SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2020
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A few pillars are all that remain of a home on Jennie Road near Lyons September 16, 2020. Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed in the fires along with
heavily damaged infrastructure and timber lands. KELLY JORDAN / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Rebuild
Continued from Page 1A
about 1,600 homes in Los Angeles and
Ventura counties, including 480 homes
in Malibu. It caused $6 billion in proper-
ty damage.
Feldman said about 20 homes that
were rebuilt following the fires are
awaiting final inspections, 100 are in the
planning process and 150 are under con-
struction.
“There’s a whole slew of people I
haven’t heard from,” she said.
Some residents are already
cleaning
Detroit Mayor Jim Trett said some
residents of his city are already clearing
out the debris from their homes, even
though there is no approved disposal
site and permits are required in many
situations to deal with hazardous ma-
terials.
“We’ve been telling people, this isn’t
going to be a year from now we’re home.
It’s going to be years,” he said. “I think
people are understanding that, but I still
don’t think that sets in."
There are thousands of pounds of de-
bris that need to be removed, including
much in environmentally sensitive
areas along the North Santiam River
watershed.
The counties have partnered with the
state to provide cleanup of properties at
no charge to homeowners, though in-
surance companies or FEMA will foot
the bills.
Home owners must complete an up-
coming ‘Right of Entry’ form by Oct. 16 to
participate.
The first step in the cleaning process
will include assessing and removing
hazardous waste, and in the second ash
and debris will be removed.
Malibu took a similar tact, allowing
homeowners to opt in or out of letting
the state’s contractor excavate and re-
move the debris, with them billing the
homeowner’s insurance for the service.
“We also had a lot of residents who
took the opt-out option and got
scammed by haulers and unscrupulous
people,” Feldman said.
A city cash flow problem
An estimated 250 of 400 buildings in
Detroit were destroyed by fire, including
its city hall.
Trett said Sweet Home has offered to
donate a modular city hall annex with
some office furniture in it and a person
from Sweet Home has offered to move it
to Detroit for free.
But the city is going to have a cash
flow problem for a long time.
“All our money comes from property
taxes and water bills,” Trett said. “How
long is the water plant down so we can’t
bill for that? We have a loan payment
coming up that’s big that we won’t be
able to make.
“Our property tax base, they’re going
to be paying taxes on a vacant lot. So, all
of a sudden that money goes away. We
just don’t know what that’s going to look
like yet.”
Waiting for the next step
Estimates are over 4,000 buildings in
Oregon have been destroyed by the
wildfires, many of them homes.
Two houses on Ron Carmickle’s three
acres in Gates -- a shop and a collection
Reva Feldman, city manager for Malibu, talks to officials from Marion and Linn counties on Tuesday about lessons she
learned from the Woolsey fire. BRIAN HAYES/STATESMAN JOURNAL
of classic cars -- were wiped out by the
fire.
“I lost absolutely everything. Abso-
lutely everything,” Carmickle said.
Carmickle figures the wildfires
caused
between
$500,000
and
$750,000 worth of damage to his home
and property, but he doesn’t have insur-
ance.
He has applied for assistance from
FEMA, but says he has already run into
problems, including proving he owned
the cars as the titles burned up in the
fire.
Carmickle is living in his motorhome
in which he fled the fires on his son’s
property in Mill City.
“A lot of unanswered questions at
this point and just trying to exist is the
next portion of it,” he said. “I’m in a 27-
foot motorhome that has a heater that
don’t work and a water heater that don’t
work. It’s like, and winter’s coming on.
It’s not even, at this point, I can’t even
move it over to the property to stay
there.”
A former contractor, he would like to
go back and start clearing the property
of debris and start figuring out what he
will rebuild and what he won’t.
But he knows that can’t happen soon.
“I’m realistic about that,” Carmickle
said.
Speeding up the rebuilding
process
Marion County Commissioner Sam
Brentano asked what financial relief
Malibu offered to speed the rebuilding
process.
Feldman said Malibu’s city council
waved all permitting and planning fees
to do with rebuilding, which ended up
costing the city $5 million.
“I would be very mindful of that and
what I have told my council numerous
times," Fedlman said. "You waved it for
this disaster. If there’s another fire to-
morrow, those residents are going to ex-
pect that same treatment, and then
what do you do?
“Don’t set yourself up for failure
there. Those rebuilding permit fees are
paid for by insurance. Be careful there.”
Since the Woolsey Fire, Malibu has
experienced flooding and debris flows
in the following years.
With the significant amount of vege-
tation burned by the Beachie Creek and
Lionshead fires, the Santiam Canyon
could experience that for years until the
plants grow again.
“You clean it up on Monday and then
you clean it up on Tuesday and you
clean it up on Wednesday. You just keep
cleaning this mud and it just keeps com-
ing and you’re looking at that for up to
five years after a severe burn, and these
aren’t things that FEMA is paying for,”
Feldman said.
“If you think you’re tired now, you’re
going to get more tired when it starts
raining.”
The 2018 Camp Fire in California
burned 153,000 acres, destroyed 18,808
buildings including approximately 95%
of the buildings in Paradise, killed 85
people and was the cause of $16.6 billion
in damage.
The first building permit in Paradise
was issued five months after the fire and
the first certificate of occupancy was is-
sued in July 2019.
Though it will be a long time until
many who had their homes destroyed
by fire can rebuild and return home,
Willis said Marion County has already
received permit applications.
“I’m going to, and I know the other
commissioners are going to, move heav-
en and Earth to do everything we can to
get people to be able to rebuild as quick-
ly as possible,” Willis said. "We’re just
going to fight tooth and nail to get people
back into their homes.”
Bill Poehler covers Marion County for
the Statesman Journal. Contact him at
bpoehler@statesmanjournal.com
or
Twitter.com/bpoehler
Support local journalism by sub-
scribing to the Statesman Journal.
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