California Wildfires and the Insurance Crisis: What’s Next for Palisades, Altadena and the L.A. Area

Episode Notes

Transcript

Hannah Perls:

Putting transmission below ground is incredibly expensive, as is a lot of preparedness work. And yet we know that when we think about preparedness as a whole, there are enormous cost savings, both in terms of the direct cost of a disaster, and of course the ripple effects we’ve been talking about in terms of lost hours, communities leaving, communities being displaced over the shorter medium term. And so I think one of the critical questions is, is there a way to point to this litigation or point to the cost and use that to motivate states, public entities, private philanthropy, the private sector to invest in real risk mitigation before we have these disasters?

Announcer:

Welcome to the award-winning podcast, Lawyer 2 Lawyer with J. Craig Williams, bringing you the latest legal news and observations with the leading experts in the legal profession. You are listening to Legal Talk Network.

J. Craig Williams:

Welcome to Lawyer 2 Lawyer on the Legal Talk Network. I’m Craig Williams coming to you from Southern California. I occasionally write a blog named May It please the court and have three books out titled How To Get Sued the Sled and My newest book. How would You Decide 10 famous Trials That Changed History? You can find all three on Amazon. In addition, our new podcast miniseries in Dispute, 10 famous trials that changed history is currently featured here on the Legal Talk Network and on your favorite podcasting app. The latest episodes spotlighting the infamous OJ trial will be available on Tuesday, February 18th. You won’t want to miss it back in January. Communities in Los Angeles were devastated by wildfires permanently displacing thousands and destroying property and lives prior to the fires. Thousands of LA residents in fire prone areas were dropped from their insurance, leaving them with no protection or safety net.

After losing their homes, their businesses and their schools and essentially their community, they’re left with the harsh reality of picking up the pieces. Today on Lawyer 2 Lawyer, we’re going to take a look at the aftermath of the LA Fires, disaster preparedness and response insurance recovery after big disasters like these fires, and the next steps for those impacted by those fires. And to help us better understand today’s topic, we’re joined by special guest Hannah Perls. She’s the senior staff attorney with the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program where she supervises research on equitable disaster preparedness and response and federal environmental justice initiatives. She previously worked as a program assistant and development director for a human rights nonprofit based in El Salvador that provides legal and humanitarian assistance to families internally displaced by violence. Hannah also worked as a geochemist specializing in remediating coastal and rivering Superfund sites. Hannah was also recently interviewed for Harvard Law today in a piece titled It’s Always Fire Season. Now. Welcome to the show, Hannah.

Hannah Perls:

Thank you so much for having me.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, Hannah, give us a little bit of background first, how did you become involved in environmental law and give us a little bit of information about your role with EELP.

Hannah Perls:

Sure. As you flagged, I have a bit of a frenetic professional background. So I worked both as a geochemist and then in human rights before deciding to become a lawyer. And so I came to law school really trying to bridge those two worlds and knew I wanted to work at the intersection of climate change and internal displacement, but wasn’t quite sure how. But then found that the United States has one of the highest rates of internal displacement in the world. We just don’t talk about it. We talk about disaster survivors and we talk about people having to flee those disasters, but we don’t talk about it from a human rights perspective, which is thinking about rates of internal displacement. And so starting from that framework, I got really interested in what do we consider as the rights of internally displaced peoples or IDPs, and to what extent does our federal disaster framework in the United States uphold and affirm those rights and where are the protection gaps?

And I think most exciting, what are the opportunities to close those gaps so that disaster survivors really are able to rebuild and come back to their lives as quickly as possible? So after I graduated law school, I started as a legal fellow at EELP where I am now. And I pitched the executive director, I said, you really need a disaster portfolio and if you don’t have anyone else, I’ll get that started for you. The executive director, Joe Goffman at the time accepted that pitch. And I’ve had the luxury of being able to build out this portfolio since I joined EELP in 2020. Quick background, which I think might be helpful, especially to the lawyers who are listening, EELP is a legal research center. So we’re not a clinic, we don’t provide client attorney services, but that means we do everything else. So we think a lot about both providing rigorous legal analysis, but also what kind of durable policies can we advance in our respective areas, whether that’s energy environment or public health or disasters. And by durable, I mean what policies will withstand both judicial review and also the political pendulum swings that we’re seeing at the federal level. And so it’s a really exciting space to be working in. And I think the best part is it gives me the luxury and the privilege of getting to work with legal aid attorneys, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, let’s take a look at the tragedy of the LA fires and talk about what your role is going to be with those.

