 Okay, good evening, everyone. Can I get your attention, please? First off, I'm Bill Conley, District 1 Supervisor, and I'm here, you know, like everyone behind me for your behalf. First thing I'd like to do is ask everybody to rise and let's have a moment of silence for those that lost their lives. Please join me in a moment of silence. Pray if you will. Amen. Thank you very much. And to you that lost your homes, your businesses, there's no words that anyone could project that loss back to you other than to empathize with you and be here to try to help you. That's why we're here tonight. We're here not to be confrontational in any manner whatsoever, but to honor what has happened and try to help you. You're going to have questions. You're upset. This is understandable. We'll answer as many of them as we can in the presentations, and then we will take questions, but please fill out a card so that we can sort through them and make sure they're not duplicating each other, and then we'll get you the answers the best of our ability. We really don't want to get into a debate or I know you're frustrated. I know you're angry. I can feel, I can't empathize any more with you, but nobody up here is here to do anything but to try to help you. So please let's keep it down on the down low and keep it straight for everybody. There's going to be representatives here tonight from law enforcement, local, state, and federal agencies. They've been on the ground from the very beginning. They've had to do what they had to do to keep us safe. Please be respectful to all the updates as they're given to you. Please cooperate and again, fill out a card if you have a question or if you have a real burning question, stay after and ask it personally. I want to thank Kevin Thompson. Is he here? He opened the Southside Community Center tonight. I don't see him, but thank you to him, Pastor Kevin Thompson. It's a great place to have this meeting. Okay, there's a lot of questions about insurance, which under the circumstances is going to be confusing. We have help for you here right here tonight. Representatives from the United Policy Holders are standing by to take your questions at the end of the briefing. We also know this experience has been stressful. I can imagine very stressful. There's help. Butte County Mental Health Counselors available to talk with you at the meeting's conclusion and take that offer up. You're not a ship onto yourself here. Please, if you need help, ask for it. Let me leave you this one last thing again. There's nobody here that isn't here to help you. Please be as considerate to them as they're going to be to you. We'll get through this together. I'm here for you. Supervisor Teeter is going to come up and say a few words. He's here for you, too. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. Thank you all for coming here. It's pretty trying times for all of us. It's going to be a long road, but we're here. Part of my challenges is some of my district has been repopulated and actually went up there with Red Cross, the sheriff and National Guard to deliver supplies. I think the thing I'd like to impress is what Bill touched on is the communication. A lot of people don't have access to the Internet. A lot of people don't have access to social media. What I think is going to be best is word of mouth. When you hear about meetings like this, tell all your friends because they might not know. I was seeing on social media that people are like, going, you knew about this meeting, but why didn't you tell me? Please pass it along. That way we can get everyone the information that we're going to provide you tonight. I'm so sorry for all your losses and the hardships that we've all had. Thanks. Hi. I'm Jody Jones. I'm the mayor of Paradise. Thank you all for coming. Those of you that live in Paradise, none of us have been allowed to go back home. I know that there's a lot of frustration building because it's taking a lot longer than we were anticipating to even get in to look at our houses. I want you to know that I share that frustration. We lost our home. My sister lost her home. She hasn't been up there. My husband hasn't been up there. We're all waiting for the announcement of when we can come up. I just ask that you have as much patience as possible. There are a lot of people up there working, actually thousands of people up there working on our behalf, getting it to a point where it's safe for all of us to go back there. As soon as it is, those announcements will be coming out. I just ask for your patience and also that in your civility as the supervisors did. We have both the police chief and the town manager here and they both have a lot more specifics to share with you than I do. We will be here afterwards to answer questions as well. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Eric Reinbold, the Paradise Police Chief. Thank you for being here tonight. I have a few things that I want to highlight. They're very similar to the information I provided last night at the press conference. Again, I want to reiterate that I myself have been impacted by the fire. My family is displaced. We're experiencing everything that you are firsthand. So, I do have my deepest sympathy for all of you feeling the hardships that we're going through. Having said that, we do understand. Everybody wants to get back up there. We just ask that you continue to be understanding that it is very complex and all the efforts towards making that happen are in place. There are thousands of people up there working. It's difficult for our police officers to even drive around in the town and I fully expect that that is going to continue even after we make the zones safe enough for people to re-enter into their properties. The storm last week did slow some things down with the process of getting the hazardous trees removed. There's been significant progress made on that. We are working very closely with everybody to get the town open as soon as possible as soon as it's determined to be safe by all of the people that have a stake in that. So, a little bit about the re-population and the re-entry when we start doing that. It is going to be a very orderly and controlled process and it's going to be open by each zone and that's to assure the safety of the residents during the re-entry process. We are going to allow a 24-hour period for residents only to return to those zones when the evacuation orders are lifted. You will be required to have identification. Some examples of that would be a driver's license, state ID, passport, utility bill, or some other form of a valid photo ID. Upon re-entry, there's going to be some resources there. You'll be handed a safety kit with personal protective equipment as you re-enter and there's going to be information pamphlets in there so take the time to read those. There are potential hazards when you return to your properties in your homes. We are still working diligently to open the Pence Road corridor which will be zones 3, 8, and 14 and we hope to be able to do that in a very near future. Having said that, I know that some folks are limited to social media but we will make sure that we get that information put out not only on social media but all the local media and so please stay in tune with that because it will be very detailed and specific. You will have noticed ahead of time of your zones opening. I think we're going to give a 3-hour window so you'll have time to get back into the area if you're not staying here locally. I just want to remind you the official information about the evacuation orders being lifted will come directly from the Town of Paradise Police Department and the Butte County Sheriff's Office. That is going to be the most accurate and up-to-date information. If you haven't signed up, Code Red is a great resource to sign up on your mobile devices so that you have access because we push that information out on there. Just as a reminder, there are still going to be dangerous conditions when you re-enter into those areas around your homes and residences. While we're going up there and mitigating the immediate hazards, those are areas that directly impact the utility right-of-ways and the public right-of-ways so we're not going on to everybody's property and clearing hazardous trees so it is still going to be a potentially dangerous situation when you return to your properties. I also want to remind you that the roads are damaged. There may be debris in the roadway. There's going to be a significant amount of crews working in the area so we do ask that you drive slow and you're mindful of all the people that are up there working to help restore our town. If your home is still standing and you return when your zone is open, be prepared to be without utilities to include power and water as well as natural gas and bring supplies like food and water if you do choose to stay in your home when you return. Like all of us, I'll be here afterwards for specific questions and again I just thank all of you for your patience and understanding and we are working as quickly as possible to get Paradise open back up. Thank you. My name is Lauren Gill. I'm the town manager for the town of Paradise so I will be speaking about the one thing I know about the town and so bear with me a moment. Okay so the chief just talked about trees. Now we have done a lot of work on the public rights of way but trees on private property whether they're limbs hanging over or trees that are dangerous, we have not assessed those and they have not been removed so when you're looking at your property and your viewing and you're looking at the ashes and you're looking down and you're experiencing you know your grief remember to look up to look around and be aware of your surroundings because those trees on private properties can be dangerous and limbs coming down. So there's been a group of people armies of people up there actually working every day to get the utilities up and running so when people go up there and see Paradise some people just see right the ash or they experience their own loss and their own devastation. What I see is the town coming back up and I'm so excited to see our clinic is going to be open for us. There's going to be a grocery store to open coffee places a couple of them. I'm not going to name names but I'm very excited about that. We'll have some restaurants that are excited to open. Obviously we want to get our water up and running and you'll hear about that in a moment but we will have some core services and the actual town hall will be open to residents by the first of the year actually probably January 2nd is our goal to be up serving our residents in the town of Paradise for the town of Paradise. So we'll have our property records and things that you can get there and we will be able to serve you but other than that please as you experience your personal tragedies know that we're all in this together and we are also going to rebuild together and there is a lot of hope. So remember that as we go forward. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Andy Miller. I'm the public health officer for the County of Butte. I'm here primarily to reinforce a hazard advisory that we put out on November 21st and the purpose of that advisory was to urge people against living on completely destroyed properties. We realized that everybody wants to get back to their property and see it. We support that. The health department, the environmental health department, many of the partners on the stage with me are here to help you recover but we want you to do it safely. We're all working to make sure that you have access to the services that will make your property safe and certified for rebuilding. We really urge you all to refrain from living on a completely destroyed property until that property has been declared clear of hazardous waste and declared safe for you to be there. We know from other fires in California in recent years that there are a lot of concerning substances and concerning levels of those substances including heavy metals like lead and arsenic, dioxins. As the areas affected by the fire opened up and you have access to your properties, make sure that you review the health and safety precaution for the entry packet that you've been given. Please use the personal protective equipment that you will be given. Butte County and the Environmental Health Department in particular is working to secure assistance from state and federal agencies that will ensure proper handling and disposal of the debris and ash from your properties. And that should be at no cost to the property owner. I'm up here and we bring this information to you because your health and safety and the safety of our community are the most important thing to us. So thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Aaron Johnson and I'm a Vice President in PGE's Electric Operations Organization Department supporting our restoration efforts here in Butte County. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here and give you an update on the progress that we're making on restoring your utility service and just express our deepest condolences and just recognition that our hearts are with you and all that you've been going through. Our primary focus continues to be trying to make the area safe and restore service in the wildfire affected areas as soon as safely possible. We've been partnering with various local agencies and community leaders to prioritize restoration efforts. We've had meetings with the Mayor and the City Council members in Paradise as part of those coordination efforts. We have 3,700 employees contractors and mutual assistance personnel dedicated to rebuilding our gas and electric infrastructure in Butte County. We have mutual assistance from other utilities as far away as Hawaii and Florida. And we are also a part of this community and our employees have been affected. We have 95 employees who have lost their homes, many of whom are continuing to work on this restoration effort. So tonight I want to share with you a restoration schedule. Please understand that this timeline is heavily dependent on weather. We know what the weather is typically like this time of year so we've factored that in but obviously will be dependent on what actually comes. For electric service, our estimate is that we can restore power to nearly all customers who can take service by the end of the month. For gas service, our estimate is to restore gas service to all those who can receive it during the first quarter of the year. It's important to note that service restoration is ongoing and what that means is that some customers will receive gas and electric service much earlier than those dates. It's sort of put another way. It's sort of a rolling restoration process and so customers are not all restored at one at a time. It will happen sequentially. We have the resources in place to complete this work. Our biggest challenge as I mentioned going forward will continue to be weather and ultimately removing hazard trees that are a potential danger to the community and also to the infrastructure that we're rebuilding. I want to share with you some of the progress we've made over the last 27 days. Let's start with electric service. We've rebuilt the main circuit in the area, in town, and restored the Paradise Electric substation. This is repowering critical areas of paradise, including the Lower Skyway Corridor, parts of Clark Road, Paradise Town Hall police station, and the fire station. We've provided temporary power to several critical customers including the Dell Oral Water Treatment and Supply Facilities, the Adventist Health Clinic, radio stations, some temporary housing Sierra Nevada brewery has in, cell towers. That's just a few of the examples. We are in the process of building out the smaller lines that go to the individual homes and businesses to power them, but again those lines can't be re-energized until we get all