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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:32]
B
A year after the California fires, I speak to a neighbor who had to sell and another neighbor who's partly rebuilt. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Let's start with a number from UCLA. $27 billion. That's the value of all the homes wiped out by the California wildfires a year ago. That's the typical cost of those homes before the fires multiplied by the more than 12,000 homes gone now. This week here, I'm taking those big numbers and bringing them down to street. A street in the community of Altadena, 20 minutes northwest of downtown Los Angeles. On a single block, 15 houses were total losses. And one of those 15 was my house. But I wanted to hear from my neighbors.
- [01:15]
C
Yeah, so we were a total loss grounder, as they call it.
- [01:19]
B
Louis lived on my side of the street, south corner.
- [01:22]
C
We had a couple oak trees that survived in the back, but other than that, it was totally just burnt to ashes.
- [01:32]
B
When the initial shock of escaping flying embers morphed into talk of what's next, Louis and his wife were all in gung ho.
- [01:40]
C
My wife and I decided that we were committed to rebuilding and we went pretty full throttle and just dove into this unknown world. For us, you know, architecture and design.
- [01:54]
B
And building, the planning department would let you go 200 square foot bigger.
- [02:00]
C
We found an amazing architect who happened to be a good friend.
- [02:04]
B
Three months later, a new surprise, one both delightful and daunting.
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C
We found out that my wife was pregnant with our second child and that was sort of the U turn on everything.
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B
Some neighbors asked for first names only for this, so they could speak more freely. With insurance and other financial matters in flux, Louis does marketing for one of the cable and streaming TV channels. A man who could see he had a plot twist on his hands.
- [02:33]
C
Do we want to have a newborn, a toddler, full time jobs and then also a rebuild.
- [02:40]
B
There's also a dog who might run outside and bring into the house soot containing who knows what. Remember, this wasn't a forest fire that consumed natural wooden brush. It was an urban fire where smoke contained, I don't know, SUVs and whatever else was piled up in people's garages and attics.
- [03:00]
C
I didn't want to put the strain on the family and our careers. And in what was already becoming another.
- [03:07]
B
Full time job, when the neighbors on my burned out street gather occasionally in a local park for iced tea and tamales to try to hold each other in the light. We all agree that rebuilding after this fire is like being enrolled at gunpoint in a master's degree program in construction and and insurance management. For Louis and his wife, a shocking year that started with an urban fire driven by hurricane force winds becomes a new year with a bigger family.
- [03:36]
C
We got a boy.
- [03:37]
B
The boy is great. They all live in a rental two towns over, but given all this, they've now sold their burned property at a price depressed by current conditions. Insurance money helped pay off the mortgage, but the investment in the house they purchased in 2022 is no more. The property to Louie's left has also sold and a house mid block that survived intact with the fire bubbled stucco repainted sold just before Christmas for what Zillow calculates as 29% less than its pre fire value. At the same time, some happy fresh plywood is visible from my burned patch but with an address one street over.
- [04:18]
D
So right now what we're in is my I have an open concept plan. So on this side is the kitchen.
- [04:25]
B
Erica is an executive producer in the television streaming world.
- [04:29]
D
Over here will be the living room. Great room, whatever they call it these days.
- [04:35]
B
Right after the fire she got producing with a contractor who previously built a den for her that became her favorite room in her old house. Then just after Labor Day her crew poured the foundation. When I first visited just before Thanksgiving, her frame was up including the subfloor and roof joists. It was to the point her neighbors threw her a party to use magic markers to write hope and love tidings onto the bare wood.
- [05:00]
D
You can see there's messages like here. May God bless your home. There's one. Congrats. Welcome home. And it was just a celebration of new beginnings. So all of the positive messages will live within the walls of my home forever.
- [05:19]
B
Erica's strategy was to get moving even with the all out push for insurance money in progress. The contractor she had, she also paid a project manager to get those plans through the often confused county permitting process before the expected onslaught of new building applications.
- [05:36]
D
I started relatively early so I got the jump in ahead of time.
- [05:41]
B
Actually one year later here the onslaught of building has yet to come across Los Angeles county, encompassing most of the two biggest fires. 1200 building permits have been approved so far, with rebuilding actually in progress on less than half of those or 527 properties on my street. Among those 15 grounders, as he called them, there are also 10 homes left standing. But in the path of all that toxic smoke and soot, that's a particular insurance nightmare. I'll explore later this week. And you can watch my video series with teachable moments from my burned street. Instagram is one place to see it. Our handle is Marketplace apm. And later today, my colleague Kai Rysdal talks to the owner of Two Dragons Martial Arts, where the owner is done with renting after the fire and is working to buy the lot from her landlord. That's on many public radio stations or from marketplace.org. A private sector survey of payrolls out this Morning finds just 41,000 jobs were added in December, according to ADP. Let's consult Susan Schmidt, portfolio manager at Exchange Capital Resources. Good morning.
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E
Good morning.
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B
Less than expected. $41,000 seems a little meager for the month.
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E
Not that meager. Remember, last month was negative, so at least now we've got an add to.
- [07:19]
B
The job number they revised a month ago. I think they did well.
- [07:23]
E
They did, but it's still negative. So November negative, almost 30,000 jobs. This month positive, 41,000. That's trending in the right direction. I think investors will be happy with that.
- [07:35]
B
Susan Schmidt at Exchange Capital Resources, thank you so much.
- [07:38]
E
Thank you.
- [07:40]
B
And there was new confirmation this morning that while companies are tending to keep their employees these days, they're also not moving to add more people. There's news that openings were essentially unchanged in November. There were 90,000 jobs open in construction, a number shaped in part by U.S. border Policy. The stock market is mixed. The dow is down 212 points, four 10%. The S& P is little changed at the moment. The Nasdaq is up 4/10 of a percent. In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio, Marketplace Morning Report. From apm, American Public Media.
- [08:20]
F
Hey, it's David Brancaccio, host of the Marketplace Morning Report. It has been one year since the costliest set of wildfires in California history, U.S. history, and by at least one calculation, the history of the world. 16,000 structures were destroyed, most of them homes. I can quote your figures about insured versus uninsured losses measured in billions. But as people in the fire zones face year two, we go from macro to micro. I'm checking in with the neighbors on one street in Altadena where 15 homes were destroyed on a single block. These are my own neighbors. I lost a home on that street too. Join us for on the Ground reporting as we hear from people still dealing with the neighborhood insurance, getting permits, finding contractors. One guy had to go through 30 contractors to find one with the right skills he could afford. Plus, for most, rebuilding is taking years. How do people find the money to live elsewhere? Listen to the Marketplace Morning Report using your favorite podcast. Apparently.