One Year Later: Eaton Fire survivors speak out
LOS ANGELES (KESQ) - It's been a year of hurdles, roadblocks, and varying emotions for Dave Skabinski, losing his home of 32 years in the Eaton fire. Taking it one day at a time, he's hit his stride with a positive attitude and rebuilding with a take action approach.
"But I decided Very quickly that I was committed to helping rebuild my community," Skabinski said.
Not everyone has moved forward, and at today's news conference held by the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, we learned communication delays, insurance inconsistencies, and lack of money has played a major role in the halt in progress.
"The Eaton fire contaminated our home in January. Our insurance adjuster walked through our home and told us clearly our house needed to be taken down to the studs. We later received a 21-page report confirming this assessment. Then a new adjuster took over and everything changed," Claire Thompson said in the news conference.
Thompson is still not able to live in her home.
"And we're not going away. Just because some checks were cut doesn't mean we are going away," said LA County Supervisor Katheryn Barger.
Rose Robinson, a survivor and daughter to Olympic silver medalist Mack Robinson and niece to baseball great Jackie Robinson, said not only was her longtime home and sense of community erased in the fire, her precious heirlooms, including her father's Olympic medal, are gone.
"I'll never be the same. I know that. I just, I still feel like my feet are not even on the ground," Robinson said.
The politicians in the room made it clear they are on board with going after SCE, saying the survivors in all are owed billions of dollars to jumpstart the rebuild.
"The investigation into state... to hold these insurance companies accountable, and I want to emphasize something because there is a piece of this work that we are continuing to work on. I wrote a letter to the CEO of Southern California, Edison, Pedro Pizarro, and have made it very clear that they need to provide emergency housing relief to the community of Altadena," said State Senator Sasha Perez.
In the meantime, Skabinski is looking forward to his new future and seeing some light after the darkness brought on by the devastating fires of 2025. Sabinski and others are being very proactive, coming up with solutions so that this will never happen again. They've pitched the idea of an alarm system across the city of Altadena, hoping that people will hear those alarms and get out quicker and get to safety.