those hazard trees out of the way. For natural gas service, we've completed major damage assessment of our facilities. As we work through the restoration process, we are providing temporary gas service for critical customers in the area. We've set up portable natural gas service to key buildings in the town of Paradise, including the Town Hall, police and fire stations, and to the Feather River Health Center. Going forward, we need to safely disconnect service from all the damage and destroyed structures before we can put gas back into the main lines. As that work is completed, we will test the integrity of the main lines, we will probably find some repairs that we need to do, and then we will retest those lines as needed. Once we begin restoring gas service, that will happen again sequentially through the town and will lend itself all the way to the end of returning to your homes to help relight, pilot lights, as necessary. Finally, let's turn to your PG&E account. You may not be focused on this right now, but we've cancelled billing in the area for now. We are making adjustments to bills. Anyone whose home is destroyed will not receive a bill for final service from PG&E. For those of you that have service and are waiting to have service restored to your homes in the next several days, we will be getting out with announcements on how we will contact you to let you know when that service is being restored and how you can contact us to get more information on that timing. We offer billing support, credit relief, financial assistance to customers. If you have questions, you can call our 800 number, 800-743-5000. There's a designated prompt for those affected by the campfire that will take you directly to the head of the Q and connect you with customer service representatives who are specializing in the kinds of questions that you all probably have at this time. I finally just want to echo what I've heard in different public meetings from the Sheriff and Chief Reinbold and that is really that there continue to be many many vegetation hazards in the area. We are working incredibly hard to clear those hazards ahead of restoration and repopulation. We fully understand this is a the first step in a long process. We want you to know that the next step after this is the rebuilding phase. What we are currently putting in place is a temporary plan but it's really focused on getting gas and electric service back to everyone that can take service as fast as possible. We are building that temporary network to our highest standards but it is that a temporary network. We are fully committed to working with the community to build the infrastructure in a way that reflects what the future needs are of the town of Paradise. We know that those plans will take time to develop and we are here to be your partner on that what that permanent infrastructure looks like when you're ready. Thank you. Good evening my name is Preston Dickinson. I am an independent contractor with AT&T's external affairs organization. Immediately following the campfire in Paradise we work to restore and maintain network operations and quickly and safely as operation as conditions allowed. We supported first responders our customers and affected communities with portable sites in affected areas as we continue to repair damaged equipment. We have and continue to remove and replace damaged cable in the Paradise area. We will continue working with PG&E to replace or transfer our equipment off damaged or destroyed poles. As we continue making repairs to our wire line network we have prioritized our efforts to benefit the greatest number of customers in areas that were more severely burned it will take longer to make those restorations. Safety for our employees is of utmost importance. We are working as diligently as possible to finish repairs and we really appreciate your patience. We have wave charges and bill credits and are happy to help address customers concerns as they arise. If you are a home phone customer we can provide remote call forwarding and the number of other waivers if you are a home or business phone customer I have a handout that I will be happy to provide with dedicated numbers for campfire victims. Our team is committed to continue working diligently on the extensive restoration efforts and we'll continue working with the Paradise community and other utilities to rebuild together. Thanks. Good evening. My name is Phillip Arnton. I'm government affairs director for Comcast. Similar to UTNT from the outset of the fire Comcast was here on the scene and up in the Paradise and the burned areas restoring primary transport and communication lines. Also providing over 51,000 Wi-Fi spots throughout Butte in Yuba counties and also internet and modem service at evacuation centers and other services as well. Very focused on getting our service back up to places where we can and also at this point working closely with the sheriff's office the town of Paradise, the police chief and other agencies to clear out many, many miles of down cable lines and other equipment making very good progress on that. We've brought in hundreds of crews from throughout Northern California and like other utilities if you're up in the area you'll see many trucks, Xfinity and Comcast. Our hearts go out to those who lost homes and affected by the fires Comcast as well had employees that were displaced and lost homes. Safety is our number one concern when we're we're dealing with with the harsh weather with the uneven roads. Safety is a paramount concern and we're working closely with the agencies to make sure that we work that we can work swiftly and safely. Finally if any issues or concerns with cable accounts, broadband, phone, we have been on site at the local assistance centers. Our Chico store has been open in other areas including the evacuation centers to help customers with their accounts. We can always call our Comcast member go into a store and of course we are we are waiving any charges and any issues come up. I'll be around this evening and can answer any questions one-on-one but thank you. Good evening. My name is Kevin Phillips. I'm the assistant district manager for Paradise Irrigation District. I'm going to give you the operational update for where Paradise Irrigation District has come and where we're at currently. During the fire like I've said we had to shut the whole system down to save water because all the water was leaking out of all of the broken service lines so we shut the system down to just a mainline down Skyway. Through the process since that we shut the system down we're starting to re-energize the system. We're filling tanks, all of our tanks except for the BRAS which is a tank above Skyway that was burnt has water in them. We have water down Clark, we have water down Pence across from Billy and water down Skyway to the clinic at the bottom of Skyway. Our main focus is going to be getting water back to critical infrastructure and to the homes that are still standing. I want to reinforce that if you do go back and you do have water in your home we are still on a boil water notice and you must boil your water before it is safe to drink. I recommend bottled water for any type of drinking water but for flushing toilets that's what our water is going to be there for right now. That boil water notice is going to be in effect for probably a long time until we figure out all of the constituents and contaminants that could be in our system due to the fact that our system depressurized and there could have been things that sucked back into the pipes that we don't know the harms to the public. Our main focus is to make sure our water is safe for you so we will not do anything to make sure that we will not do anything until the water is safe for you to drink so that is our main focus. I know that there's some billing issues that came out and we have our expert here that's going to come up and talk about that but I want to just make sure that you guys know we are a local business we're a local government we're your guys's water district and we are here to serve you and to be there for you when you guys do rebuild and we're trying our best to figure out how to make that happen so be patient with us be uh understand that we have issues just like everybody else and we're trying our best to get through this so I'm going to introduce Mickey Rich to talk about some of the billing. Hello my name is Mickey Rich and probably most of you guys don't know me but I have worked at the district for almost 20 years 17 of those years has been in customer service and so I feel like I know you it's difficult to you know you you see people pay their bills every month for 20 years and you get to know personalities you know this is this is Joan who lives on Penns Road and she always puts the cute little paper clips on her checks and so when I see the comments and some of the pain that you guys are going through on Facebook and some of the confusion because of the bill it hurts because I feel like I know you and I just want to say right off the bat that I'm sorry that the billing has been confusing lately and I just wanted to go over the current bill errors and then talk about some of the information that went out about continuing your service so that we can get rid of some of the rumors that are going around so the first thing is on December 2nd the district issued a press release saying that we realized that there was an error in the bill that everybody received in November when the fire hit staff was in the middle of doing the billing for your October use we got we didn't mail that out we set up our offices in Chico and we got numerous calls from property managers wanting to release their security but deposits back to tenants who really needed that money and they needed a special billing and so we worked to do a special probated bill for the first week of November so that we could get those amounts and the tenants could get their money back the billing although it was for a period from October 1st to November 7th the day before the fire looked like it was just for one week and so I just wanted to clear up some information about the bills um no water no fees were charged for after November 7th nobody was charged for water use during the fire or after no penalties were charged for payments that weren't received um and because of this error no penalties will be charged until it's remedied we're working with our software provider to reissue statements that will be correct and clear the second thing I want to talk about was the options for continuing service as we go forward and um as Kevin Phillips you know ended his statement with we are local government PID was formed by the citizens of Paradise in 1916 when everybody got together and said how are we going to get water to our homes it has always been a partnership where PID worked for the people and it is still today the same partnership where we are working for you what that means in a partnership and the way the history of PID has always been is that everybody everybody pays their own way PID does not charge you for services that you're not getting um so the options that you may have heard about are the standby fee for 2149 a month um under our current policy we only have two billing rates we have the active rate that everybody's familiar with you pay about 39 dollars and then charge for the water and then we have the standby rate which is meant for if you're going away you know uh to go you know explore the world for nine months and you want to come back and make sure your water is there that uh the meter is locked we still maintain it we still take care of that meter and service and you're billed only half of that service charge and then when you want to come back you turn it on you call us and we come turn the water on that is the default rate that we've moved everybody to um no one has been charged that rate yet and we don't know when that rate will start um we have you have a board of directors who's going to be discussing some of the billing issues and how to make sure that you guys have a solid and dependable water district but aren't hurt at the same time the second option is to disconnect completely and I went back through the records uh and was trying to come to terms with the fact you know why is it so hard to explain to people it's because it's new for us right now we're getting a lot of people saying they just want to disconnect and they want to leave well in the last two years we've had four people disconnect from the district it just doesn't happen that often and so to have all the customers up and say we're done and we want to leave actually it's not that many but to have as many as we have we don't have an answer to you know people want to know what it's going to cost if they disconnect and want to come back and so I found some information from our current policy and this is what it says um the current district policy states that when a customer disconnects it is permanent and when water is requested at the property in the future the requesting owner would pay the same fees as a new connect with an exception that the owner shall retain the capacity previously provided so what that means is if when you built your home you paid the thirty five hundred dollars for three quarter inch meter you don't have to pay that again if you want to permanently disconnect your meter you'll be able to do that and um when you come back you'll only need to pay the actual cost to put that meter back in the ground having said that um I'm not disconnecting and I'm not encouraging people to disconnect because this is our district and this is our system that we are going to take care of together and I we had um ten thousand five hundred meters that we serve before this fire and when this is through and we all get to go home I want to see that number just as high so it gives me hope that my neighbors are coming home and I'm going to have my community thank you good evening my name is Tony Signorelli deputy insurance commissioner with the california department of insurance uh insurance as your learning is a complex issue there are a lot of challenges it is going to take some time to get through the process but for now uh we wanted to just give you some initial tips there'll be other opportunities either at the local assistant center where we have staff on site you can go visit them and ask specific questions and they could even refer you to more information that we have online and in a uh if you're if you arrive at an impasse with your insurance case and your claim then they can set up a request for assistance like a complaint or an inquiry or we can assign it to one of our experts and we can look further into it and get a resolution of that particular issue and then we'll also to the degree that issue is resolved and you move on and you run to another issue let's say a month down the road you can come back and we'll still have that information so we're not starting from scratch but the first thing obviously is to file your claim most people have done that uh i met some people over the weekend that had not done it they said they were waiting uh to do it but uh i encourage everyone to start that clock start the insurance company's clock of their obligation to communicate with you hopefully get access to the property which is a slow process in some areas but that that's opening up and discuss with you your coverages your various coverages what your limits are what your obligations might be and also what their obligations might be as well as giving you advanced money get a complete copy of your insurance policy it's a complex contract the insurance company is obligated to give you a copy of that policy within 30 days upon your request so the sooner you request it the sooner you can get it many companies are out there already distributing policies and giving them out to their customers but just let's make sure that you ask for it