pink sweater, broke ground on her new home this week – the first to do so in this community that lost nearly 6,000 homes to the January wildfires that ravaged Greater Los Angeles. It’s a milestone, marking the remarkably quick clearing of lots and the start of the next phase of recovery and rebuilding.
“Today is the first day of my new life,” she enthused to reporters gathered at a ribbon cutting on her cleared dirt lot. And to those coming up behind her who may be worried and discouraged, she has a message: “If I can do it, all you guys out there can do it. Just dare to envision a positive future for yourself and for Altadena.”
Challenges abound for the thousands displaced by the Eaton and Palisades fires that destroyed more than 16,000 structures in the Los Angeles area – most of them homes. Survivors are grappling with slow and inadequate insurance payouts, uninhabitable dwellings, and upended lives.
Why We Wrote This
Recovery after a natural disaster often involves a long, complex recovery process. For the thousands displaced by this year’s California wildfires, quick disaster agency responses and help from local officials have helped speed that work.
But one critical aspect of the recovery process is making record time. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is far ahead of schedule hauling debris from lots. At the same time, local officials are streamlining the building permit process to speed up construction as lots are cleared.
The Corps has until the fires’ anniversary next January to finish, but “We anticipate being substantially complete by the end of the summer,” says Army Corps Col. Eric Swenson, who is overseeing debris removal. “We are on a record pace.”
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Colonel Swenson attributes his expedited timetable to the quick work of the Environmental Protection Agency in the first phase of cleanup. The EPA removed hazardous waste from burn areas in one month, rather than in the projected three, thanks to the federal government tripling its resources, he says.
President Donald Trump “came out here and said we’re going to get this done faster – and more resources showed up,” he says. “That allowed the EPA to go faster, which meant that I could go faster.”
The other “game changer,” Colonel Swenson says, was that Los Angeles County created a deadline for owners to opt in or out of Corps cleanup for their burned properties. Owners who signed “right of entry” forms could have their lots cleared at no out-of-pocket cost, rather than pay a private contractor.
That deadline “forced people to make a decision sooner than they otherwise might have,” says the colonel. Most property owners opted in for the Corps’ cleanup and debris removal plan. Of the approximately 12,000 land parcels eligible for Corps clearing, more than 10,000 entry forms have been received, covering 83% of the properties affected by the two massive fires.
“The work that the Army Corps of Engineers did was spectacular,” says Trinidad Campbell, whose design build firm supplied the Bauhaus-style plans for Ms. Stueber’s new home. “They’ve really moved and cleared and cleaned and taken a big weight off of everybody, because it’s complicated and expensive to do this.”
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That’s not to say it’s been flawless execution.
At the start, residents complained mightily about the removal of trees that weren’t dead. In response, the Corps listened and adjusted. Heavy trucks still clog roads, and residents worry about toxic dust and soil, and about hazardous waste being dumped into local landfills. The Corps says it’s taking every precaution – wetting down cleanup areas, lining trucks and encasing debris, and providing air monitors. Community protesters have so far not stopped the operations.
At the ribbon cutting in Altadena, county board supervisor Kathryn Barger gives Ms. Stueber the credit for this milestone, though it didn’t hurt that Gov. Gavin Newsom showed up at the plot back in February when Ms. Stueber became the first in Altadena to have her property cleared. He also contacted her and her architect at the end of March to check on the permitting process and lent a hand in speeding it up.
Still, “She basically did everything she needed to do to get her permits signed off on,” says Ms. Barger. When the clearing was completed, Ms. Stueber already had an architect.
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Indeed, Ms. Stueber, a child therapist, moved quickly. Days after the fire, she connected with Ms. Campbell through a mutual friend. At first, their visits involved a lot of crying, says Ms. Stueber. But slowly, as design possibilities emerged, she was able to look forward.
“Once you start moving ahead, with every step you move, you will also see more of the future developing in front of you,” she says in an interview. “It’s very difficult to overcome a loss by staying frozen.’’
Her positive outlook has helped her start over three times – when she first came to the United States from Germany over 30 years ago, suitcase in hand; then after a divorce; and now this. As a child, she played in the rubble of World War II in the city of Koblenz, her mother and grandmother serving as models of resilience.
It helps to have an attitude of “Yes, we can,” she says. “Life is all about change.”
Ms. Steuber expects her new place to be finished in eight to nine months, though she knows that, moving forward, the rest of her neighborhood will be under constant construction with few recognizable landmarks. Still, she’s excited to see all the new houses that will emerge.
Her neighbors have been meeting monthly, and most of them plan to rebuild.
“We will build a new community, which is as nice, or maybe even nicer, who knows, than what we had before,” she says.
