As crews continue to sift through the rubble in the aftermath of California’s deadly November fires, another battle is just beginning. Now that the flames have been extinguished, officials are trying to figure out how to pay for the enormous costs – and who will pick up the tab.
Thousands are still without housing across the state, hundreds of whom have spent the rainy weeks hunkered down in parking lots, waiting for Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) trailers to arrive, and crews are beginning the long process to remove the toxic debris, a process that costs more than $1,000 a parcel.
In the weeks since the fires were put out, more than $180m in grants and loans have been made available by state and federal agencies to survivors across the state, and more than 24,100 families have applied for federal disaster assistance. The number is likely to be a fraction of what the agencies will spend in the coming years on the disaster. For the 2017 California fires, which were considered […]