so that you can start that clock from making sure you get your policy within that period of time because you want to refer to it as the claim goes forward also start a claims diary you're going to be meeting with a lot of different claims adjusters you've been making a lot of phone calls you'll be dealing with email and in-person meetings and you'll want to keep a good diary of who you're meeting with what was discussed what was agreed to what was not agreed to so that you can use that down the road and especially if you do run into an impasse where you need to contact us and file a complaint we'll have a better documentation trail to be able to better assist you uh about a week after the the fires we kistner jones issued an initial notice to insurance companies asking them to give advanced monies out so and i'm talking about homeowners insurance for the moment part of that request was 25 percent of your contents without having to do an inventory four months of additional living expense coverage up front many companies are doing that a few of them aren't but almost all of them that we're aware of have have done that um and that that's another reason to file your claim the sooner you file your claim the sooner you can get that advanced money in addition just uh yesterday we issued a an additional notice to insurance companies requesting that they offer at least 75 percent of your contents coverage without an inventory there are some companies offering 75 percent now some are offering more than 75 percent and that's great the commissioner is now making a request that all of them consider that we we don't have the statutory authority to require them to do it but in the last fires we did get a good response from insurance companies and they did up it from the 25 percent initial advance that they were giving people to a higher amount 50 75 and again some 100 percent if you're not sure what your company's you know please ask what their what their percentage is if you think that uh you should get more or that there's an issue with the the burden of the inventory contact us we could we could either help you through that process or uh maybe work with that company to make their requirements more flexible for you to get your funds additional coverage is additional living expense coverage so now that's going to uh many of you have a set dollar amount let's say 50 000 or 100 000 whatever that number is because it's a disaster laws trigger where you can get two years and in some cases three years of additional living expense coverage but that doesn't change your coverage amount so if you have 100 000 of additional living expense coverage you're going to get additional time to be able to use it but it doesn't change that amount so you're going to have to manage that amount as best you can I know in the front end in the first few weeks and a month that's going to be a not as easy because you're going to be it's a it's a shock and there there's not a lot of options available to you so you're going to spend more on the front end but as you get further down the road start thinking about how you can manage that that amount other other policies don't have a cap so it's really a benefit in that sense but you you'll need to work with your insurance company as to what amount they're willing to pay you for rental and other additional expenses that you incur contractors obviously you know that you're going to be inundated with all kinds of contractors wanting to rebuild and remove debris and do all kinds of things number one vet them make sure they're licensed contact the contract state license board make sure they have a availed license make sure they have insurance and make sure you have they're following the contract laws and if you have questions contact the contractor state license board and they will be in the area they have been in the area along with our fraud investigators making sure that the people that are out there soliciting services are in fact licensed and are soliciting within the required you know laws that are in effect there's also what are called public adjusters you have an insurance adjuster who's who works for the insurance company and then there are private public adjusters that are also licensed by the department that are there to help you should you run into an impasse and need their help number one feel free if you want to use their services contact our us you go online and contact us to see if they have a valid license make sure they have a valid license I would recommend though if you have a total loss you're probably going to get a significant amount of money without the need for a public adjuster and since the public adjuster is going to take a commission there's really no need for them to take a commission off the money that you'd be able to get on your own through the normal process when you when you do get as much as you think you can get and you then are at an impasse then it might be a really good reason to hire a public adjuster and make sure that they're only trying to get a commission for the additional amount that they get you and so just keep that in mind you're going to hear about debris removal you have a debris most people with insurance will have a debris removal coverage on their policy you're going to also be inundated or solicited by private debris removal companies our recommendation is that you that you listen to the consolidated debris removal program and it from our point of view it's going to be much more financially beneficial to you to go through the consolidated debris removal program for a lot of different reasons and there'll be a lot of other meetings to discuss that in more detail but you probably will start to be inundated with flyers and people saying opt out opt out but please listen to all the information before you make an informed decision a number of new laws go into effect after a declared disaster if you only have 12 months of additional living expense that's two years now it's three years with a new law before you only used to have one year to rebuild in order to get full replacement costs now that's two years so you have more time and so that that'll assist you in getting that money and another law is in effect that it's something to consider is if you most people have a full replacement cost policy but initially you only get what's called actual cash value which is a depreciated amount it's called fair market value it's you know it's the price of a comparable home minus the value of your land and they'll give you that up front until you rebuild then you get the difference the law is that you can get that full replacement cost and that includes your extended replacement cost your building code upgrades and all of the rebuild costs that it would take to rebuild the home on that lot even if you choose to rebuild on a different lot or if you choose to purchase a new home somewhere as long so if you're if your math works out on your rebuild of your current home that was destroyed this let's say $400,000 if you spend $400,000 to rebuild on another lot or on a replacement home you're eligible to get that full amount so make sure that when you're talking to your adjuster you know you might hear otherwise because there are some adjusters who are coming in because of the influx of large numbers of claims that there may be they might not be as familiar with these laws as they should be and keep that in mind so you and again we're always here as a source to help you through that process if you run into any questions and just lastly I mean please visit our staff or contact us at our 800 number that's 80927 help or you can contact us online we have brochures at the local assistance center in Oroville and in Chico and you know we can't help everybody there's going to be a lot of different challenges but we certainly can't help you if you don't contact us so please contact us thank you good evening my name is Diane Brown I'm the Butte County Assessor a lot of you still have questions about how the calamity process works what happens is you're going to pay taxes on your structure for the first four months of the year because it was there for the first four months of the year and then we'll remove it as of November 1st and so it'll get removed for the last eight months of the year we are just now starting to the correction process to issue new bills we went to Paradise today and cleaned out our Paradise office so we now have all of our records in Oroville so if your insurance adjuster needs a copy of your floor plan or part of your record in order to justify their assessment come into the Oroville office we are waiving the copy fees for the affected properties and so you can just come in and get a copy of your record for free there is a firm right now out of Southern California that is offering property profiles and recorded deeds for a fee of 86 dollars right now the recorder's office is waiving their copy fees for any damaged documents so you can go to the recorder's office either at the recovery center or in the office to replace your documents free of charge you can come into my office and get a copy of your property profile free of charge so you can pay these people 86 dollars for doing what you can do for free or you can do it yourself so just be careful there's the vultures are circling and ready to take advantage of you so just be really careful where you get your information if you have any questions about anything go to the source if you have questions about the rebuilding and calamity process contact my office if you have questions about anything else contact those people we're trying to get the rumors stopped and the right information out there so my number the number in the office is 552-3800 that's my main line so feel free to coddle at any time and have a nice night good evening my name is Mark I'm director of your state's office of emergency services and we've been here with with you all from the beginning of the fire and we are coordinating the overall state and federal response to the fires and and working to get the community cleaned up and rebuilt and helping all of you get your lives back going again let me start out by just saying a couple of things first of all what you just heard about unscrupulous people giving you information or entities reaching out to you is really correct you have to be very cognizant of that there are going to be everybody who wanting to represent you to wanted to give you information for a fee and just know that the reason why the local assistance center the disaster recovery center is here is to give you an opportunity to have a one stop place to you go get information which is correct information there's going to be information on the butte county recovery.org website which links to the state website at OES which also gives you information there will be people throughout the region from OES and FEMA working with the county and the town we will be here for the long run that you can ask questions for so all I'm going to say is really important that before you agree to take any money out of your pocket to hire anybody or to represent you check with one of us first so that we can make sure that we give you the best information on that we have been working very very diligently with the county and the town we have put a number of state task forces in place everything from shelter management and and then housing what we're going to do in the short run in the long run and you'll hear in a little bit from our partners at FEMA who are working with us on on housing solution we know that we have a very wide demographic of individuals that live in a town of paradise we have seniors and we have people with access and functional needs and and we have we want to make sure that we get the right housing solution for each of you and my my goal is to get if you're still in a shelter is to get you out of that shelter and into either a hotel a rental or one of our housing solutions whether it's going to be a mobile home or some other kind of travel trailer or fifth wheel something to get you into out of that shelter and into a place that you can call an interim home until we can get your home built again we also are working with our schools within the region as you know this kids should be gone back to school today the key thing here is to address the needs of the school so that that the kids and all the way up through high school have a place to get some sort of normalcy back in in their lives and continue on with their education there's a lot of effort going on to address the losses of the schools and paradise be able to get those address kind of early on so that we can we can address that issue also we've got a task force on watershed as you know living in paradise you live in an area where the watershed is important the the environment is important and so we're working on that to address much of the loss and not only make it render it safe again so that you can move back in but also to address reforestation etc I want to talk a little bit about the debris program because I know that that's high on everybody's thought and Tony was right when he talked about participating in a consolidated debris program first of all this debris program is going to be the largest debris operation that the state has ever seen now last year I said that when I was in Sonoma that that was the largest debris operation that the state had ever seen actually it was bigger than since we since the 1906 earthquake and when we were all said and done with that operation we removed enough debris to make two golden gate bridges if you could imagine in this case we are at least four times as much debris okay so as you can see it will take a herculean effort to be able to effectively safely and rapidly get all the debris out of the out of the area actually today state federal and local teams actually have already been deployed initially to go in and address what we call the household hazardous waste that's going to be your paints and pesticides and propane and any kind of hazardous material that's there we consider that a public health hazard and and the idea is is to clear that could be some asbestos there clear that off before we actually begin the debris program and there's the the teams that are going up are specially trained hazmat teams that are that are going to be moving through the area and it's going to take roughly four to six months to be able to clear all the household hazardous waste now that doesn't mean that we're going to wait on the debris operation for the hazmat teams to clear we're going to continue to sort of do it concurrently they move pretty rapidly once they get started but the difference is is that the teams that go in the hazmat teams that go in go in under a public health emergency they clear the lot the second phase is actually removing the debris and to actually remove the debris it requires your participation and it starts out with you filling out a right of entry form which I understand are here tonight for you to get but also you'll be able to get them on the website the county website buttecountyrecovery.org and we will make sure that you get those forms that right of entry form allows the state and its contractors to go in and remove all of the debris and I know there's a number of questions and I've got some debris specialist here that afterwards we'll we'll answer your specific questions but understand that this is this is a is a lot of challenges to be able to get this debris out in a timely fashion we're looking you know last year statewide we had about 10,000 structures that we had to remove debris on that was from from Mendocino down to Santa Barbara this year in this fire alone we have close to 18,000 maybe a little bit more structures just on the campfire alone so there's a lot of things to think about there's there's limited routes in and out we will have thousands of trucks that will be moving debris up and down the highway we