As California communities seek to rebuild from wildfires, residents of Grizzly Flats in El Dorado County have been hoping for the federal assistance that is usually provided after hundreds of people lose their homes in a fire.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-CA, has emphasized to President Joe Biden the aid that still is needed to rebuild from the 2021 Caldor Fire.
“I spoke with him about the Caldor Fire, which devastated thousands and thousands of acres,” Kiley told the Northern California Record. “Particularly the community of Grizzly Flats in my district in El Dorado County, it leveled 800 homes, and hundreds of people lost everything.”
Kiley noted that when the president went to the area in September 2021, he promised federal aid, that he saw it as a federal responsibility.
But the request for federal assistance to individuals has been denied by FEMA, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“So when I met with President Biden, I asked him to make good on his word, to keep his promise to the people of Grizzly Flats, and to get them the help that they deserve.”
Kiley and Biden met on Jan. 24 at the White House.
“He seemed genuinely troubled that folks had not received relief and he said that he would get to the bottom of it,” Kiley said.
At the news conference during Biden’s Sept. 13, 2021, visit to El Dorado County, when asked about help for uninsured residents, the president replied, “We’re going to take care of them.”
The White House Press Office did not reply to the Record’s request for comment.
“I’m calling on the President to do the right thing, to make good on his promise, to keep his word and to get the folks of Grizzly Flats the assistance that they are entitled to, and that they need,” Kiley said. “These are people who lost everything in this absolutely catastrophic wildfire, which was, by the way, in many ways caused by neglect of managing the surrounding area.”
Fuel reduction projects to thoroughly protect the area had not been completed, Capradio reported.
Kiley is also co-sponsoring the Water for California Act to help prompt action on overdue water storage projects.
“We have basically not upgraded our large storage capacity in California since the State Water project, it's been decades,” Kiley said. “And this is despite the fact that the people of California have voted for increased water storage. They voted for it in 2014, and yet very little has come from that yet, and it’s very striking – now we have so much water that’s suddenly fallen upon us in these recent storms, and yet it's just squandered. We don't have any place to store it. We need to release it to avoid flooding.
“And now the case is that we're in a flood emergency and a drought emergency at the same time. That is an absurdity, and if we simply had responsible planning, we could save the water when it rains and then use it when it's dry; that's the way a competently managed government enacts policies of common sense. And so I’m hoping that the California Water Act will be a step in that direction.”