Southern California Edison leadership and Altadena resident testimonials Thursday, Sept. 10, focused on the expediency of Eaton fire survivors receiving compensation from the at-fault utility rather than waiting for the legal process to be completed.
For the second time this summer Southern California Edison hosted a community town hall at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pasadena as the deadline looms for eligible Eaton fire survivors to apply for the utility’s Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program.
Also see: Edison pushes for special legislative session on wildfire liability reform
On Thursday night, about 100 people gathered in a church hall where a panel of speakers which included Edison CEO Pedro Pizarro spoke about the compensation program followed by a question-and-answer period involving those in attendance.
After a stronger than expected turnout in June, Thursday’s meeting was moved to a much larger room that filled up by the time the town hall began.
Fire survivors and compensation program participants Susette Horspool and Jon Hainer shared their stories and how they decided on accepting a SCE offer over the litigation process.
Hainer’s Marathon Road home, which he described as being “part of the heart of the firestorm,” was completely destroyed. He acknowledged that he and his wife were fortunate to have good insurance that paid out quickly, but the crux of their decision about the program was time.
“I wanted to get this behind me as soon as possible,” Hainer said. “Because for me –maybe different for everybody individually — the existence of a lawsuit in your life is this huge negative energy force that sucks attention and happiness and all sorts of stuff out of your daily existence.”
Hainer described the SCE offer as not generous but fair for their situation.
“Would I get more in a lawsuit? Probably,” Hainer said. “But I’m not getting it today, so I can’t make that direct comparison.”
During the panel and in response to questions, Pizarro mentioned prior wildfire litigation proceedings involving Edison taking five to six years to be completed for some people.
Applications will be accepted until Nov. 30. Those already part of ongoing litigation against SCE can apply for the program, but the application must be completed by the individual’s attorney. Once a compensation offer is accepted, participants in the program forfeit their right to sue Edison.
That right is forfeited on any future litigation related to only the Eaton fire. In addition, compensation program participants and those in litigation would be ineligible to sue Edison in the future for any reason related to the Eaton fire.
One person asked about suing Edison over potential health impacts of the Eaton fire in the future.
As of this week, more than 4,600 claims have been submitted with more than 2,600 offers extended. The offers total almost $900 million with more than $500 million paid out and many more in process, according to Edison.
Pizarro said Thursday that August saw SCE receive the most claim submissions of any one month all year.
Pizarro and panelists fielded questions from about 25 people to close out the evening. They ranged from individual compensation program applications and broader questions around Edison’s role in taking responsibility in the community.
Since the last town hall in June, the Los Angeles County Fire Department released its findings that Edison’s equipment caused the Eaton fire. The report found that electrical arcing from an out-of-service SCE tower sparked the blaze that killed at least 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes and structures.
Running alongside SCE’s push to drive more people to its compensation program the publicly traded company lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento to pass wildfire recovery reform legislation before the end of last session of the year.
The bill in question, AB 492, which would have created a fast-pay program for fire survivors would draw from the California Wildfire fund, failed to pass after ongoing negotiations in the final hours of the session at the end of August after opposition from investor-owned power companies.
Pizarro said the ongoing legislative process has no bearing on the compensation program.
“All the discussion in Sacramento right now is about the framework for future fires and how we make sure that the state is mitigating risk, having a fair process here taking into account the CEA report’s recommendations, preserving the financial health of investor-owned utilities because that’s important for the state’s economy,” Pizarro said. “None of that ends up impacting the Eaton fire.”
A portion of Thursday’s meeting was streamed live on Southern California Edison’s YouTube page.
“It’s good to hear that the program is working for a lot of folks,” Pizarro said. “It’s helpful to hear that not everything was perfect and there’s things that we can continue to look to improve. We want to hear everything. We may not be able to agree with everything or act on everything, but we want to hear it because we want that relationship with our community.”