will have heavy machinery equipment front end loaders and dozers to be able to pick up all that debris and then we will move all that debris down to a place where we will segregate all of the concrete all of the metal and steel and then all of the ash and we will recycle the metal and steel and we will recycle the concrete and we will remove the ash to appropriate landfills and it may not be that the landfill here in town in fact it most likely won't be used to that high of a degree because it's limited so we will be moving the debris at landfills in other parts of the state or possibly out of the state so this will all be done in a couple of phases the first phase of course is like I say the house will house it as waste and that is being done and you'll hear a little bit in a minute by a combination of the state and federal agencies department of toxics substance substance control and the United States environmental protection agency working together to go in and remove the house so it has it as waste and then the second phase which will probably start around January the 7th will be the debris removal which will be handled by CalRecycle another state agency but managed overall by OES and so what will happen is that the that effort will probably take close to a year to be able to get through all of that debris now it'll be moving throughout the town and of course it's not just paradise it's part of concoil magalia etc that will have to be be done and I and I as Tony mentioned I highly encourage everybody to participate in this program it was very very successful in Sonoma I will just tell you that in Sonoma with with they had about 7,000 structures in Sonoma proper another almost thousand in Mendocino and another thousand in Napa we were able to get through all that within about eight months and an actuality Coffee Park which which had about 2,000 structures is already about 75 to 80 percent rebuilt so I will tell you that all working together in a one team one fight effort all of us together local state and federal all of you in the community we can get through this and we're going to do everything to continue to support the town of paradise to get back up on their feet and get rebuilt that is our objective and our goal and we're going to help butte county make sure that they have all the resources that they need to be able to effectively manage the overall recovery effort so the governor has already in his emergency declaration and a number of executive orders waived all the regulations all the impediments that could possibly be in place to ensure that we rapidly start this recovery process and so so you know we'll continue to be here with you to the end and we have people that are that are based here there's there's several thousand responders we have them mostly over in a base camp by the airport we made sure that we cleared all those responders out of hotels so that we could open up hotel spaces for fire survivors to get out of shelters and into hotels and we want to make sure that you know that we will be here through throughout the duration so we'll take questions afterwards but thank you very much good evening my name is Steve Kalanog I'm with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as Mark described we're working here in a joint effort with the California Department of Toxics and Substance Control and Butte County Environmental Health our job here as Mark described is to begin the first phase of the debris removal program which is the removal of hospital hazardous waste it's our hazmat teams it's a joint effort of federal state and local resources that began work this week to assess damage properties for the presence and removal of household hazardous waste we're doing this work in close coordination with the Town of Paradise and Butte County officials and in particular the Town of Paradise Police Department we are only doing this work in neighborhoods where evacuation orders have been lifted and at a time where residents have had the opportunity to visit their property assess and retrieve any belongings or materials that they wish to take as Dr. Miller indicated this this phase of work is at no cost to the property owners and again we're coordinating with local agencies beginning this week we started with approximately 15 teams hazmat teams and that will ramp up quickly to 20 and more in the coming weeks Mark also described our objectives to be done in four to six months and will endeavor to do so barring unforeseen circumstances a question you may have is when do I know my property has been cleared there will be several ways for you to determine that the most obvious is we'll post a sign in the front of the yard that will say that we have done this work it will have the EPA and DTSC logos on it there will be a number on it but we'll also post a hotline in a variety of different forums social media and otherwise and we'll also have a website where you'll be able to actually look at your parcel of property and determine what's the status of it as we move through there and that's all I have thank you Hi I'm Doug Dans I work for a Butte County Environmental Health and our role in this is working integratively with the federal and state government agencies for different aspects and then one aspect I wanted to add some thoughts to was the debris removal program personally I lost my house as well as a lot of you have so I'm kind of very familiar and fortunate because I've seen this process work in the prior fire that we had here in the county also we have evidence from Sonoma County that this process really works the debris removal process just one or two takeaways maybe you guys can relate to this as far as having your house burned down three things one when your daughter says hey maybe we should take the cat with us and you say oh he's an outside cat he'll be okay you're probably wrong on that point we had a good outcome with this so no problem there then another one when your wife says do you think I can take a shower it's okay to yell no we have to go she's forgiven me for that because in about 15 more minutes our house was in flames and we did get out on time like everyone here the last one is it's probably not a good idea to leave your leaf blower on top of your pile of firewood it had a full tank and I know that firewood's gone it's just ashes right now so that was a dumb idea I remember driving out of the driveway going oh maybe I should move that and it was too late so I know that all of you can relate to that and the point in the takeaway on this is that we weren't expecting this no one here was expecting this and now we have some issues and we have some problems and our health officer described those as far as public health issues the ash and debris that we have there is considered hazardous and we need to be careful with it how we interact with it what we do when we're touching it and what our responsibility as a homeowner is regarding that hazardous substance that's left on the ground the debris and ash removal program addresses that thoroughly it actually takes this problem off our list of things to do as it was described the hazardous waste is being removed as we speak the second phase which has been described is the debris and ash removal phase and that has to be accomplished or is only accomplished if you actually sign a right of entry authorization form as was discussed we have those forms here tonight and they're going to be everywhere they're going to be on our website ucountyrecovers.org they're going to be at the Environmental Health Office in Oroville they're going to be at the DRC which is the disaster response center in Chico you can go online and download it and read through it and sign it you can actually scan it and email it to us but you can also bring it into the ROE and by the way that ROEs is right of entry authorization form that's what it stands for you can sign it and download it send it to us that way but we encourage people to come into the ROE center it's at 202 Mira Loma Drive and the address is at the bottom here and ask questions and kind of figure out what this means and what these different pages might mean there might be some questions that you have about them we're glad to answer those questions I know that you've probably have a lot of questions yourself right now and I know that they're sending out forms where you can do it and we'll try to get to those but the bottom line is that we weren't planning this and we now as owners have a responsibility to see that our lot is clean of the ash and debris and if we use this program offered by the federal and state government that it will be taken care of I've seen it work and the outcome is is it's way cheaper and it's also a quicker method of getting our building permits if we're rebuilding we can put our community back together and we can put our lives back together thank you good evening my name is Kevin Hannes and I'm the deputy federal coordinating officer for this event and I'm also the senior federal official here for Butte County in relationship to the campfire I'm going to start off with just a few little statistics because I'm from the federal government and we love statistics and so I want to provide those to you real quick to date in Butte County so those impacted directly by the campfire over 32.5 million dollars has been authorized by FEMA to residents of the impacted area over 28 million dollars has been approved by the small business administration for the same amount so right there we're trying to start getting those funds back into your hands 5,764 families are receiving some form of rental assistance 147 families are currently residing in our TSA hotels and 116 have resided with us and I've already checked out and found a suitable interim living source Average grant right now for the campfire is a little over 10,000 dollars and let me tell you how significant that is Hurricane Harvey which I was the fire the federal coordinating officer for our average grant was 4,500 this was a devastating event and the numbers are starting to reflect that and we are preparing to make sure that we have the assistance you need for those 372 families have already received our maximum grant so I know a lot of questions are about housing and what are we going to do about housing so I'm going to give you really what you need to hear at this point maybe not what you want to hear but I will always do that to you in fairness and transparency is tell you what you need to hear to make informed decisions and understand the process FEMA is just one part of the housing solution it's really an interim solution whether it's the sheltering our hotel program our rental assistance or if needed manufactured housing units and travel trailers those are interim solutions we have to find solutions that get you from the shelter to a secure habitable solution that's interim and then onward to the long-term full rebuild solution and we are going to be here with you for that I know there's a lot of question of where are the FEMA trailers when are they coming are they already here and you're putting in folks there are some individuals in some remote counties not in Butte County that have already been placed into some travel trailers we looked first to commercial sites we looked from Reading to Sacramento down that corridor and found 107 available pads it's tough and so we're looking to get those pads and put trailers on those and move people in as quickly as we can but we are very conscious of where those pads are at and work with you on your needs if that need doesn't fit your work or school we will look for another source for you and so I want to assure people we're not going to start moving people to Nevada or to Southern California we are looking to keep individual families here as close to Butte County as we can and that offers a lot of challenges we have to ensure that one that there's a need I know there will be a need but we have to go through that process we have to be good stewards of your tax dollars this isn't FEMA money this is really your tax dollars at work much like Social Security or Medicaid or Medicare it's money you're putting in to the system and now it's time for that system to come back and support you we want to be good stewards of that make sure we make the right decisions find the right solutions as your state director said to ensure that we get the outcomes that you need so we have to ensure that the county local governments have the right ordinances in place we have to ensure that there is power water sewage available to hook these units up so that they are safe and secure that takes a while to assess those properties once we've identified that as a need we've identified the property to build a site to house travel trailers will take anywhere from 30 to 45 days to build a site for manufactured housing units could take upwards of four months now we're not going to wait until the whole site is built before we move people in we will do it in phases and move people in ALE, the additional living expense was brought up by your insurance commissioner if you are using your ALE right now that does not prevent you from being a potential applicant for our direct housing mission what we will do is if you have a need to be in our direct housing mission we will actually charge you the fair market rent for that so you're using your ALE so we do not have a potential duplication of benefits if your ALE runs out and you're still with us then you stop paying rent that doesn't mean you can use ALE to go do other stuff with you've got to use it for what it's designed for so we don't have a duplication of benefits it is important to know that this is not a federal recovery this is a state of california and more importantly a butte county recovery we are here in direct support of the governor's office of emergency services they are our client you are our client we are here to achieve the outcomes that you desire we are looking at many sites we are very close to making decisions on several sites and once we have everything in place where we know we can break ground and we can start that construction we will start announcing those sites but in the interim you will receive a call from FEMA talking about your housing needs please go through that call it takes about 25 to 30 minutes give us the information where are you living now are you precariously housed are you with friends and family and thanksgiving didn't go so well and you're not anticipating a great Christmas with them and so you may have to move out or maybe the party on the 1st of January was a little bit too much and they threw you out stay in contact with us these are issues we need to know so that we can make sure that you are adequately housed going forward with this process let me close with this I said this at the first town hall meeting I know what it's like to lose a house to a fire I don't know what it's like to lose a whole town but I do know what it's like to build a whole town because we've done it before as director Galaducci said this agency in coordination with Cal OES is here to ensure that not only Paradise, Concal, Magalia will rise from the ashes may God bless you all well good evening everybody it's only me and Gallagher here and first I just want to say that my heart goes out to all of you who are going through a very difficult time right now and I want you to know that myself and my staff are going to be with you through this time we're in this for the long haul with you and we've been working hard with all of your local representatives all the way on up to our federal representatives to ensure that we have the tools we need to to rebuild and we are going to do that so I want to help you guys understand that I know this is taking longer than anybody would like in terms of getting back into your properties and starting that process but as you heard here tonight and you know you've heard a lot of information tonight but I just want