Hannah Perls:

Sure. I mean, you all know better than I do. You’re based in southern California, but the LA fires are an extraordinary catastrophic tragedy, both in terms of loss of life. I think 29 people were killed so far, and we know we’ve lost about 16,000 homes. I did speak with Skip Kig who’s the director for Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles, and he thinks that the count right now is that we’ve lost about 15 to 20,000 units on top of a preexisting housing shortage. So that’s certainly component of the recovery that we’re going to need. And of course, we’re seeing upward pressure on housing and rental prices across the city. And I think one thing we were talking about before we hit record is now the risk of flash floods and landslides and debris flows. And in 2018, we saw the debris flow in Montecito after the Thomas fire killed 23 people. And so I think it’s just this ongoing process of even as we’re thinking about long-term recovery, still having to manage the immediate risks that come from the aftermath of catastrophic fires like these.

J. Craig Williams:

And the question is, should we be rebuilding and if we are going to rebuild where there’s been a lot of local discussion about the houses just in between PCH and the beach PCH being Pacific Coast Highway, so there’s a strip in Malibu of ultra expensive homes that are right on the beach. We’ve seen them all in television shows. And then the question is now the California Coastal Commission will have to deal with whether or not those homes should be rebuilt in that area, and if we do rebuild in Pacific Palisades and in Malibu and the other areas that have been destroyed in Altadena, should it be different than it is now?

Hannah Perls:

Sure. Well, and Governor Gavin Newsom just released an executive order. This is executive order N 4 2 5 oh, it was issued on January 12th, excuse me. And so that suspended all permit requirements under the California Coastal Act to rebuild structures that were damaged or destroyed by the wildfires. And so that would apply if the rebuild is in substantially the same location and doesn’t exceed 110% of the previous footprint of the structure. I just add that because even where we thought we might have considerations that affect weather and where you can rebuild, those protections have been waived in order to advance and speed up the rebuilding process overall.

J. Craig Williams:

So we’re going to go right back to where we were before,

Hannah Perls:

At least under this order.

J. Craig Williams:

Is that something we should be doing?

Hannah Perls:

I think it’s a great question. I think we do have to distinguish between whether we are, what are we incentivizing in terms of rebuilding and where who was there before? There are really important equity considerations and how are we rebuilding? I think it’s also really challenging in particular in areas like LA County where we have an extraordinary housing crisis and affordability challenge. One of the things that I’ve heard mentioned on this podcast and others is do households have access to risk information and do they know what insurance will cost now and in the future based on that risk? And so we’re talking about should people be allowed to rebuild in my mind first the question is do households have the information they need to make the best decisions for themselves? Because of course, the question is do we want to put people in harm’s way?

And as someone who comes from the human rights world focused on this notion of self-determination, the question is are people making decisions for themselves in a way that really accounts for the risks that they’re going to see going forward? I think the second question is do we have incentives in place that will encourage and allow people who don’t want to rebuild? Maybe they do want to move to a lower risk area. The question is, can they do that? I think for a lot of folks, particularly low income households where they’ve lost their home, they’ve lost their assets, maybe they were underinsured or lacked insurance altogether, they might not be able to rebuild, but they also don’t have a lot of other options. And so I think when we are asking this question, should people be allowed to rebuild or not? My first question is, what is sort of the menu of options we’re presenting to folks and what information do they have to choose the best option for themselves?

J. Craig Williams:

Well, I have friends who’ve been evacuated and have had to stay where they are because they have children who have jobs. I suspect that most of the people that were in Altina and in Pacific Palisades have jobs or relatives or friends or city environment nearby that they rely on. Now that those are lost, how does that get rebuilt and where do we go?

Hannah Perls:

It’s such a good question. I have a three and a half year old who is in charge. She’s definitely in charge, and we are so heavily reliant on her school system and on our community of friends, on sort of the soft infrastructure that makes it possible to be a small family in a city. I don’t have answers to that one. I do think this is where, again, sort of lifting up neighborhood legal services and a lot of the mutual aid organizations and those community groups and faith-based organizations, this is where the rebuilding of social infrastructure is so critical and maintaining those organizations that will help keep people connected and make sure that if someone does move, they still have access to that community infrastructure. And of course, it’s also about making sure that the municipalities have the funds that they need to rebuild those centers, whether it’s the public school system or medical centers or community centers, places where people need those things to be back up and running as soon as possible in order for their lives to continue to move forward. So it is an all hands on deck situation, and I think in particular with the schools and the homes and the four walls type of infrastructure, we’re now looking at just making sure that we have the capacity to deal with the environmental hazards. So the soot, the ash, the chemicals, the arsenic, the heavy metals that have made, even if the structure itself is still standing, they’re not ready for kids to go in there. Each phase of recovery poses its own challenges.

