The public saw him at press conferences and town halls, confidently speaking about next steps behind podiums in his camouflage uniform, next to city, county, state and federal political leaders.
But behind the scenes, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked to clear lot after lot in Altadena, Pasadena and the Pacific Palisades, Col. Eric Swenson was there, facilitating debris removal for fire survivors, forging bonds. Educating. Updating.
On Thursday, July 3, after nearly six months in the Los Angeles area, Swenson is heading home.
“In six months, I think the community has done a 180-degree turn, and most people are starting to be optimistic about the future, sad about the past, but optimistic about their future prospects to rebuild in this community,” Swenson said.
The Army Corps of Engineers arrived in Los Angeles after the Eaton and Palisades fires in January to a mammoth task that had changed L.A County: The Palisades fire claimed 12 lives and destroyed 6,837 structures, including more than 5,400 homes, 135 multi-family buildings and 160 commercial properties. The Eaton fire claimed 18 lives, and destroyed 9,414 structures.
Following the removal of hazardous materials from properties by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Corps was tasked – as normal in such disasters – with removing ash and large debris from the thousands of torched parcels pummeled in the fire.
Swenson, who serves as the district commander of the St. Paul District of the Corps of Engineers, has been leading the effort.
While his deployment in Los Angeles is coming to an end, members of the Corps will continue working in the area until all of the thousands of homes and properties destroyed in the fire have been cleared.
And that process, by most accounts, has been moving along at lightning pace, after weeks of outreach urging property owners to opt in to the Corps’ cleanup program.
‘Size and scale’
The Los Angeles fires were the second time Swenson has responded to a fire disaster zone. The urban nature of the city, as well as the sheer magnitude of destruction, made this fire different to the first fires in Hawaii that he had responded to.
“The biggest thing is just the size and scale of the devastation that the fire left. You know, when I did the Maui Lahaina fires, it was about 1,400-ish properties that were destroyed, residential properties that were destroyed. And here, it’s, somewhere in the order of 12,000 between both the Eaton fire impacted area and the Palisades fire impacted area.”
Emotions were thick when Swenson arrived in L.A. County, as survivors navigated a process full of unknowns.
“When I first got here on the 12th of January and started talking to survivors, there was a lot of devastation in these communities,” he said. People were devastated. They were grieving a loss of, in some cases, loved ones. In many cases, everything they had worked for in their life. And in some cases, their life savings, which was in their housing value. And there were a lot of people who felt a little hopeless and didn’t know how to pick up the pieces to move on.”
As the Corps literally picked up the pieces of burned homes as they cleared properties, Swenson picked up the pieces of people’s lives alongside them, providing answers, attending meetings and centering community members.
“At that moment, it was hard to imagine how we would even begin to recover,” said L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the 11th Council District, including Pacific Palisades and other coastal neighborhoods. “But then came the United States Army Corps of Engineers, led by Col. Eric Swenson.”
For Swenson, the answers didn’t always come easy, or were they easy for people to hear.
There were questions and controversies over the amount of potentially polluted soil the Corps was removing. And he was the early bearer of warnings that caravans of big trucks would be moving along L.A.-area roadways carrying debris to local landfills.
But a consistent message was vital in a moment of crisis, he said.
The Corps needed to provide “fact-based answers to their questions, oftentimes the same question over and over, but just the fact of being repetitive and answering the same question consistently. And then following through what we said we were gonna do, helped us, you know, sort of build rapport and trust in the community.”
A shift to hope
This follow-through, alongside the visual progress seen in the fire zones as piles of rubble were trucked away and lots became building ready, was part of a shift toward hope in the fire recovery process.
Officials have repeatedly praised the speed and safety of the Corps’ work as the Los Angeles recovery has become the fastest wildfire recovery process the nation has ever seen.
“I noticed a noticeable change in people’s demeanor, especially once they had debris removed from their property, Swenson said. “The feeling of hopelessness sort of slipped away and they could have a little light in their eyes. They could see their future in front of them in this sort of new building lot, so to speak, this sort of fresh building lot without the debris on top of it,” he said.
The Corps’ work is to remove debris, but the cleared lots became symbolic to many residents, a step in the recovery process.
“Not that they weren’t sad that they had lost everything and that we had taken all the debris away, but the fact that they had sort of come to terms with that and they were ready to take the next step, which is the rebuilding process.”
A memory that stands out is from Feb. 11. The Corps marked an important milestone in the recovery process; they were in Altadena to start debris removal on the first residential property in the Eaton fire zone.
“It was an exciting day for the Corps because it was our first residential property. It was a sad day for the homeowner, it’s everything she had worked for and the place she had called home for the past decade or two being removed,” he remembered.
But with the clearing of her property, a new era of the homeowners post-fire life began, the empty lot a place where she could imagine her new home springing up.
Swenson plans to return to Southern California next year, to see the progress homeowners have made in their construction.
“I’m hoping to come back out in the new year when she’s back in her new home and to be able to just sit on our front porch with her and celebrate this journey that she’s been through and celebrate the fact that she’s been through this traumatic event and come out a year later with a new home and a new outlook on life.”
Government has a role
The fire-impacted regions showcased their resilience on an individual level, but Swenson has also seen larger systems become more aware of what residents need. The rebuilding process requires commitment from the impacted people, but also the government.
“I think you’ll potentially see some changes in government. I think local government officials have taken a prominent role in the recovery of their communities. And I think it is this effort that has helped focus community leaders on what the true needs of their community are and what’s really important,” Swenson said.
Fire survivors have advocated for their needs,Swenson said. Officials have listened, he added. That’s lead to a better understanding of the Altadena and Pacific Palisades communities. That understanding has informed resource allocation and decisions, as the two areas continue to navigate what is a years-long process towards complete rebuilding.
A feel for rebuilding
Swenson estimated that 60 to 70% of residents across both fire areas, have expressed an interest in rebuilding. But he’s also seen community members who have decided to leave the areas they called home before the fire.
“Those who I think are more inclined to sell are those who either had no insurance and really are struggling to find a path forward for them to actually rebuild, or those who maybe are in the later stages of their life, who know that rebuilding will take a couple of years and aren’t sure if they’ll ever spend a night in their new place,” he said.
The time, money and effort that go into rebuilding make the process no small feat, especially when so many are faced with a whole new world of builders and designers, not to mention permits.
“The average American has never built their own home from scratch and so it’s a daunting task for many to have to build a home for the first time, especially when you’re suffering through the aftermath of a traumatic event,” Swenson said. “So I think that’s weighing on people’s minds, is the effort to rebuild worth it.”
What’s next?
Swenson, a self-described “ultimate extrovert,” is a Fourth of July weekend with family. But it won’t be long before he moves to his next role, deputy division commander of the North Atlantic Division of the Army Corps of Engineers.
In his new role, he will be working with a division that handles civil and military construction projects from Southern Virginia on the Eastern Seaboard to Maine and military construction in Europe.
L.A. won’t be far from his thoughts.
“Every time I get a picture from a survivor of their new home or something that they’ve done or an important family event in their lives that they’ve shared with me, it just strengthens that connection I have to them,” he said. “I feel like I make lifelong friends out of these disasters.”