to summarize a few things one there's a lot of people working very hard you know long hours to get this back into a place where we can start the rebuild start the recovery process all the utilities folks your sheriff who's been amazing through this whole ordeal and working hard Sheriff Honey and Chief Rybold they're in the back as well from Paradise the effort that's been made by their force has been nothing short of amazing and Cal Fire and everything that they've done but the utilities and everybody who's working hard to bring the infrastructure back up online so please be patient with that because they're trying to make sure that it's it's going to be ready for us to do this process please sign up with FEMA you know I understand the distrust of government you know and there's many times that I think we have good reason to distrust government but going into this process I think number one it's important to sign up with FEMA whether you have insurance or not if you have insurance still sign up because there's resources that are going to be available to you there's even the small business small business loan association is also has resources available to people so sign up with FEMA so that you can take advantage of those those resources you've heard a lot about the insurance go through and make your claim make sure that you're keeping on top of that process I did get word about you know one of the insurance companies Merced you know and I'm sure many of you've heard that they covered a lot of people up here on the ridge that's you know going out of business and I know there's a lot of concern about that we are working on that issue with the insurance commissioner one good bit of news is that from my understanding the California Insurance Guarantee Association will cover up to $500,000 that will guarantee the coverage of that claim up to $500,000 so that's a good thing that we have that program here in California for licensed insurance companies but we're going to continue to work through that issue I know that's been a concern on a lot of people's minds I introduced my first two bills yesterday and principal co-authors on that are Senator Nielsen and Assemblyman Daly as well one is to cover the local cost share of the debris removal and the other one is to ensure that these agencies can continue to have the revenue to move forward and continue the recovery process your towns your school districts your water districts so that we can continue to move this forward as you've heard you know obviously the revenue is not there to continue this effort so the state you know we're going to ask them to be a partner in this and help and get us through this time I want to say something a little about the debris removal it's been reiterated a few times but from all the folks that I've talked to probably signing up with FEMA and with Cali OES for their for their debris removal program is probably going to be the cheapest option and will end with you having a certificate saying that your property is clear and ready to be moved on and there's there's some flyers back there it is your right to decide to opt out and not do that but if you if you do there's a lot of things you need to make sure that you check the box on if you're going to use your own contractor are they licensed you know do they have workers comp do they have personal liability insurance are they an established business and do they have hazmat certification because at the end of the deal if you can't certify that that hazmat has been certified you're going to have problems in your rebuild process so you know it's your decision to do what you want to do with your property but I think in this instance it looks like utilizing this program it's available to you to clear your property and go through that process is is looking like the best option and I know they're working hard on making sure that they're going to have the contractors and the capacity ready to start doing that work I know many of you are anxious to do that so you know please keep you know keep that in mind as you're moving forward and making decisions we're going to continue to try and get out as much up-to-date and accurate information for you so certainly follow us on all of our networks but keep abreast of what Butte recovers and that website now there's been a lot of great information out on that as well so with that I just you know again we're here with you for the long haul we're going to continue to work hard to I know this is a long road and and you know for many of you here you're wondering about what that next step is but we are going to be here you're local all the way on up to the federal government I've been talking with congressman LaMolfa to ensure that the federal aid comes on on board as well and we've had conversations with the governor and the governor-elect who have said they they're committed to helping us get through this recovery process so there's a lot of people all the way on up working to do that and with that we'll get to turn it over I think you guys have probably have a lot of questions so thank you for being here tonight good evening my name is Kasey Hatcher I'm a public information officer for Butte County we have used some cards tonight to gather questions and you have a lot of them and we know that and we want to answer as many as we can what we have done is we have taken your questions and we have gone through them and we have combined them because there were a lot of duplicates so what I have asked the speakers to do is take a look at the questions that you have presented for them and to answer them and if you still have very specific questions left to your situation after this we will stick around and we will be here to answer those for you specifically so I'm going to invite Sherrick Honey and Chief Eric Ramble up to answer your questions specifically related to the ongoing evacuations and when you can come back good evening so you've heard chief talk and he and I decided to come up here together to answer the questions that are more within our particular wheelhouse and we're going to do it together because we've stood shoulder to shoulder through this entire thing to try to manage the situation and provide for the community's safety and I think it's fitting that we stand here together and answer the questions the best of our ability now as you know there's a lot of questions and many of them are very similar in nature so we're going to speak to those questions and then if there's something specific perhaps we can talk about it when the chief and I are done and I'll start with a list of questions that I have that I think are specific to the county and the chief's got some for the town of Paradise and then we'll weigh in on each other's questions as we see fit okay all right so the first question is on what legal grounds are you keeping people from their property it's a great question no it's a very good question and I'm glad you asked it because it allows us to tell you this first and foremost we don't want to keep you from your property in all candor the chief and I really really want this process to go as quickly and smoothly as possible so that we can get you back into the area so that you can assess your property do the things that you need to do to start on the road to recovery I can assure you that us keeping people out of this area is not arbitrary it's not capricious every single day we work very very hard to push appropriately all of those entities who are working to make this area safe to do it as quickly as we possibly can that said there is actual legal authority for us to do what we do and first off under California Penal Code Section 409.5 I as the sheriff of the county have the authority to order an evacuation and keep people out of an area where a disaster has occurred and there's an ongoing threat to public safety the chief has the same authority within the town of Paradise which is the jurisdiction that he oversees in addition to that there's something called the emergency services act which allows us to do that or aids us in that authority and finally there's this notion or concept of this general police power that counties and cities have with regard to protecting their communities there's a whole body of case law that supports that but I will reiterate to you that we want nothing more than to be able to open this up and allow you to get back in there it's not something that we relish and quite frankly we take a lot of heat and a lot of abuse I understand everybody's frustrated for doing what we are obligated to do and what our duty is to do under the law okay the next question actually there's two questions kind of along this line but I'll take this because it really deals more with access into the unincorporated area of Miguelia and that is what is the progress of having access to Miguelia from Chico not via Butte Meadows and I want to tell you I understand the hardship that it creates for everybody to have to access Miguelia up Skyway through Butte Meadows over to Highway 32 we thought a lot about that there was discussion about whether or not we should keep Miguelia closed completely until we were able to open up a thoroughfare through the town of Paradise but in the end there was a lot of pressure from the public to be able to get in there and so we opened it up providing people with that option we encouraged people not to go back if getting out through that that thoroughfare would be too arduous or hard for them understanding that there were other people who could make that trip that said from the very moment we've been working very very hard to get the passage from the valley through Paradise up into Miguelia I have to tell you we pushed hard on that haven't we to the point where there's times where we've had some very tense discussions with the people the utility companies and the people that are working to make this safe but at the end of the day we can't open up or say that an area is open until our stakeholder partners the utility companies Public Works the people who remove trees tell us that they have reached a minimal degree of safety I say minimal degree because there are still hazards that are going to be present when you are allowed to return to your house and I think all of these people have talked about this so that said I'm very optimistic that within the next day or so we are going to be able to open up the Pints Road Corridor so that people can access Miguelia through the Pints Road Corridor I have a high degree of optimism we're going to meet again tomorrow morning at eight o'clock to see where we're at but the reason that I can't tell you a date or time certain and this will lead into some other questions is that there are a lot of factors that go into play and there are times when something will come up that no one knew about or was unforeseen that result in us having to push back our timeline to open an area up case in point the storm that came through and flooded an entire area that set us back when you get into some of these areas where there is more infrastructure greater damage to the infrastructure sometimes they'll find it for example the culverts right yeah they just discovered that the culverts were burned out so that said we give you the best estimate can but I can tell you that we really want to get a thoroughfare open I believe strongly that in a very short period of time we're going to have Pints open and that will take care of that particular problem yeah please do something I wanted to add to the Pints Road Corridor when that is open I forgot to mention earlier so I apologize the first 24 hours again is going to be for residents only after that 24-hour period that will be the thoroughfare to get from the valley to McGillia so having said that a lot of people have asked well we heard the town has adopted a curfew for the the affected area for the entire town we have adopted a curfew and we will enforce that firmly but reasonably the curfew is from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. so if people are traveling on Pints Road and you get pulled over by one of our officers we're just determining who you are and what you're doing and we're doing that for all of you so don't be surprised but we want to limit the amount of stragglers and people that shouldn't be hanging out in the area or in the town during those hours and then in conjunction with the EPA as was mentioned before they are going behind the zones being opened and allowing access for that 24-hour period or longer before they go in to start looking for those household hazards so and speaking with them there's going to be a significant more amount of time than 24 hours before they're in there looking for those hazards so I know there was some concern about that as well that segues nicely into the next question that we have and then some subsequent questions after that and so the next question is what do I do if I don't have internet how will I know if my zone is open so I want to tell you we are working really hard to get the word out to the public through as many platforms or venues as possible we are utilizing the traditional media by doing media releases so we're asking that the traditional media print television radio broadcast that out so tuning into your traditional media outlets will help you get notification in addition to that we have as I've said and I understand if you don't have internet you may not have access to this but we put it out on our social media platforms our Facebook page our Twitter another way that we ultimately get that out and then lastly what we have been doing is using the code red notification system which you can go on to the Butte County Sheriff's website log on to that you can enter your cell phone number or your email address and if you have access to that we will notify you when an evacuation order is lifted or like the case of Concow we lifted the order but maintain the warning and the warning is be ready to evacuate if necessary and that was due to the potential for flash flooding like we had to deal with on Centerville that is our way of telling people be ready to go if you have to go so those are the mechanisms that we're ultimately utilizing I would love to be able to give personal notice to everybody but you know that that's just that we can't do that so we're trying to do as much as we possibly can to get that word out the next set of questions deals with along these lines once Pence Road is open to Miguel you what would keep someone from looting homes off of Pence Road so the chief and I can both speak to this because I got to tell you this is a a big part of our operation and something that we're working very very hard to deal with we have hundreds of law enforcement officers who have come to Butte County to assist us not only our local resources but from outside the area and as we open up these areas we will continue those patrols utilizing not only Butte County Sheriff's Staff PD staff but also local law enforcement from throughout Butte County including state parks Chico Police Department Orville Police Department Gridley Police Department as well as US Forest Service law enforcement officers we will saturate those areas as a matter of fact as the chief said a moment ago if you get pulled over I hope that you count that as a blessing right I hope that you understand yeah that we're doing our job and I was up I was up in Paradise on Sunday helping with some of the escorts I pulled a couple of people over myself who didn't who weren't displaying their placard correctly and actually they were thankful that I did it because we're keeping track of it so if you get pulled over it's because we we're doing our job and I hope that you'll understand that okay thank you give me any on that okay all right the next one deals with a whole kind of series of questions along the line of when we lift an evacuation order and how much time we give and how much time residents have and what the