Less than a year after watching flames destroy his home in the foothills of Altadena, a suburb of Los AngelesTed Koerner returned to his new home.
But raising his house from the ashes has been a challenge.
“We’ve been through a lot of trials this year,” he told AFP, excited to bring his dog Daisy back home.
The American businessman is one of the first to rebuild in the Californian community, the most affected by the fires that stalked Los Angeles in January 2025, in which 31 people died, 19 of them in Altadena, and thousands of houses were charred.
Reconstruction was a race with obstacles.
Given that Your insurance compensation took months Upon her release, Koerner, 67, had to put in hundreds of thousands of dollars of her savings to start the work.
President Donald Trump’s new economic and immigration policies added additional challenges.
The extraordinary tariffs that Washington imposed on other countries made steel, wood and cement more expensive, materials often importedraising construction costs.
Trump’s anti-immigration onslaught, which led thousands of people to change their daily routines for fear of being detained, also threatened the sector that relies heavily on a foreign workforce.
“If immigration enforcement detains construction crews and Trump imposes that on top of the tariffs, we will never be able to rebuild this community,” Koerner said.
Despite everything, Altadena is reborn.
Among the thousands of empty plots, some structures are beginning to emerge.
“Chaos and delays”
The fierce flames, which spread rapidly thanks to furious gusts of 160 kilometers per hour, are still present in everyone’s memory.
But given the climate changethe survivors refuse to move. “Where would we go?” asks Catherine Ridder.
“There is no place in the surrounding area that is not vulnerable to climate catastrophes,” Ridder added.
The psychotherapist is working on rebuilding her house where she hopes to move in August.
A delay is unthinkable, given that the rent of $4,000 a month he pays to live in a temporary apartment consumes his insurance premium.
To make life easier for the owners, Los Angeles accelerated the delivery of construction permitsa process that usually takes more than a year.
But for Ridder, tired of long inspection periods to verify that it meets the requirements of the new building regulations, this is insufficient.
“There is lots of chaos and delays“complains the 67-year-old woman.
“It may be faster than before the fire, but it’s not easy at all.”
What consoles her is the thought that she is “much better off than many people who didn’t have good insurance.”
“They are moving”
Altadena, considered a fire risk area, many residents were barely covered by basic state insurance.
The compensation offered by these policies They do not cover the costs of rebuilding houseswhich are often around a million dollars.
Which has led many to put their hopes in possible compensation resulting from lawsuits filed against Southern California Edison, the company that owned the faulty power line suspected of causing the fire that destroyed Altadena.
For Carol Momsen, who received $300,000 from her insurance for the destruction of her home, it was impossible to wait.
The 76-year-old retiree decided to sell his land to buy an apartment in another neighborhood.
“Even if I had enough money, I wouldn’t want to rebuild in Altadena, because it’s become a sad place,” he said.
For some, this will accelerate gentrification in Altadenaa community that had a large black and middle class population.
Ellaird Bailey, who moved to the community in 1984 with his wife so his children could grow up in what was a “melting pot,” laments seeing the demographic change in his neighborhood.
“A lot of people we’ve known for 20 or 30 years are moving away,” lamented the 77-year-old African-American. “It’s hard to imagine what it’s going to be like in the future.”