J. Craig Williams:

And we’ve also been dealt with some political blows lately that have removed a number of workers in the Los Angeles area who would otherwise help with the rebuild. We’ve also seen a kind of evaporation of DEI support. So how are these marginalized communities going to be able to recover with that kind of loss of who is going to do the rebuild and how are the people that are in Altadena, we have a specific generational black community, how are they going to get the aid they need with our political system pulling it away?

Hannah Perls:

It’s a great, great question. I think there’s maybe two pieces that I’ll flag one to your first point specifically about what I imagine is undocumented migrants and the language that has come out of not just the federal government, but I think public narrative, which says one spreads the false narrative that FEMA money has been diverted to support undocumented migrants, and we know that’s just simply not true. But two underneath that is the idea that undocumented migrants do not deserve and should not have access to federal assistance. And yet at the same time, our federal recovery system and the companies that are receiving contracts to rebuild communities are heavily reliant on migrant labor and we see a host of labor violations that goes along with that. And so at the same time that we are pushing these communities to the margins, we are also demanding that they show up to get rid of these, for example, toxic waste and dispose it somewhere else so that our communities can be livable again.

At the same time, of course, we saw the Trump administration issue a new ice order that allows ICE to enter, for example, schools and houses of worship. And that also applies to the DRCs, the Disaster recovery centers. And so even if for example, let’s say a household is eligible to receive assistance because there is a member of that household who is a citizen or has some other status where they’re eligible for disaster assistance out of fear, they might avoid going to the DRC. And so it’s not just that folks who have historically been ineligible continue to be ineligible, but the language that we’re using to talk about undocumented folks is actively discouraging people from seeking assistance even when they are eligible. So that’s one piece. The second is just the uncertainty about the future of fema. Of course, president Trump and now Christie Nome have said that we should either eliminate FEMA altogether or substantially remake it.

It’s unclear what would be left or what that new FEMA would look like. I will say just from a legal perspective, the president should not have the authority to eliminate a federal agency through executive order that has to come from Congress, but of course with the informal destruction of U-S-A-I-D that’s been called into question, I think similar questions have been raised about the ability of the president to impose conditions on federal disaster assistance. President Trump has said that he’s considering requiring California, for example, to change its policies related to voter ID and water and forestry management. I would argue that the Constitution prohibits the president from imposing conditions on discretionary assistance that would essentially force California to give up its constitutional authority over areas in which the state has very clear sovereign power. That’s part of something called the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. So I think there’s a lot of legal questions, there’s a lot of things that are moving, but we also have a lot of precedent here that says there are certain things that presidents should not be able to do.

J. Craig Williams:

That’s a whole discussion in and of itself. Well, Hannah, at this time, we’re going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We’ll be right back and welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer. I’m joined by Hannah Perls. She’s the senior staff attorney with the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program. We’ve been talking about disasters, disaster relief. One of the components that we really need to address, Hannah, is the question about insurance. Personally, I experience it. I have a California fair plan insurance and a wraparound policy given a house in the fire zone, and that’s the only insurance I can get. So California Fair Plan, I think yesterday announced that it had a billion dollar infusion from the state so that it would be able to survive this disaster, but we have State Farm dropping people from their insurance policies before the fires hit. We have now State Farm, I believe, asking for a 22% rate increase. In fact, the question about the billion dollar infusion in a California fair plan is a whole question in and of itself because the state has elected contrary to the law to pass along half of that cost to consumers. How do we protect ourselves? What are we going to do?

Hannah Perls:

Again, these are all great questions. I don’t know if I can sort of solve all of them, but I think there’s a couple pieces of background that are helpful. And of course I imagine you have thoughts as well, and I’d love to hear them. I think there’s a couple things that are important. One is because of the way that we issue, whether it’s homeowners or auto or fire insurance, those policies are traditionally issued on an annual basis. So people are talking about their insurance companies canceling their policies. I think it is important to flag that often that’s part of the annual renewal process, and so the insurance company has a right to not renew a policy if they deem the risk to no longer be economical. Again, we can talk about whether that’s fair, but it is legal and I think that’s an important distinction as we’re thinking through what changes are needed to make it possible to both afford insurance but also have that insurance system be economically sustainable.