public has and so I'm just going to generally talk about it try to try to answer all of those questions in one felt so that said as I've said there's a lot of moving parts to this in terms of knowing when we can open up a particular area and when we get word that we can open up an area based on what our partners are telling us in terms of the safety issue are we give generally try to give three hours notice to the residents of the area that we're going to open up now I got to tell you that I originally talked to our staff we both did about well why can't we give them 24 hours notice and the debate that went back and forth between everybody is that so too many things can happen between that time period it can cause more havoc by giving people a timeframe that doesn't have a level of certainty and so we ultimately there was some discussion about giving an hour we said no we need more than that and we came up we settled on three hours once we open up an area it is open to residents of that area and what we mean by residents are people who have proof to show that they live there in that particular area for a 24 hour period of time now there's been a lot of confusion some people think that means you have to leave within 24 hours that's not the case that means we're just going to hold the rest of the public at bay for 24 hours hopefully to give you enough time to go up to your property to look at it to assess it if your property has been burned give you an opportunity to go through collect whatever valuables or keepsakes that might be there now I realize not everybody can get there within the 24 hours and I realize that the 24 hours probably isn't enough for everybody but you have to understand we're balancing all of these competing interests we're trying very hard to accommodate the various requests that we get I would love to and I know the chief would too give everybody the answer that they want but the fact of the matter is he and I have jobs that no matter what decision we make somebody is going to be angry with us and that's just the way it is right that's just the way it is so we've set that initial phase for residents to get in there now some have asked well can I bring after that 24 hour period then you allow the general public in well why shouldn't it be open well we can't keep it closed indefinitely and as I talked to you about our legal authority to keep an area closed once it's been determined safe begins to dissipate or evaporate and so the longer we go to keep the general public the less legal authority we have we feel that we're justified in keeping the public out for 24 hours so the residents in beyond that I don't know that we have I don't believe that we have the legal authority to continue that practice people have asked can I bring friends and professionals like contractors and things like that to come in and help me and the answer is yes and that's another reason that we open it up beyond the residents after that 24 hour period so that all of those kinds of people can come in and help you out there's a lot of reasons for that I know it causes concern but it's the best that we can come up with in terms of balancing all of those competing interests and trying to serve the various things that we need to serve okay you have anything to add on that I would just add there's a significant amount of manpower that goes into holding that 24 hour period a big thank you to our local CHP and across the north region they are going to be holding many many barricades and manning those to make sure that people don't go beyond those zones to help keep the workers safe and it's just not feasible to to maintain those after a certain period of time so once those zones are open they will be open and we're going to shift our resources and it may not seem like it because you're not seeing it three times a day or being in all the meetings but all the resources are being effectively allocated to address all those remaining issues so that we can continue to open zones as soon as they're safe so just want to reiterate them and I'll add to the National Guard has been here a lot and they've been helping us with that too and it's been nice to have those guys here as well so that's been a positive thing yeah that's worthy of applause absolutely neighbors still have to help neighbors right and so when you get up there if you see people messing with your neighbor's property that shouldn't be there call us so that we can get up there and figure out who those people are and if they shouldn't be there then we can start dealing with it we're all in this together right and so we got to do that from that standpoint all right the next thing next group of questions deals with our law enforcement critical needs escort service which we opened up this weekend and we did that and frankly that's kind of unprecedented because this entire event is unprecedented we've never had to keep these areas closed for as long as we've had to keep this one closed and so we we worked on a system that we could try to get people into the area ahead of the evacuation orders being lifted so that they could get critical items like vehicles that they needed to go to work with or if there was a safe up there that had important papers we tried to get them up there or if there was an animal that we needed to help them get we could do that so that's how we ultimately came up with that with that system that system can be accessed two ways first you can call 897 8873 and that call center is being staffed by members of the Army National Guard and we have a group of law enforcement officers made up of my staff the chief staff US Forest Service law enforcement officer state park peace officers as well as department of insurance investigators who are helping escort insurance adjusters into those areas so that they can begin to assess the property and help people with their claims we have a limited number of resources we're trying to work through as much as we can as of tonight we've received 1,675 requests we've completed 235 of them but we're we're chunking away at them we are trying and like I said you can call that number or you can go on to the Butte County Sheriff's website at www.buttecounty.net forward slash share of corner scroll down click on the link that says law enforcement escort and it'll take you to a page that allows you to make a request if you want to I know it's not a perfect system I know and I know you you would want us to be able to do it the same day that you make the request but it's the best we can do right now and and what we've decided is that it's better to make progress than have perfection and that's all what we're gonna have to deal with going forward okay good enough all right and I think I am let's see and then chief I think you're probably you want to talk about the timeframes on the zones and then I'll finish up with the ones that I think are not related to that you know I'd I'd love to stand up here and give everybody definitive timelines you know the sheriff and I have said it multiple times it's it's such a dynamic situation so many factors when we go to our our repopulation meetings that we have you have you hear stories of AT&T and and PG&E and Comcast they're all trying to work in the same area they're stepping on each other and and that just goes to show that they are committed to trying to get their jobs done as quickly and efficiently as possible they are making good progress I know it doesn't mean much or it's not what you want to hear if we can open larger chunks then that's going to be a lot easier on our side of the house to maintain and to to regulate especially for screening people at the checkpoints for that 24 hour period so we've been working every day since this happened this isn't something that we want to drag on for a day longer than we have to but there there is order and there's a lot of things that we have to check the box on so to speak so it's not what you want to hear but we are doing our best to to get more zones open as quickly as possible and I I echo that that's I think that exactly right so I have two questions remaining and they're not related to evacuation or things like that so I think this will probably finish up what the chief and I have talked about this one will there be a better warning system if something big happens again no warning fire almost burned so let me tell you I agree wholeheartedly with you that there was not enough time to warn everybody the fact of the matter is and it's interesting and the chief and I have talked a lot about this I had an opportunity to hear I read an email from the first firefighters on scene in polka and they talked about how this fire was unprecedented in terms of how fast it moved they did everything they could to hold it but it was moving so fast and just absolutely got away and as what I've said this thing was out running us before we even knew we were in a race and then it was going in different directions and how it ultimately played out by the end of the night we were evacuating or doing orders to evacuate part of orville Chico it was going in every direction that you possibly could now there had been a lot of planning ahead of time to deal with a fire that might come through paradise there was an effort to pave the roadway up skyway over to Butte Meadows there was a zone there were zones that were set up there were stage notification systems in place and quite frankly despite the tragedy that we're feeling all of those efforts helped saved thousands and thousands of lives that's right if that if that work had not been done I think this would have been a much much bigger tragedy I've heard people talk a lot about sirens and things like that that's a discussion we've had here in Orville right Mr. Conley yeah when the Orville Dam spillway incident occurred there are pros and cons to that if a siren goes off without any additional information people don't necessarily know what to do there is some there's a discussion about the possibility of sending a broadcast out that warns everybody at the same time we saw the problem with that in the Orville Dam spillway situation you immediately impact the roadways so there's no easy answers and I got to tell you the chief and I were both up in paradise when it when when the smoke blocked out the sun and ash and embers were falling and there was fire raising up on all of us and we were trying to get as many people as we possibly can out I tell you all of this because the fact of the matter is this thing is unprecedented it moved faster than anything that we probably could it outpaced the resources that we had it overwhelmed our 911 system it overwhelmed your 911 system but there are a lot of lessons to be learned and as we go forward we're going to work on trying to find better ways and learn those lessons and so the answer to the question will there be a better warning system here's my answer I damn sure hope so for those of you broadcasting on TV I'm sorry for cussing the last question that I have is have you confirmed what started the fire and I want to tell you a little bit about how that how that process works so here in butte county as is the case in a lot of counties the investigation of the cause and origin of fires is handled by the fire service in this case the cal fire the reason for that is they have their own law enforcement officers who specialize in the investigation of fire related incidents be it accidental negligent or or arson or something of that nature before I came in here I called chief chief reed and I asked him what the status is what he told me is that the investigation is well underway it is continuing it's a complex investigation it's complex because the way you have to investigate arson you ultimately have to rule out all other causes before you finally settle on one and their investigators have expertise on that so the answer to the question is the investigation is still continuing and I would look to the fire department ultimately to release those findings once the investigation is done that's all I have chief just to add on to that I think that there needs to be a level of reasonableness in the community when it comes to assumptions when it comes to that to the degree that we are now paying for additional law enforcement resources to protect our utility workers and we're taking our focus and efforts away from escorting you in to deal with your critical needs because there are some out there that can't control themselves having said that we will be out there we'll have a strong presence not only to protect your properties but to protect our brothers and sisters that are our utility workers so that's all I have hold on I you know I just will close with this you know the chief has absolutely been personally affected by this he lost his home as well as a lot of other members of his department my daughter works for him as a police officer they are that department and the town they are really going through a lot of it but this is a tragedy that is affected basically all of our community because we've all been living it and I really want to say that my interactions with many of the members of the community I've been so amazed at the character and the compassion that everybody has I really thank you for that I'm proud to be your sheriff and I know the chief is proud to be the chief right chief absolutely so thank you all very much I appreciate it I'll take your question offline I want to bring up Mayor Jody Jones and Lauren Gill Paradise Town Manager to address some of the questions that we've given to them but I also want to let you know we have lots of questions to answer and we will stay here and we will answer them but we will also put information at ButteCountyRecovers.org you can also email questions to Butte County Recovers at ButteCounty.net I absolutely recognize that not everybody has access to the internet or a computer and we're working on ways to get more printed information to the Disaster Recovery Center and out into your community we will also be doing more community meetings and reaching out to your groups to talk specifically about the Debris Removal Program there's a whole lot of questions for Cal OES about that tonight and I want to know I want you to know that we'll have more community meetings to specifically address that the right of entry form is here tonight if you'd like to pick it up you can pick it up in the back of the room but I just want I know some of you are starting to leave and we still have a whole slew of questions to get to so I just want you to know there will be more opportunities to ask questions about the debris program and community meetings that are specific to that and then we'll talk about animals after Mayor Jones and Town Manager Lauren Gill so I have a few questions about future planning and what the town is going to look like I'm going to kind of answer them together the first one is will planning be done to redesign and or realign streets to promote safe escape routes east and west in addition to the existing nor south streets will streets be designed to be wide enough with adequate shoulders so we are going to go through a design process for how our town is going to look in the future we have an opportunity here to do some things that are different and better and safer but we're not going to do that in a back room there is no Wizard of Oz pulling strings saying exactly what's going to happen it's going to be an open public process with design workshops that you all can participate in and let us know what you think the town should look like and what's important to you that process will be coming we're still kind of in the crisis mode but in the coming months we will get down down to brass tacks with planning and it'll be a very open process over a number of months now is the time to innovate and be creative we have a very dirty but cleanable slate so to speak what exactly are you doing to rethink paradise so that's along the same