LA Times story explains why FEMA denies assistance to California wildfire victims

Alex Wigglesworth reported yesterday for the Los Angeles Times under the headline, "These wildfire survivors say FEMA did little to help those who lost homes."  An excerpt, about denials of assistance to victims of the Caldor Fire, primarily in El Dorado County, follows:  

FEMA said it considered multiple factors before denying aid, including the destruction of homes and infrastructure, residents’ insurance coverage and income levels and the fiscal resources of the state. It determined the Caldor fire “was not of such severity and magnitude to warrant the designation of the Individual Assistance program,” spokesman Victor Inge wrote in an email.

But residents of Grizzly Flats, a rural community in the western Sierra Nevada where the fire destroyed an estimated two-thirds of the housing stock, along with the town’s water system, say that makes no sense. They fear the government’s calculations were skewed by wealthy neighboring areas such as El Dorado Hills and Lake Tahoe, obscuring the true reality of the fire’s impact.

“Just because we reside within the borders of El Dorado County doesn’t mean we are rich,” Tyler said.

The California Office of Emergency Services agreed in a letter appealing the denial, pointing out that predisaster unemployment in Grizzly Flats was more than four times the national rate.

* * * 

FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program provides for grants totaling up to $75,800 to assist uninsured or underinsured disaster survivors with things such as home and vehicle repairs and replacement, medical expenses and the replacement of personal property. The agency also offers rental assistance on which there is no cap.

In order for residents to be eligible, the governor must request the assistance and the president must approve it. The White House bases its decision on a recommendation from FEMA, representatives said.

FEMA, in turn, forms its recommendation based on the Stafford Act of 1988, which dictates how the U.S. government responds to disasters, and the Code of Federal Regulations, which spells out the criteria for evaluating a governor’s request for a major disaster declaration.

The principal factors are the amount of uninsured home and personal property losses and the fiscal capacity of the state in which the disaster took place, which are calculated as a ratio. The higher the estimated cost of providing assistance and the lower a state’s total taxable receipts, the more likely a state is to be approved for assistance.

That puts California at a relative disadvantage from the start, as its economy is larger than any other U.S. state and most countries.

Other posts about the Caldor Fire, which raged for more than a month starting about an hour east of where I live in Sacramento and burning another hour's drive to the South Lake Tahoe basin, are here and here.  Other stories about California's wildfires are here.  A policy brief about legal issues facing California disaster survivors, with a focus on rural folks as wildfire victims and their FEMA claims, is here.