We also, as you were saying, need to think really critically about what is the proper role of the state in terms of providing that insurer of last resort type program. As you mentioned, the only way that you could have fire insurance right now is through the state fair plan, and that’s true certainly for a lot of folks in other states through the various fair plans that are offered across the country, these state mandated insurer of last resort programs. One thing I’ll flag because you were talking about those rate increases, so we did have Commissioner Lara from the California Department of Insurance issue, a one year moratorium on not dropping people in the fire zone. Of course, that does not prohibit them from increasing the rates, and so I do think what we’re going to see is that people continue to get dropped in these areas after those fires, and that’s consistent with a really fantastic report that came out of the nonprofit Insurance for Good, which is run by Carolyn Kuski, and they flagged that after the 20 17 18 wildfire season wiped out more than twice the total underwriting profits that the homeowners insurance folks had accumulated in the previous 32 years.

So just enormous economic losses. I do think we need to emphasize what’s at stake here. The drops that we’re seeing, the cancellations of policies, then were really happening one to two years later. So I don’t think we’re going to see people dropped in the fire zone in that first year, but we will see them dropped in I would say two to three years, and in the meantime, their premiums will increase. So again, I don’t have solutions, but I think as we map out sort of what are the predictable consequences of these fires, it helps us think through potential solutions. I don’t know if you have additional thoughts on this being someone who’s directly impacted by these changes.

J. Craig Williams:

It seems to me if I were to make a suggestion that we should establish a nonprofit insurance company because then we can eliminate that aspect of a requirement for a for-profit company as part of something that needs to be made up, that would certainly lower the cost of insurance, at least probably 10, 15, 20% depending on what these insurers have been able to make profits on. One of the other solutions I would love to see would be that we need to stop paying CEOs and the C-suite employees at the rates that we’re paying them and redirect that money to the bottom line of paying claims rather than just accepting premiums. But that’s a very cynical perspective.

Hannah Perls:

I think it’s actually the right answer, and this is something that Carolyn Kuski and others have emphasized, which is insurance can just move risk around. It’s not going to actually reduce the underlying risk. And so if we’re thinking about what’s good both for policy holders and also what’s good for the collective sustainability of these insurance pools, we need to reduce risk overall. And the way to do that is to take some of the quote profits and instead reinvest those in risk reduction in one way that various nonprofit insurance companies do. That is by eliminating the for-profit motivation to pocket the profits instead of reinvesting those in risk reduction, which is best for the system overall. So I agree. I think that’s a great idea.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, when we talk about that, what other changes need to come in the insurance industry in order to be able to pay for this? I mean, if we’re not going to regulate rebuilding to the point where we reduce the fire risk, I mean certainly I think there are going to be a lot of conditions imposed on houses that get rebuilt and buildings that get rebuilt to reduce the fire risk. We can hopefully eliminate it or drastically reduce it, but what else do we need to do with the insurance industry to fix it?

Hannah Perls:

I think there’s a couple sort of pieces of low hanging fruit, and then there’s the bigger structural question. So just in terms of low hanging fruit, I think there’s a lot that we can do to reward policy holders who reduce their risk. Fair wise in California is one example of this where at the community level, if you meet certain standards and you get that voluntary fair wise designation under the California law, you should get a reduction in your premiums. So I think things like that where insurance can motivate people to reduce their risk to the extent it’s possible, that is obviously very helpful. And on top of that, I think we need to create additional funding where low and middle income folks have access to those premium reductions because of course mitigation is really expensive. So we don’t want to set up a system where only wealthy people can get lower premiums through that risk mitigation.

I think, again, I’m going to harp on this all day long, we have to distinguish between existing and new development, and so to the extent that maybe you have those premium reductions in areas that are reducing their risk, at the same time, these are still risky places to live. I’m thinking in particular of the Florida coastline, and we do not want to be cross-subsidizing risk for new development that is going to increase our potential monetary risk overall. And as you were saying, the more that we have insured properties that are backed by a state plan, the more that we are cross-subsidizing risk and potentially increasing costs for folks who live in lower risk areas. So to the extent you want that economic signal to work, we need to make sure we’re not working against it by incentivizing new building in risky places. A third piece that is sort of a part of that is just having good risk information.