lines we're bringing in our business community to talk about what they want the business commercial district to look like we're going to bring in our citizens and do that open public process there is a rumor of a possible ordinance against manufactured homes being proposed in paradise is there any truth to that not at this time but the council hasn't taken up any of these questions and that question also will be a part of that design process and the actions that the council will take in open public meetings I'm on the fence with regards to rebuilding please tell me how paradise will be better and safer tell me why I should want to rebuild my home there I guess I could tell you what I think and why I'm going to rebuild my home there I think that paradise will be newer all the things that we're going to build are going to be built to newer building standards and more fire safe materials and standards I also think that as part of this design process we have the opportunity to look at our streets and our evacuation routes and make those things safer but to me paradise is not about the buildings or the streets it's about the people and I want to rebuild in paradise because I want my community back I want the social fabric that we had as a community and I think that's the most important reason to want to rebuild in paradise but that's just me personally so this one is kind of a personal question but I'm going to answer it anyway because some of you may be thinking it also are we to believe paradise officials who have lost homes have not visited their zones such as the mayor so no I don't think you should believe that because many of you have seen me on TV I have been up to paradise in an official capacity always with either escorting people or being escorted never by myself I have escorted media and the incoming lieutenant governor who all asked to see my home we have stood at the front of the property and looked at the pile of rubble I have not gone through it I have not stepped into where there is ash my husband has not seen his home my sister has not seen hers but I couldn't do my official job if I hadn't been able to do that so I've tried very hard not to do any of the things that you haven't been allowed to do I haven't gone to look for my jewelry and then my last question is long range what are we looking at to live back in paradise and I think this person is asking for time frames so I'll just give you very general time frames from all of the work that's been described what I think are reasonable so if your house is standing you're probably looking at two to three months before you have utilities and it's clean around your property and you've had clean right build right go in there and get rid of the smoke so you could live back there if your house is burned to the ground like mine is you're looking at a much longer time frame you heard today that debris removal is going to take about a year and then you need to pull a building permit and design a house and get it built so for me personally I'm planning on two years before I can live in paradise some people who are maybe faster at it might do it in a year and a half but I don't think anything faster than that is very reasonable and that's all my questions thank you we've been getting a lot of questions on the live stream about animals and I am going to ask a representative from animal control with the county as well as NAVDAC to come up and speak good evening my name's Lisa Almaguer and I serve as the public information officer for Butte County Public Health and Butte County Animal Control and I'm here with Norm Rosine he is the public information officer with North Valley Animal Disaster Group also known as NAVDAC the two of us work in coordination as the authorized animal response teams for Butte County we have two primary operations those are caring for animals in the shelters which right now we have 1300 animals our shelters are being run very smoothly right now we have an abundance of volunteers and we have capacity in these shelters when this disaster started we had over 2200 animals we are now at approximately 1300 so we have room we continue to take in animals when they're brought to us and continue to bring rescued animals when they need to be rescued to the shelters the second operation is caring for animals within the fire affected evacuation areas and we have a shelter in place operations going for over 600 locations up in the fire affected area and we continue to leave food and water out for animals that we see even if they haven't been reported into us so I'm going to go over we've got 20 teams on the ground by the way every day and they do visit these shelter in place operations every two to four days depending on the need and location of these animals so I'm not I haven't had a chance to see the questions that are coming in on the live feed so I will not be able to address those but I will address Norm and I will address what we have here on the cards and then if we need to we can take some offline conversations tonight and you can speak one-on-one with us so here we go resources say you are not taking any more rescued pets why if our shelters are full and the animals are sick from upper respiratory infections why not use other shelters we are taking pets and as I mentioned we are down in our numbers and we have room we have capacity to take pets so I'm not sure you know this misinformation gets out there all the time but if you have questions you can call us and you can also call the hotline for NAVDAG which is 895-000 in regards to sickness a lot of these upper respiratory infections are infections that the animals came in with with their acute exposure to the fire and the smoke they had smoke inhalation but you know illnesses happen in shelters in human shelters in animal shelters you have confined space and illnesses do happen and so when we have sick animals we isolate them in separate areas from the well animals and we work with veterinarians to come in and care for them second question is how long are you going to continue to rescue pets and it goes on to list how long the tubs fire Katrina other Sonoma fires the answer is we will rescue pets as long as they're in need period third question is how do you intend to handle small domestic pet recovery efforts going forward we're going to continue doing exactly what we're doing we're going to continue sheltering in place with our 20 teams that are on the ground every day we're going to rescue injured animals when we come across them in the field and I'll let Norm talk about what he's seeing in the field he's been up there for nine days straight and when those evacuation orders are lifted and you're able to get into your property you'll have access to your pet as well so timeframes we're doing it right now and we're going to continue to do it there's a comment about about thousands of pets missing and I'm going to let Norm address that because that's not what we're seeing so hi I'm Norm O'zine from North Valley Animal Disaster Group I'm part of the evacuation effort up there and the rescue effort I've been up there a lot all over the areas that were affected by the fire we don't see a lot of animals having problems up there we're sheltering in place every single animal that we know about or that we see so if you request for service for us to go up there and leave food and water even if the house is destroyed we're going to do it if along the way we see a cat that's in an area that we haven't known when to be reported we're going to add food and water to that area and continue to shelter it in place this is the standard of the industry for disasters is to shelter animals in place if they're a safe and be there in an area that is safe so if we look at an animal and we see it's injured or having a problem we're going to recover that animal and bring it to our shelter but a lot of these animals are outside cats and you either trap it which is very difficult and hard for the animal or you're going to feed and shelter it in place and again that's not us that come up with that standard that's the animal well for organizations around the country that is the standard in the industry so what I've been seeing is that the cats are all doing fine that I've seen sure there's some injured ones and we grab them when we can there aren't very many dogs left up there there's one that I know of we shelter it in place I saw it yesterday it's fine and it was asked the question do we shelter in place in areas where there are burned houses and the answer is yes we know there are cats that we're not seen we're addressing those needs and we look daily at the weather and say is that still a good thing is that a decision we want to make and if we need to change that decision we will but I can tell you that I've been to the shelters today all of the shelters the cats and dogs are doing well everything is going according to a plan and we have a system in place and should you have any questions please call us at the hotline so that we can answer your question or we can address an animal that you're concerned about so I have an additional question and I'm I'm going to try to to figure out what's being asked so it says is it legal to stop letting evacuees with pets without notice discrimination on disability and pets I I believe this question might be in relation to these these co-shelter where we have people at a shelter where we also have animals co-sheltering at that shelter and I'm thinking this might be about maybe a service animal so animals and pets are in separate areas at the co-shelter but folks who have a legal service animal are allowed to have that animal with them where the rest of the people are so I hope that I answered this question the way it was and it was being asked so I have probably eight or nine questions which I'm just going to take a while guess it's from the same person because the penmanship is the same and I'm I'm sorry okay wonderful thank you for your questions I think we addressed many of the items when will you why are you stopping to rescue why aren't you feeding animals in the locations that have been requested and we are doing all of those things but what we would invite you to do with us is to have a conversation to be cognizant of everyone's time we would love to talk with you okay so we're not going to do the back and forth conversation here but I would be but we would love to talk with you I think you can see that the room is starting to dwindle and we recognize that it's beginning to get late and we have gotten a lot of questions so we want to continue to get to them I'm going to be strategic about who we call up here based on how many of the questions were answered during the presentation portion so I'm going to ask Kevin Hannis from FEMA to gum up and address some of his questions I'll make this quick they're fairly standard the first one I want to address is something that with all social media and rumors there's always a little bit of fact in there some place and so the question was did FEMA or some government authority displace fire refugees from a casino property in order to house pre-existing homeless people in the middle of the night no we did not do that now we were working with Rowling Hill's campsite trying to acquire some leases what we found out today is that they were asking people to leave so that we could lease their pads I said no we're not going to do that and we are no longer working with Rowling Hill's at this time I don't play okay does FEMA kick in if insurance does not cover all of your personal belongings there's things that we're under insured there were several insurance questions here if you are under insured and you're registered with us if you were insured let me start off if you told us when you registered you were insured you got this nasty letter that said you were found ineligible for FEMA assistance that's because we cannot duplicate benefits insurance is a benefit once you get your insurance documentation and you've reached a tentative settlement or we understand what your policy will cover and will not cover bring that to us at the disaster recovery center call us on the 1-800 number upload your documents to the disaster assistance dot gov and if there is an under insurance or a part of your policy that was not attributed to the fire and you had a loss then FEMA kicks in and starts to work with you so that's the insurance and that really talked to this one why are people who are responsible and have insurance pay taxes being denied FEMA and government help other than cleanup you're not being denied we are making sure that we maximize your eligibility that we do not duplicate benefits as I said before these are your tax dollars coming back to work for you we want to make sure that we are good stewards of them but more importantly this is a case for insurance I'm not sure how it's going to work out here in the campfire but for hurricane Harvey it was flood those with flood insurance received about an 80 thousand dollar payout those without flood insurance received about 4500 big difference and so that's what insurance is there for us the first line of defense and we encourage you to maximize your insurance but if it's not enough then you can work with us to do that finally where are the FEMA trailers when are they going to be here I think I talked to you all about that as soon as we know where those sites will be who is eligible for those you will be notified by that a couple of criteria you have to have been a homeowner or a renter with a physical address you have to have over 17000 dollars worth of FEMA verified loss if you're a homeowner and a renter and if you are a renter your home has to been that you were residing in has to be destroyed either we're destroyed or your home is probably habitable in this event and so many people will be potentially eligible for it I will tell you not everybody will take advantage of it other people will find resources on their own and that's what we really encourage is to find those resources on your own but if you need us we're there we're going to help you through this this process there are people with FEMA shirts in the back they can update your case feel free to talk to any one of us we'll be more than happy to stay here as late as you need us to to help you through this recovery thank you we've gotten some questions specific to a speaker that we didn't have providing a presentation tonight and I would like to invite Curtis Johnson who is the Butte County building official up to address some questions that are specifically related to standing structures thank you the first question I have is regarding living in RVs on your affected properties the county currently has limitations on living in RVs or travel trailers however due to the housing crisis that we're currently in there is an urgency ordinance that is going to be considered by our Board of Supervisors this coming Tuesday the 11th so more information will come after that another question was along the same lines but more specific as to if there are any limitations to where you could possibly place your RV on your property in relation to berm structures we do not have that information at this time the debris removal process is still being finalized so there will be more information soon on that as well the next question is in regards to if your home is standing and unaffected by the fires even if you have a detached structure on the property that is damaged can you return to your home as far as the building department is concerned if your home is safe to return to we are not standing in the way if there are other hazards on the property I think a lot of people have spoke to the different various hazards just be cognizant of those when returning to your home definitely be aware of the hazards around not only the home but the trees take a look around before you re-enter there may be placards on the home there may not be many homes do not