Oregon
Oregon officials and nonprofits work on rebuilding resources for people who lost homes in Almeda fire
A 12 months and a half in the past, the Almeda fireplace destroyed about 2,300 residences within the Rogue Valley, together with about 1,500 manufactured properties. With the price of changing these properties going up, that’s posed a tough problem for most of the fireplace’s survivors who wish to exchange the house they misplaced.
Whereas many single-family owners affected by the hearth had insurance coverage, that’s been much less frequent for manufactured house homeowners, mentioned Southern Oregon Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland.
A manufactured house in Medford barely survived the Almeda Hearth, nevertheless it took some harm.
April E / JPR
“It’s been a way more tough street to get these manufactured house parks again up and working and to get folks in new properties in these parks,” Marsh mentioned throughout a discussion board she led Wednesday night time targeted on rebuilding assets for wildfire survivors within the Rogue Valley.
Quite a lot of packages are being provided by the state and nonprofits to assist those that lived in manufactured properties buy or rebuild energy-efficient models.
Oregon Housing and Neighborhood Providers will proceed providing a forgivable mortgage program. Whereas it was initially designed to assist folks improve older properties, Marsh mentioned this system has been amended to be simpler for wildfire survivors.
“It’ll additionally cowl the price of set up, as a result of we all know that there’s a value to transporting a house from someplace else, making ready the location, getting allowing, probably getting skirting,” Marsh mentioned.
The Wildfire Restoration and Resilience Account grant is being operated by way of Oregon Housing and Neighborhood Providers and ACCESS, the key non-profit social service supplier in Medford. This system affords funding for manufactured house repairs or alternative. It was funded by the Oregon Legislature and is geared toward people who find themselves at or beneath 80% of the realm median revenue.
The fee to buy a manufactured house was once between $10,000 and $40,000, in line with Marsh. Now, she mentioned, it may price as much as $140,000 as a result of residents need to buy a brand-new house.
The nonprofit, Power Belief of Oregon is providing an incentive program for wildfire survivors to assist with the acquisition or rebuilding of energy-efficient properties. The manufactured house alternative program contains $10,000 to $16,000 in incentives for rebuilding.
A further program from the Oregon Division of Power will supply as much as $12,500 in incentives for people who construct vitality environment friendly manufactured properties.
ACCESS helps join residents with the suitable packages.
“What we’ve heard again and again is an curiosity in coming again to manufactured house parks, however coming again in a means that’s reasonably priced for folks and recognizing that’s a giant barrier,” Marsh mentioned. “That’s precisely what we’re attempting to handle in these state packages.”
Three Oregon lawmakers say they plan to introduce a bill that would bar utilities from raising rates if they have unresolved wildfire lawsuits for three or more years, describing it as an effort to hold PacifiCorp accountable as the utility faces a series of lawsuits stemming from the deadly 2020 wildfires that ravaged the state.
Republican state Reps. Jami Cate, Virgle Osborne and Ed Diehl announced their proposal in a statement Monday, on the heels of an approved rate increase for PacifiCorp customers and a federal lawsuit against the electric power company.
The federal government sued PacifiCorp last week over the Archie Creek Fire, which ignited in Oregon’s Douglas County in September 2020 and burned more than 200 square miles, about half of which was federal land. The complaint accuses the company of negligence for failing to maintain its power lines to prevent wildfires. In its filing, the government says it brought the suit to recover “substantial costs and damages.”
A PacifiCorp spokesperson said in an emailed statement Monday that the company was working with the U.S. government to resolve the claims.
“It is unfortunate the U.S. government decided to file a lawsuit in federal district court, however PacifiCorp will continue to work with the U.S. government to find reasonable resolution of this matter,” the statement said.
The federal lawsuit was filed on the same day the Oregon Public Utility Commission approved a 9.8% rate increase for PacifiCorp’s residential customers next year. In its rate case filings, the company said its request to increase rates was partly due to higher costs stemming from wildfire risk and activity.
When the new rate takes effect in January, PacifiCorp rates will have increased nearly 50% since 2021, according to the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, which advocates on behalf of utility customers.
The three lawmakers said they will introduce their bill in the upcoming legislative session, which starts in January.
“The federal government is doing the right thing by filing this lawsuit, and we stand firmly behind it,” Osborne, who is set to be the future bill’s co-chief sponsor, said in a statement. “PacifiCorp needs to pay up and take responsibility for the destruction they’ve caused, and putting a stop to rate hikes is the best way to achieve it.”
PacifiCorp is poised to be on the hook for billions in damages in the series of lawsuits over Oregon’s 2020 fires.
The company has already reached two settlement agreements over the Archie Creek Fire, including one for $299 million with 463 plaintiffs impacted by the blaze and another for $250 million with 10 companies with commercial timber interests, according to its website.
In other litigation, an Oregon jury in June 2023 found it liable for negligently failing to cut power to its 600,000 customers despite warnings from top fire officials and determined it should have to pay punitive and other damages — a decision that applied to a class including the owners of up to 2,500 properties. Since then, other Oregon juries have ordered the company to pay tens of millions to other wildfire victims.
The wildfires that erupted across Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 2020 were among the worst natural disasters in state history, killing nine people and destroying thousands of homes.
— The Associated Press
On Wednesday at 2:18 a.m. the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory valid from 10 p.m. until Thursday 10 a.m. for North Central Oregon and Central Oregon.
The weather service states, “South winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 45 mph expected.”
“Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result,” adds the weather service. “Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high profile vehicles. Use extra caution.”
Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service.
Oregon
Oregon lawmakers to introduce bill barring utility rate increases amid unresolved wildfire lawsuits
Next Weather Forecast 12-25-24
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