To what extent do people who aren’t in an insurance company know what their risk is today and what it will look like in the future, and do they know or have a sense of what that will cost them? I also think there’s a sort of valuable lesson learned from the National Flood Insurance Program, so that federally mandated and run insurance program, which is distinct from the California Fair Plan where the state mandates it, but it’s run by insurance companies. So one thing that we’re seeing with the National Flood Insurance Program or NFIP is a real reluctance to increase premiums that are consistent with actual risks. So those actuarial rates, because politicians have a very real disincentive to do things that will negatively harm or negatively impact their constituents. And so to the extent, for example, FEMA’s proposed rate increases under the risk rating 2.0 program, we’re going to cause rate increases in states like Alabama, Louisiana, and others. Those states then sued FEMA saying, Hey, hey, hey, we don’t want actuarial rates after all at the same time that they’re calling for the program to be financially solvent. So I just call that out as some of the challenges of having both state mandated and state run programs because then you get into these political catch 20 twos.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, at this moment, Hannah, we’re going to take another quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We’ll be right back and welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer. I’m back with Hannah Perls, she’s the senior staff attorney with the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program, and we could talk about these subjects, these individual subjects all day long. But I’d like to take a moment and turn to some of the fire prevention things that you’ve mentioned, and in particular, something I’d never heard of before, firewise. In addition to Firewise, I’d like you to talk about what the potential is for the problems with litigation arising out of this. We’ve seen here locally video of a fire starting at the base of a high voltage tower. So questions about why the power wasn’t turned off, where it’s turned off some places but not others, why we have high voltage lines above ground and how we’re once again, just simply going to pass litigation costs onto consumers and spread it around. So big question, but a lot of components to it.

Hannah Perls:

And we are starting to see litigation. I think both to your point about the utilities. So there’s several claims that have been fired against Southern California, Edison, SoCal Edison in relation to the Eaton Fire. Some of those victims have sued for an alleged failure to safely maintain and operate their electrical infrastructure. And then there’s actually a proposed class action shareholder lawsuit also against Edison International, the parent company of SoCal Edison that says the utility defrauded shareholders by assuming that it could shut down those power lines and then reduce the risk of catastrophic damage. So there’s those, and then there’s actually litigation related to the recovery. That’ll flag, just because we’re in litigation land, they actually print, there might be litigation over EPAs proposed plan where the waste that we’ve been talking about, so the toxic ash and soot and all that stuff, they’re planning to use will Rogers State Park as a staging area.

You have to put that waste somewhere. And so there might be litigation there. And then there are also lawsuits against the Department of Water and Power alleging that they mismanaged their water supply. So it is just a litigation heyday, and I completely agree that all litigation does is point fingers and rack up. I’m not a litigator, so this is my bias, but it does not address the root cause. And so to your point about having, for example, above ground transmission, putting transmission below ground is incredibly expensive, as is a lot of preparedness work. And yet we know that when we think about preparedness as a whole, there are enormous cost savings both in terms of the direct cost of a disaster, and of course the ripple effects we’ve been talking about in terms of lost hours, communities leaving, communities being displaced over the shorter medium term. And so I think one of the critical questions is, is there a way to point to this litigation or point to the cost and use that to motivate states, public entities, private philanthropy, the private sector to invest in real risk mitigation before we have these disasters?

J. Craig Williams:

Well, I hate to interrupt you, but don’t overlook the cost of 29 lives.

Hannah Perls:

Exactly.

J. Craig Williams:

It almost feels like the Ford Pinto memo.

Hannah Perls:

There you go. Well, and maybe just speaking about those 29 lives, I think there’s a component here around compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act that we haven’t mentioned with litigation. And so we know, for example, there was a father and son who lost their lives specifically because they didn’t have access to evacuation and medical services consistent with their needs related to their disabilities. And that comes down to planning. Do we have a planning process that is inclusive of people with disabilities? And I’ll point to a lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Texas against the city of San Antonio after winter storm uri that pointed to that exact fact where people with disabilities did not have access to the services that they required, in part because the city did not have an inclusive planning process, even though it’s required under the A DA. So I do think there’s real opportunities. The question is it requires us to invest time and resources and labor in preparedness and all of the complications that truly inclusive preparedness processes involve. And we’re just not great at that. We’re good at reacting. We’re not great at preparing.