have any identification from us if there is a green placard it means it was inspected and there were no structural hazards found if there is a yellow placard it means that there may be limitations there may be some damages be sure to take a look at the placard there will be listed any hazards that you should be aware of red tags on structures you will not see too many of those obviously homes that were received obvious damage do not need a tag if you have any questions whatsoever you can contact our department we're located at seven county center drive call email come down and talk to us at any point once again this is only for county structures anything within the town of paradise you would seek the answers from them the next question is when can we start obtaining permits for cleanup and rebuilding the cleanup process has been gone over tonight so I won't touch on that there's not a permit for the cleanup that's a separate process for rebuilding you have to have your property cleaned prior to receiving a permit to rebuild however the county will be accepting applications and plans to review prior to that cleanup being completed so you can start the process be ready to go once you receive the green light as far as clearance we'll be ready to issue you a permit last question was actually outside of my wheelhouse but we did track down the answer from somebody else and I'll share that with you the question is can we cut down trees on our property when we return so the county does not have any restrictions on removing hazardous trees on your own property thank you we received a number of questions for PG&E Paradise Irrigation District and the insurance commissioner's office so what we what we know is they largely address the questions in their presentation and I am going to ask these representatives to step to the back of the room and if you have a specific question for them you can join them back there and ask it so we can move on to the last couple of folks what I will say is that it's very important when you re-enter your area that if there are downed power lines you should assume that they are energized and you should call 9-1-1 so PG&E wants to reiterate that you should always be very cautious of downed power lines I'm going to ask Eric Lamero from Cal OES to join us up here to answer questions about the debris removal program he received the most questions tonight and so I know there is a lot of interest in this program please remember that we will hold specific community meetings in all of the communities and multiple of them to address this program thanks Casey as Casey said obviously a lot of questions 26 to be exact I'm not going to read all 26 I need all of your help there's a lot of your neighbors that are out there locally they've moved on from the area helping us to spread the word we're going to use all the different channels we can but we really need all of your help in spreading the word and answering some of these questions you know I'll start by saying that we started doing these types of debris removal programs over 11 years ago in South Lake Tahoe and we have conducted these operations across California to great success last year for the first time in our history we had to ask the federal government to help us with the cleanups that were going on in the North Bay a lot of you have some questions related to that and we'll talk more about that as we continue to talk about debris what I want to tell everybody is we cleaned in about six months nearly 6,000 properties in the North Bay a very small percentage of those had some challenges that we had to work through but it was a very small percentage what we're fortunate to have this year is the state will be running this debris program we'll be hiring the contractors we'll be overseeing those contractors and because of that we'll have a little bit more control over the activities of those contractors on your property so first question will we be able to go into our property before the final cleanup is done yes you will be able to go in as soon as the local law enforcement tells you it's safe to re-enter you'll be able to go in and start looking for mementos what we ask is that you not disturb the debris don't dig into the debris don't try to move the debris it's hazardous debris even after our EPA and toxics crews go through the ash that's remaining is still toxic and so you have to exercise extreme precautions so it's one thing to find a memento that's on top of the ash or easily recognizable and pick it up and wash it off but I would ask you don't dig into the debris it's just not safe for you a number of questions about who's going to clear our lots and as I said before we are going to be getting state contractors CalRecycle the state's recycling and landfill agency will be overseeing this operation in coordination with CalOES they will be hiring the prime contractor who will do the work and there will be opportunities for local contractors to be subs to that operation we cannot put any guarantees in place or requirements in place to hire locally but as the director said earlier we have upwards of 14,000 home sites alone to clean up not to mention the commercial sites that will be cleaning up as well there's going to be plenty of work to go around and so there's going to be a tremendous number of opportunities for local contractors to get involved a few questions here about the contracting I spoke about that once the prime contractors are on board CalRecycle will have a link on their website on their contracts page of their website as to how you can get engaged if you're a local contractor or know a local contractor that wants to get involved in the project there's a misconception about the program that it's free we are not going to charge you but we do have to ensure that we're not duplicating the state, federal, and local benefits that have been authorized to cover the program so many of you have insurance in that insurance you may have a clause in your insurance specific for debris we'll be looking to collect that amount if our project costs $60,000 and you have $20,000 in your insurance policy for debris we'll look to collect that $20,000 we are not looking to make ourselves whole the state the federal government and local governments have authorized to pay for this program but we have to ensure that we're not duplicating taxpayer benefits if your insurance if your debris is covered as part of an umbrella policy we want you to rebuild first once you've rebuilt if there are proceeds left that we can collect for debris we will if there is not then we're not going to be looking to make ourselves whole okay so it's not a free program we're going to be looking to collect from your insurance but we will not be looking to make ourselves 100% whole for the cost of the removal several questions about trees we will be focused in our operation removing the ash and debris from where your home or your outbuildings burned we will not be clearing the vegetative debris around your property we will not be clearing patios we will not be clearing sidewalks driveways will simply be focused on that contaminated ash where the home burned and came down we call it the ash footprint and all of our work is going to happen within that ash footprint whether it's your home whether it's an outbuilding whether you've got a side garage those are the areas that our operation will be focused on we will go in and we will remove all the foundations if your home wasn't on a foundation we'll be removing the stem walls if there's a particular wall that's also retaining earth we'll likely leave that and you're going to need to design around it we have discovered over time is that the structural integrity of your foundations and your stem walls has been degraded to the point it's not safe for you to rebuild so we remove those through our program if you want to keep your foundation the county will have an opportunity for you to do what we call opt out hire your own contractor but through that you will have to bring an engineer in to certify that your foundation is safe okay in addition to removing the foundations we're going to be removing the contaminated soil generally that means we're going to remove three to six inches of soil we're going to test the soil and make sure that we have removed all the contaminants if our results come back and show we have not removed all the contaminants we will do an additional scrape again of that ash footprint if those tests come back and they're and they're positive we're done there are some instances rare instances where we may end up removing up to 12 inches of soil that's the exception it's usually about three to six inches of soil I will tell you at the end of the operation your site will not be build ready we're removing contaminated soil you'll have to return that soil what we will not be doing is creating swimming pool size holes in your yard we will simply be removing the contaminated soil that needs to be removed and nothing more question about whether we should bring tarps to cover salvaged items what you want to do on your property is up to you if you want to cover it with tarps that's fine what we have been doing in partnership with the county and the city as we've been working to install mitigation efforts throughout paradise and the unincorporated area to try to keep debris from washing off of your site into watersheds and into roadways so there are some measures that have already been put in place to address some of that but if you want to cover your property you can certainly do that this question how do I know when it's safe to return to my burned out residents and property who removes the hazardous waste so as the sheriff indicated earlier they will indicate when it's safe to re-enter that area through our phase one program they'll be removing household hazardous waste but that by no means means that your home site is safe so as long as debris is there if you authorize us to come clean it and we haven't cleaned it you need to know that there's still significant contaminants there when we start our project there will be an office in Chico that will be our debris office that office will be open to you every day of the week for you to come in and ask questions when's my lot going to be cleared if you have questions about what you agreed to if you fill out your right of entry form and you believe you left something off that's important for us to know maybe you forgot to mark where your septic tank is maybe you didn't mark where your leech fields are maybe you've got a pool that's got plumbing coming out of it and you didn't mark that on your ROE you can come back to us and you can clarify that those are all going to be very important things to include on your right of entry form so that we can take steps to ensure that we don't damage that property when we're on your property we will not be removing septic tanks we will not be doing any remediation to septic tanks what we do want to know is where that septic tank is so that we can make every effort to avoid damaging it or further damaging it sometimes especially the plastic septic tanks have already been damaged by the fire if it's a concrete tank we don't want to unnecessarily crush it with our equipment couple questions about mobile homes on mobile homes we will require a right of entry from you the individual that owns the mobile home and also a right of entry form from the individual that owns the park so that's the only nuanced situation with mobile homes is a right of entry form will be required from both individuals somebody had a question about some items on their property they didn't want removed if that item is still there this was an outstructure for their cats make a note of that on your ROE and we will make every effort to ensure that that remains there we are again focused on just where the home burned and not collecting patio furniture or other knickknacks or things you may have in your yard but simply removing that contaminated debris a question about if a contractor gets injured are they going to sue me we put provisions in our contract that all the contractors have to cover workers comp and cover the injuries to those workers I can't stand here and tell you that some contractor may decide that they want to sue I will tell you that they don't have much of a leg to stand on they go into this assuming the risk of working in a hazardous area like this and we put provisions in the contract to ensure that they cover all of the costs of injuries to their workers I'm sorry the question was what if they damaged the septic tank again we are asking that you identify that for us so that we can mark that area off and avoid that area we can we can we'll have to handle those on on case by case issues but the important thing is to mark those our residents who survived residents whose homes survived at risk of living there as the debris removal occurs so our debris removal effort will include air monitoring in the community it will include measures to keep dust and particulates down using water when we collect the debris we do what's called a burrito wrap in our in our dump trucks so all the material is contained inside a plastic liner to prevent ash and debris from blowing near the home site or as it's being transported through the community the county's requirements will be similar if somebody chooses to do their pro clean up themselves and so we take extraordinary measures to ensure that those individuals who are living in the area aren't exposed to dust and particulates but obviously your if your home survived there's going to be measures that you'll need to take to to clean your home and there's contractors that you can hire to do that but outside your home and around your home we'll be taking measures to ensure that we're testing the air and we're keeping the particulates down this was a question about trees leaves other material that burned we won't be removing any of that there's no real contaminant to green waste that burned on your property it doesn't look good but we're not going to be clearing that if you want to clear that yourself if there are trees you want to take down vegetative debris you want to remove you can do that you can use the proceeds from your insurance that are set aside for debris we would ask that you keep the receipts so that when eventually we come to collect your debris portion if you've already used a portion of that for other debris removal we just need you to be able to document that to us question about for individuals who maybe want to put a trailer on their property how far does that trailer have to be removed from the debris pile this is something that's probably going to be more of a possibility in concaw and some of the other unincorporated areas where we've got larger lots the county will ultimately determine what the setback will be required but it's probably going to be at least several hundred feet room enough for us to be able to get in there with heavy equipment and clean your property without having to require you to relocate but the county will have more information on that a couple questions about foundations I think I addressed that earlier with our program we do remove foundations so if that's something that's critically important to you and you believe that your foundation is still structurally sound then you have the opportunity to opt out handle the cleanup yourself as long as a structural engineer has signed off that your foundation is safe I think that's it I'm going to stay in the back of the room tonight if anybody's got any other questions I didn't address I'll be happy to address this thanks everybody thank you so much several of our speakers are still in the back of the room and again we encourage you to follow your social media sites as well as regular media outlets as we announce additional community meetings related specifically to the debris program thank you again for being here and have a safe night