Ethan’s victims of the Ethan’s Fire Department say Edison’s compensation plan is not reaching

From Malena CaroloCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Weeks after Southern California Edison announced initial details about his compensation program for Ethan’s deadly fire survivors, residents repel back. In an open letter The company, launched this week, a group representing thousands of Altadena and surrounding areas, exposed their concerns about the program.

In the letter and at a press conference today, they stated that they were the most delayed, which the cards that Edison uses to determine the eligibility excludes some affected residents of the program and that the payment of the company offers incorrectly that residents will receive the full value of their property insurance policies. They are also worried about the fact that children will receive less compensation than adults and that the company does not propose to pay for testing in local schools released from the fire.

“We are trying to prevent a situation in which the most vulnerable people take less than they should get,” Joy Chen, CEO of Eaton Fire Survived NetworkHe said in an interview with Calmatters.

Edison’s spokesman Jeff Montford is not concerned with criticism, providing a written statement that the company “offers a simplified approach to quickly and fairly providing compensation to members of admissible communities affected by the Ethan fire.” He added that “we will update the program according to the needs” based on the worries shared by community members.

Edison’s mirrors concerns Similar criticism three years ago From how Pacific Gas & Electric pays survivors of two fires for which its equipment, mosquito fires and Dixie is responsible.

Ethan’s fire, which is believed to have started from Altadan, killed 19 people and burned more than 14,000 acres of Los Angeles County in January. While state authorities have not yet released an official cause of the fire, the leading hypothesis is a reconstructed transmission line that Edison possesses. US Department of Justice filed a utility case last month To reimburse the cost of rehabilitation of 8,000 acres of national forest, the fire burned, claims that Edison is responsible for the flame.

Edison has announced a program this summer to quickly compensate for the thousands of survivors of the fire in exchange for survivors who gave up their right to judge the usefulness of the flame. He has released more specific details of the coverage in recent weeks, hosting several “community entrance seminars” at the end of September to gather feedback on the current structure of the program.

Unanswered questions

But residents said that the form of seminars – a structured set of questions asked by the proctors who are not experts on the compensation program – is too limited to adequately widen the width of their concerns.

Mainly among them is who can participate. The Edison program limits the compensation of structures marked as damaged or destroyed on the card “Summary of the Damage Check”, created by the California Department of Forestry and Fire protection, as well as those on the perimeter of the perimeter of the fire. The survivors’ network said that this excludes many community members who have been affected and that geographical restrictions must be canceled in favor of a system that focuses on the actual damage.

Recovery is another concern. Many survivors, said in the group’s letter, are hindered by “the difference – the difference between what the insurance pays and what it actually costs to recover.” The Edison program, claims, does not go far enough to close it. Instead, the utility program deducts the full value of the respective insurance policy to someone who will pay, even if the insurer has not paid the full amount, the restriction of what the network said is a fair compensation.

And the funding accessible through Edison for temporary housing – limited to 10% of the value of the home before the fire over 42 months – is not enough to hire such accommodation in nearby areas, the group said.

“They cover what insurance coverage and do not cover what (insurance companies) no,” Chen said. But unlike insurance policies with some restrictions, “we have never agreed to fall victim to Edison’s fire.”

The Edison, the letter says, also has to review how children are treated. According to their current offering, children will receive much less compensation than adults. The non -economic damage to smoke damage, for example, is $ 20,000 for adults and $ 5,000 for children. And testing for toxins in nearby schools is not included in the current plan, something Chen said was important given the age of community homes.

“The bigger part of the Altadan houses were built before 1976. And that means that there is lead and all this toxic pollution that are in our houses (s) our schools,” she said.

Montford of Edison said the money for the compensation program comes from numerous sources. The first $ 1 billion will be from the customer -funded Edison insurance, followed by the State Fire Fund, which covers fire damage, started by the three major utility equipment owned by investors.

Pacific Gas & Electric had a similar program for two fires for which its equipment is responsible – mosquito and dixie fires – and It also encountered concerns for not paying enough to raise whole survivors.

Ed Myers Altada’s home is considered a complete loss after the fire, as well as he and the pet store of his wife in the city. They plan to restore their home to match how it was before the fire was hit. But where the money will come from and how long it will take is not clear.

“There is a lot to think,” Myers said. “Will I have enough money in the short term to recover? How fast will I need extra capital to recover? Can I get another loan against making what Edison pays? I look at my age, if I take money now and I can’t get money later, do I want to do? I’m almost 60.”

Edison’s program is currently in draft stages and can be changed based on community feedback.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.