Rebuilding after the fires

They’ll change their tune when they find out how much it will cost in time and money to skip the free work.

The Army Corps will almost certainly hire some local contractors to assist with the clean up. Those contractors aren’t going to be available to individual homeowners. The ones that are available are going to be second-rate, expensive, and booked up.

Even for someone that wants to get their hands dirty, there is a required inspection for wastes other than the ones the EPA is cleaning up. And if any of those wastes are found, a contractor must do that part of the clean up before the homeowner will be allowed to do the rest, there’s going to be a wait for those inspectors and contractors because they’re also busy with the Army Corps.

While it sounds like it might be faster to DIY the clean up, in reality, letting the Army Corps do it might end up being the faster route.

I’m all for doing things yourself. I’m in the process of repainting my complete home exterior. Then I’ll have to tackle parts of the interior. But sometimes it’s just plain dumb to turn down some very valuable free work.

–Peter

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You might think twice about that if it takes them 3 years to get to your property. You are thinking they will get to it right away, and if they did I would agree with you. But if it takes them 2 to 3 years I don’t think I would be willing to wait that long.

I don’t know why you think it might be that long. The last estimate I read was that the ACE expects to have 80% of the properties cleaned up within a year, and that the remaining properties would be the ones where getting permission from the owners was a problem, due to things like the death of the owner or multiple owners failing to all agree to allowing the cleanup.

—Peter

**Only 10 percent of Paradise’s homes and some 500 buildings overall survived the conflagration. The initial rebuilding permits were granted in 2019. There are about 400 buildings currently under construction in the city.

“We expect our recovery will be another 10 years probably before we’re completely rebuilt,” Curtis said.

Things could move faster in wealthy areas such as Malibu and Pacific Palisades, devastated in last month’s fires, if the homeowners don’t need to wait for funds from an insurer, or if they receive federal aid.**

I think 3 years is generous. Except for the wealthy, but remember many of the people were middle class. Anybody who thinks that doing it yourself is crazy is only because you are to old, or to weak.

Yes, the lock shop we went to to have it cut open had a back area full of burned out safes, we added our little one to them… Some were large, 6’ tall, deep n wide, but all were cooked beyond their allotted time… BIL’s home had stucco walls on the exterior, well, it collapsed and made a great oven to cook not only the safe but some $10K art objects, also heavy thick art glass items were just a blob of frothy glass, somewhat colorful, but not what they once were, some Indian pottery almost survived, but was cooked… I found save one bronze statue that had fallen against the foundation, covered in ash that insulated it, they were able to take it to the artist in SoCal and he restored it, replacing the missing wooden base… Never found to other two piece…

They had no time to save anything beyond purse, wallet, and car, had to force the garage door open, drive through the windstorm ashes to our place at 3 AM… Only woken by the light of the neighbor’s place going up…

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My thought on all this - is the EPA shut down like a lot of the government agencies? I think there is a chance that it is…doc

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Paradise is not at all comparable to the LA fires in terms of rebuilding prospects. Virtually the entire city of Paradise was wiped off the map. There were no other people nearby to help with rebuilding. In LA, there are millions of people close by who were unaffected by the fires. (At least unaffected financially - we’re all affected in some way.) The resources to rebuild the affected areas are near by and readily available.

Also, you’re switching topics from cleaning up the debris to the complete rebuilding process. Clean up is just the first step, and is what I have been focusing on.

For substantial rebuilding, yes that will take longer. But even that will be significantly quicker than the rebuilding in Paradise, as you’re not restarting a community from scratch. There are a lot of people and businesses close by that are available to work on the rebuilding without having to worry about rebuilding their own home or business.

–Peter

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Yet all the experts are comparing it to Paradise. People do that because they have nothing else to compare it to.

“Unless our city leaders and our department heads at the Building and Safety Department for the county and the city really figure out how to streamline this broken system,” she says, “homeowners could be parked, waiting for approval of their architectural plans, for years.”

And even after debris is cleared and permits are approved, Liebowitz says homeowners will need to deal with a high demand for builders.

He notes that constructing a luxury home, like the ones in Pacific Palisades—which was particularly affected by the fires—can normally take 12 to 18 months with a good builder. Though, he notes that some teams may take 18 to 36 months—or even longer. And that’s under normal conditions.

“There’s not enough builders in L.A. to rebuild, so everyone’s demand is going to be more than the supply. And you’re gonna have builders who overcommit,” he predicts. “Maybe they do two days a week of work at one job, and two days a week of work at another job.”

He adds that everyone from contractors to plumbers to architects are going to be “overloaded.” Materials may be sparse. Because of all this, work may be significantly slower.

https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/cost-to-rebuild-a-home-los-angeles/#:~:text=“Unless%20our%20city%20leaders%20and,work%20may%20be%20significantly%20slower.

My friend built a house in Oceanside California. It took him 10 years from start to finish. He really had a hard time finding good contractors and that wasn’t after a fire.

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My only comment is to keep in mind that Realtor.com represents real estate agents. They have a vested interest in people selling their burned out lots and buying something else.

But once again, I was focused on the time to clear the lots, not the time to rebuild. You seem to have switched gears here.

–Peter

It is all intertwined. If you read that article I posted it showed that the area is going to be very hard to clear and a lot of it will not be done with heavy equipment.

This one will be easy to determine, 30 days is only a couple of weeks max from now. What start date are you using for the “30 days”?

I suspect that even once the entire cleanup is complete, hazardous AND regular waste, that the big bottleneck will be permitting. Especially if they intend to impose all the new requirements that have been added over the ensuing decades. I’ve heard talk about “low income housing” but I am not sure how that will work if the area is made up almost entirely of individuals rebuilding their own homes?

If new infrastructure needs to be built (water lines, sewers, electrical underground, gas underground, telco/Internet/etc underground, etc), then no permits can be granted until AFTER those have been installed. The architects won’t have the needed info about connecting to the new infrastructure for years (i.e. after it is installed and verified working).

I’m not using any start date, just repeating what has been included in various public information statements.

From a practical matter, I’d consider this effectively met if they’re done by the end of February.

—Peter

I’m sure many on this board have worked in various industries that use project scheduling software. You often have this type of serial dependency where job 2 can’t start until job 1 is completed. Smart enough people figure out that if you define the actual dependency you can start the second job much sooner. We do this in computer hardware and software design all the time.
So in a large rebuilding effort such as this all that is required is for someone to- put a stake in the ground (so to speak) saying this is where the water will connect, this is where the electrical will connect, etc. And now the architects can “finish” their plans. Most of the architectural work could have been done without precisely knowing any of this anyway.

Of course I’m simplifying this a lot, but the two jobs don’t have to happen completely one after the other. And the architects and builders need to be a bit flexible and have good communications with all the utilities.

Mike

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Also you have to work through all the scams. That alone has to be daunting.

Be wary of unexpected phone calls or visits to your home from people claiming to be FEMA housing inspectors or saying they work for FEMA. FEMA representatives will have a laminated badge and your nine-digit FEMA registration number. Inspectors never charge a fee to inspect your property.

Wildfire Survivors: Beware of Stolen Identity Fraud and Other Disaster Recovery Scams and Deceptions | FEMA.gov.

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Lock the fakers up in your dungeon until they pay.