- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Cache fire evacuees moved to Clearlake senior center after county shuts Middletown shelter site
The 83-acre fire, which an initial estimate said destroyed 56 homes and 81 outbuildings, started Wednesday afternoon. The worst damage was in the Creekside Mobile Home Park, where most of the homes were reported destroyed, with other nearby homes — including some in the Cache Creek Mobile Home Park — also burned to the ground.
With work still underway to put the fire out completely, residents of the Clearlake area south of 18th Avenue and east of Highway 53 except for Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital remained unable to return home on Saturday due to a continuing mandatory evacuation order
While city officials said they hope residents will be able to repopulate that area by Sunday, it’s not yet clear if that will happen due to the amount of tree removal and utility infrastructure that needs to be completed to make it safe.
In the meantime, in the days since the fire several dozen evacuees had been reported to be staying at the evacuation shelter.
That sheltering has been critical for many. The reason, as pointed out by City Manager Alan Flora, is that the fire area was home to some of the community’s poorest members.
The shelter initially was set up on Wednesday afternoon at Kelseyville High School. On Thursday, it was moved to Twin Pine Casino in Middletown.
During Thursday night’s Clearlake City Council meeting, Councilman Russ Cremer had asked why the shelter hadn’t been located at the city’s senior and community center, which has been an evacuation shelter before — including for the Valley fire — and has undergone significant upgrades to make it ready to fulfill that purpose.
Then, on Saturday, Clearlake officials, including Mayor Dirk Slooten, said they were told that County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson had ordered Lake County Social Services staff to leave the shelter, because it was a city emergency, not a county emergency.
“We know that county staff were pulled from the shelter at Carol’s direction this morning,” Flora said.
Flora said the county’s Social Services Department has a sheltering team that’s supposed to respond to such situations, and has done so over the past several years.
Huchingson, Social Services Director Crystal Markytan, Supervisor Moke Simon — who also is chair of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians, which owns and operates Twin Pine Casino — and Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein did not respond to an email from Lake County News seeking comment on Saturday.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier, whose district includes Clearlake, said he was working with the city to coordinate with the Red Cross, which is operating the shelter at the city’s senior and community center at 3245 Bowers Ave.
He said he’d spoken to both Huchingson and Simon and was working “to ensure the people displaced by the Cache Fire are taken care of until they can return home or we find more permanent solutions for those who lost a home.”
One county official who did offer to explain the decision was Sheriff Brian Martin.
He told Lake County News that 1,600 people evacuated and that, based on previous events, they expected only about 10% to seek shelter.
At last count Martin said there were only 16 people at the shelter, and since all of the homes that were destroyed were within the city of Clearlake, it wasn’t the county’s or the tribe’s responsibility to help. The Red Cross was willing to operate a shelter at the senior center, so the shelter at Twin Pine was closed.
Martin said he didn’t know when the closure took place but said that Simon said he was giving people adequate time to transition.
“It’s not a county emergency, it’s a city emergency,” Martin said, adding the city has the obligation to handle the situation.
Martin also said there have not been any mutual aid requests from the city to the County Administrative Office that he was aware of at that time.
When asked why the county supported the city of Lakeport’s flood victims in early 2017, Martin said that was because it was considered a countywide emergency.
Another move
Gemini Garcia, a Lake County News contributor, went to Twin Pine to size up the situation midafternoon Saturday and didn’t get a kind greeting at the facility.
She said by that point there was a pop up tent and cots with a few Red Cross blankets set up in the smoky outdoor conditions in a back parking lot.
Three men were left at the casino shelter by then, with several caged small dogs plus one deceased dog waiting for Animal Care and Control to collect it, Garcia said.
She said she spoke with two of the men, who wouldn’t give their names or consent to be photographed. She said they told her that they don’t have family or friends, and no assets.
Garcia said no one could confirm to her that the shelter was moving anywhere.
Later in the afternoon, Slooten said the city was opening up the senior center and getting evacuees moved in that night.
Slooten took direct aim at Huchingson for the treatment of the city’s evacuees, saying it bordered on negligence.
He suggested Huchingson’s actions were in retaliation for an ongoing lawsuit the city has against the county for failing to put up for auction tax defaulted properties, some of them in arrears for decades, within the city.
He said many such properties are in the fire area, and a county map of tax defaulted properties in that location showed several dozen properties in that area that are behind in taxes, some for more than 30 years.
“I am very angry about it,” Slooten said of the situation.
One of the sticking points appeared to be that the city wanted to transport its shower trailer to the casino for evacuees. Flora said for some of them it had been the first time in days they had a chance to bathe. However, he said they were told the casino didn’t want to deal with the shower trailer.
Transitioning to a new location
At the shelter on Saturday night, Cremer, Flora, Councilman Russ Perdock, Sabatier and Police Chief Andrew White were continuing to work with the Red Cross to make sure the shelter was fully operational. Slooten had been there earlier in the evening for the set up.
Evacuees were able to make use of the four-stall shower trailer installed at the center, as well as another shower trailer provided by Adventist Health that Perdock was supervising.
By that point, Flora said he had spoken to Simon, who he said faulted the city for having no plan for moving forward. Flora, in turn, had to remind Simon of the city having been in the midst of the emergency response for several days.
Flora said there had been a lack of communication between the city and county — for which he said Simon apologized — although he said he was not entirely sure what to believe.
In his comments to Lake County News, Martin said there had not been mutual aid requests for help in the emergency, beyond the initial response.
“There’s been numerous requests, since the beginning,” White said when asked about Martin’s statement. “It’s an evolving situation.”
Flora said the city is looking at opening a local assistance center for fire survivors this week and considering ways to move people into other places to stay. He said they are working with state officials to get assistance for short-term housing options
White said they have made contact with virtually everyone with a home in the fire area, and continue to have no missing persons reports.
Due to the fire’s speed and the concentration of homes in the area, Flora said fatalities had been a big concern.
Next steps
The California Department of Housing and Community Development is the agency with jurisdiction over mobile home parks.
Flora said Housing and Community Development inspectors were at the scene on Thursday.
The State Department of Toxic Substances Control has agreed to send a hazmat team to work on mitigations for ash laden with heavy metals, especially around Cache Creek. However, Flora said the state requires the county to declare a health emergency first.
The Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda so far does not have that item included. Flora said it’s his understanding that the acting Public Health officer will make the declaration on Monday and the board will ratify it on Tuesday.
Beyond that help from the state, the city is still facing the potential to have to shoulder the recovery largely on its own due to not meeting state and federal damage thresholds, which would qualify it for emergency assistance.
The city does, however, have notable allies as it seeks help, including Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and state Sen. Mike McGuire, both of whom have supported Lake County and its communities in previous disasters.
There was another hopeful note at the shelter on Saturday night as well.
Kevin Cox of Hope City, who has been involved in rebuilding homes in the south county that were destroyed in the Valley fire, was at the site to offer support to city officials.
His organization completed its Middletown work earlier this year and is now working in Paradise on Camp fire recovery.
Cox and his 12-person staff have assisted 26,000 families across the country in getting back into homes after fires.
Cremer said Cox was one of the first people who he spoke to this week as the city begins to grapple with its own rebuilding process.
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