The thing is, life keeps happening.
Babies are born, couples divorce, a person someone loved dies. On the anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, Zaire Calvin, 33, spoke to several hundred people at the first in-person gathering for the Eaton Fire Survivors Network (EFSN), an online community with more than 2,000 members who all know “what it’s like.”
“Six months to the day feels like 10 years,” said the brother of victim Evelyn McClendon, who was 59 when she died in her home in the Eaton Fire. “People are fighting for their lives every day, and every day keeps happening to us. To turn around and have to fight insurance on top of that is insane. These insurance companies are taking advantage of us and it’s disrespectful, disheartening and predatory.”
For the first time, the Eaton Fire Survivors Network met in person at the Good Neighbor Bar on Lincoln Avenue on Monday, supported by Sen. Sen. Sasha Renée Perez who called for “no more delays, no more granting rate increases, expedite the investigation (into State Farm Insurance), release the findings and compel insurers to pay their claims before any rate hikes are even considered.”
Victoria Knapp, president of the Altadena Town Council, said she not only lost her home in the Eaton Fire, but her family’s sense of safety and stability. She joined others in demanding Gov. Gavin Newsom and Insurance Commissioner Richard Lara hold State Farm and other companies accountable.
“Insurance companies are dragging their feet, delaying, denying and underpaying claims,” Knapp said. “In the meantime, families are draining their savings, maxing out credit cards and borrowing just to keep a roof over their heads. People who work their lives to build security are now drowning in debt. Stop making people suffer twice, once from this disaster and again from the city that was supposed to protect them.”
“Given the magnitude of this event and the impact on so many individuals and families, we are still actively working with customers through the claims process,” according to a statement from State Farm.
As of July 7, the company has received almost 13,000 claims related to the fires and paid over $4.2 billion to its California customers, according the company.
“We will continue to work alongside regulators, policymakers and industry leaders to create a sustainable insurance environment in California,” according to the company.
The Eaton Fire Survivors Network on Discord was founded by Joy Chen and Matt Craig. The two were co-admins of their pickleball What’s App group when the fires displaced both of them and destroyed the Altadena Country Club where they played. Weeks after Jan. 7, the group became a de facto lifeline, with members updating each other on fire containment and coordinating resources.
Chen, former deputy mayor of Los Angeles who is CEO of the Multicultural Leadership Institute, said EFSN is demanding regulatory action to ensure insurance companies honor their claims, and that the group is just starting with State Farm.
“For decades, we paid our premiums faithfully to these companies, trusting they’d stand by us if disaster ever struck,” Chen said. “Now, these same insurers use delays and denials to profit from our pain and steal the future we worked so hard to build for our kids.”
She added that more than 20,000 Americans have signed letters to Newsom and Lara urging them to hold insurers accountable.
For 35 years, Rossana Valverde, 69, a retired social worker, lived in a home at the rim of the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, 300 yards from the Edison tower suspected of starting the blaze.
“Right as the fire broke out, my neighbor saw it, pounded on our door and called 911. Within 6 minutes, it was in our backyard because the winds were so high,” Valverde said. “There were embers flying the size of golf balls. We made it out, my husband and I, and our three dogs, and the clothes on our backs.”
In the beginning, the couple were thrilled to see their home still standing. They started cleaning up until they grew concerned about possible exposure to toxins. The Valverdes paid $6,300 out of pocket to get their property tested, which revealed heavy levels of lead, arsenic and nickel.
“State Farm just said, have a cleaning lady come, even after I told them all the experts are telling us major mitigation needs to happen here,” she said.
Valverde said Serv-Pro, sent by State Farm, estimated the remediation cost to be more than $300,000. They have so far been paid $38,000.
“It’s vile. There have been panic attacks, we’ve had trouble sleeping. And we’re still not home,” she said. “We’re wearing thrift-store clothes. We’re strung out financially.”
Aside from delays and silence in the form of unreturned phone calls, there are arbitrary denials.
“They say, ‘we will clean the top of the doors and the door hardware but we won’t clean the doors,’” Valverde said. “It’s ridiculous. At our age, I don’t want to spend years couch surfing and trying to get our life back.”
Her insurance cost, $2,200 10 years ago, is $9,000 this year, a 25% increase since the fires, Valverde said.
Thirty-something Alisa Smith has not been able to return to her condo in Pacific Palisades since the fires, even as she continues to pay thousands of dollars in condominium fees and for her rental. The total she’s received from insurance is $405.10.
“My challenge is insurance, and my attorney was so not fighting for me,” Smith said. She is vetting new law firms to find one that specializes in helping the underinsured.
“I’m focused on finding someone with the compassion and fight to dig in deep,” the tech program manager said.
The hardest part of her post-fire journey has been not having any source of information to navigate insurance questions, and the survivors network is becoming that resource.
“It’s a blessing to have found them,” Smith said.
Kelsey Szamet, 43, treasured every minute spent at her childhood home in Altadena, where she and her husband Dave, 45, were raising their two young daughters. Szamet, an attorney, said she would wake up at the 1926 home on Braeburn Avenue “pinching ourselves that we get to live here, with neighbors who have been in their homes 40, 50 years. Then, devastation.”
The Szamets have been unable to return to their home, fearful about the health effects heightened levels of lead and other metals will have on their daughters.
“You spend 20 minutes inside their home and you get a metallic taste in your mouth,” Szamet said. “I fell like (State Farm) doesn’t want us to get back to a safe home.”
The family, like many displaced survivors, have had to move six times in six months and are finally in a longer-term rental in Pasadena. “I’m grateful for the stability that offers our daughters,” Szamet said, as well as for the network, which she said is a great resource for sharing information and leading the charge for change.
“It feels like the shortest and longest six months,” she said, looking at a future of years of construction around their neighborhood and its attendant chaos.
Six months in, the Szamets are still facing down loss.
“The restaurants we ate at, our bank, everything burned down. We were at Amara Café all the time. I grew up eating at Fox’s. We loved Side Pie. What are we returning to? Finding community in the network is powerful, but it’s no replacement to all we’ve lost, to what anchors you to that physical location.”