J. Craig Williams:

No, and we’re not. And we have a example here in Los Angeles of assisted living or nursing home where a hundred year old woman was left wandering the halls and firefighters found her as they were just double checking the building, which has also resulted now in litigation. But no, we’re not ready. Well, it’s about time for us to wrap up. We’ve just about reached the end of our program, and as we wrap up, I thought there was a fantastic quote from you in the Harvard Law today interview that you did. You said, I think we also need to acknowledge that with climate change, there’s no fire season anymore. Can you explain what you meant by that?

Hannah Perls:

Sure. I think if you look at how FEMA’s designed, it’s divided into these different divisions. The notion that we have preparedness and we have relief and we have recovery, and these are distinct phases. And now with climate change, they’re all on top of each other. While we’re recovering from one disaster, we’re trying to prepare for the next one and then responding to one. And so it’s really forcing municipalities, community groups, state and federal government to rethink how we respond to these disasters. And I think it is going to force us to one, be prepared and for individuals obviously have your go bagg ready to go. If you or someone in your home has a disability or an access or functional need, make sure that’s communicated to your local emergency management office. You rely on electricity for a life sustaining device, notify your utility provider. I think it just puts these issues front of mind in a way that will hopefully help us be more prepared.

But at the same time, it just puts an enormous strain on communities and on people. It’s just stressful. And I don’t want to underestimate the impact of that stress. So I don’t have a great answer, but what I will say is for folks who want to be connected, I think part of this is knowing that you are plugged in so that when a disaster hits, knowing we can’t depend on having those blue sky days anymore. Are you plugged into your local mutual aid so that either you can access assistance or you can provide it if you happen to be someone who’s not directly impacted. There’s lots of different things that we can do, especially as attorneys. Does the state apply the Katrina rule, which allows attorneys out of state to provide legal assistance anyway? There’s a lot of ways we could assist, but I’ll just say I’m hoping if there’s a silver lining, it forces us to think about preparedness in a really intentional way, and it forces us to think about how we can help our neighbors in a really intentional way.

J. Craig Williams:

Hannah, if one of our listeners wants to do a deep dive into this further, what resources can they look at?

Hannah Perls:

That’s a great question. I would recommend checking out a disaster legal services, the American Bar Association. That’s a fantastic resource. Honestly, if this is an area of the law where you’re interested in plugging in, just I don’t email me. So I help coordinate a network of disaster legal aid attorneys and making sure they’re connected to advocacy organizations. And then I will also say I will recommend the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which maintains the Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition, the DHRC, and they have a weekly call on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM Pacific, and there you’ll find a rundown of the latest on disaster related advocacy and work. So it’s just a really fantastic community. And maybe we can include a link in the show notes to sign up for those calls.

J. Craig Williams:

Certainly. And what’s your email?

Hannah Perls:

My email is H like Hannah, and then Perls my last name@law.harvard.edu, P-E-R-L-S.

J. Craig Williams:

Wonderful. Well, Hannah, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show today. I could talk about this all day long, but our show is at an in. Thanks so much.

Hannah Perls:

Thank you again for having me and for talking about this.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, here are a few of my thoughts about this topic. I personally experienced it myself. Many of my friends have lost their homes. Thankfully, none have lost their lives, but they’ve lost their homes, the places where they work, they’ve lost their communities. And personally, I’ve had fire within three houses of my house. So it’s something that you live with here in California. And I don’t know that being from the east coast that I’ll ever get used to it, like I’m not used to the earthquakes that are here. But the one thing we do have here is a lot of sunshine and a lot of beauty and a lot of activity and things to do, and it’s a wonderful place to live. But for those that are affected by these fires, it’s no longer like that. And we struggle with the concepts of how to safely rebuild, how to put the people back into the communities that they were in before, and how do we stop these things from continually happening?

The Earth is a tough task master and throws a lot of different things at us, volcanoes and tsunamis and earthquakes and fires and mudslides, and just about any other disaster that you can imagine along with ones that we create ourselves. So the only thing we can really do is look out after each other. And I think that in the current political climate, that’s maybe even a dangerous thing to say, but at this point, that’s really all we can do. So help out where you can and get involved. Well, that’s it for my rant on this topic. Let me know what you think. And if you’ve liked what you heard today, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. You can also visit us@legaltalknetwork.com, where you can sign up for our newsletter. I’m Craig Williams. Thanks for listening. Please join us next time for another great legal topic. Remember, when you want legal, think Lawyer 2 Lawyer.

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