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:: HOME :: NEWS :: ARCHIVE :: DEC 2003 ::
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WILDFIRE SURVIVORS URGED TO ORGANIZE THEIR COMMUNITIES FOR RECOVERY
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A fire recovery workshop, hosted by volunteers who survived a 1993 Los Angeles fire, will stress the importance of an organized community effort as the most effective and efficient way for a community to manage its long-term recovery.
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PRESS RELEASE
Survivors of a devastating 1993 fire in the Los Angeles area - who joined together as the Eaton Canyon Recovery Alliance (ECRA) to rebuild their community - want to share what they learned about long-term fire recovery and community organizing with the survivors of the recent Southern California wildfires.
Working with Community Partners, a Los Angeles-based charitable organization, members of ECRA will host a series of three workshops that will stress the importance of an organized community effort as the most effective and efficient way for a community to manage its long-term recovery. ECRA's effort was recognized as a model for disaster recovery and preparedness by FEMA and the American Red Cross in 1997. Resources developed by ECRA and updated for this disaster will be available to offer communities a head start on the recovery.
Workshops will be held from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5 at the Moorpark Community Center, 799 Moorpark Ave. in Moorpark; in San Diego County on Saturday, Dec. 6 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Dingeman Elementary School, 11840 Scripps Creek Dr. in Scripps Ranch and in Julian from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Julian Women's Clubhouse, 2607 C Street; and in San Bernardino County on Saturday, Dec. 13 from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Del Rosa United Methodist Church, 3350 Del Rosa Avenue in San Bernardino.
"ECRA learned so much from survivors of the Oakland Hills fire and these workshops are a way of expressing solidarity and sympathy with the 2003 fire survivors while
passing on a valuable body of knowledge," said Ursula Hyman, a former ECRA chair. "We certainly expanded on what Oakland did, and we expect that local communities will now expand on our experience."
The workshops, which are free and open to the public, will offer participants a "blueprint" for how to organize their communities and how to address such issues as: coordinating a community response to mudslides and other potential disasters resulting from the fires; infrastructure upgrades; streamlining the building and permitting processes; fundraising; community education; and facing a host of other challenges and obstacles intrinsic to fire recovery.
The workshops are designed for local community members who want to extend a hand to neighbors who lost homes and help them through this difficult process. "In many cases the residents who lost their homes have neither the time nor the emotional energy to undertake what we are proposing," Ms. Hyman noted. Those impacted by the recent fires are urged to take the lead and attend in behalf of their communities.
In 1993, wildfires fanned by Santa Ana winds destroyed hundreds of homes in the Eaton Canyon/Kinneloa areas of Los Angeles County. In the aftermath, a group of concerned citizens, most of whose homes had been spared, stepped up to lead recovery efforts. They formed the Eaton Canyon Recovery Alliance and for the next three years worked together tirelessly through the various stages of their community's recovery, always insuring that the changing needs of all concerned were addressed. In 1996 the community celebrated as they reached the final stages of fire recovery and ECRA ceased operation.
Community Partners has worked for more than 10 years to support the creation of innovative new community projects and to strengthen existing nonprofit responses to the challenges facing the communities of Southern California.
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By: webmaster
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Posted: Thursday, December 04, 2003
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