North Bay wildfire survivors to start getting first payments from PG&E

Nov. 5--Wildfire victims owed compensation from PG&E for losses in the 2017 North Bay fires and other blazes are set to soon receive their first payouts from the utility, more than three years after fires destroyed 5,300 homes in Sonoma County.

The Fire Victim Trust created to disburse the $13.5 billion PG&E must pay residents and businesses hit by devastating wildfires announced this week it would give eligible fire survivors initial $25,000 lump sum payments.

With a deadline of Dec. 31, fire survivors or their lawyers have less than two months to submit additional paperwork to the trust to facilitate the payments. So far only about 2,000 out of 80,000 possible claims have done so.

Retired Justice John Trotter, trustee of the Fire Victims Fund, said in a statement he wanted to quickly get some compensation to fire victims who "have had their misery compounded" by the coronavirus pandemic and recent major fires.

"The pandemic caused the already slow post-fire economic recovery to grind to a halt, further complicating the lives of fire victims," Trotter said.

PG&E exited bankruptcy in July with a court-approved plan to get out from under the mountain of liabilities amassed from devastating wildfires linked to electrical equipment.

The 80,000 claims represent affected households and businesses as well as families of the more than 100 people killed in the 2015 Butte fire, the 2018 Camp fire and the 2017 firestorm that hit Sonoma and surrounding counties.

So far among North Bay fire victims, only 600 claims representing about 11,000 people have been finalized with the trust. Another 4,400 have been initiated but are not yet complete, according to trust administrator Cathy Yanni.

The initial payments are a crucial step for fire survivors, many of whom have been struggling for years to rebuild their homes and lives, said Santa Rosa attorney Roy Miller, who represents wildfire victims and lost his home in the Tubbs fire.

"The trust heard what our clients were saying: 'We're hurting, we're underinsured,' " Miller said.

The process to verify the veracity and value for tens of thousands of claims will be a lengthy one, Miller cautioned, and the payouts don't come close to the full compensation due most of his clients, but "it's a recognition that help is on the way."

Miller said his group of law firms is representing 16,000 of the clients. So far, they have only submitted documents to the trust for about a dozen of them.

"I keep telling everyone I talk to, the finish line is approaching but we have to be patient," Miller said.

Yanni compared the required process -- called claims questionnaires -- to commercial tax filing programs and said people will be immediately eligible for the initial $25,000 if their claim meets or exceeds that amount. Some fire survivors will complete the questionnaires themselves and others may have it done by an attorney.

"The most important thing to me is to get funds out to people who really, really -- because of COVID and because of the fires and the state of the economy -- really need help," Yanni said. "It's my goal to distribute money as quickly as possible."

PG&E has so far given the trust $5.4 billion in cash and is expected to provide another $1.3 billion, according to Yanni. The remainder of the $13.5 billion is made up of PG&E stock to be monetized later.

Yanni said the value of each claim will be determined after the Dec. 31 deadline when all of the applications have been verified and analyzed against the billions of dollars available.

"We're still processing claims and the claims are still coming in," she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or [email protected]. On Twitter @jjpressdem.

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