Waiting game: Hundreds still trying to return to homes in Woolsey fire area, while Edison workers rebuild a ‘city’s worth’ of infrastructure

When the devastating Woolsey fire swept through parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties starting on Nov. 8, the flames left thousands of residents homeless or displaced.

But while firefighters doused the remains of the blaze last week, hundreds still wait to be allowed back to their properties — more than 21 days after the wildfire first was reported, a wide swath of the unincorporated canyon areas north of Malibu and south of Agoura Hills remain under mandatory evacuations, off limits to those who live there.

For many with homes in those areas, there is little or nothing to return to. Canyon communities, some that splinter off from Mulholland Highway as the road winds through the Santa Monica Mountains, saw widespread destruction as the fire scorched nearly 97,000 acres before it was fully contained Nov. 21.

The wait to return has been agonizing and frustrating, residents said. It remains unclear when some of them will be able to access the area.

The hold-up, public works and emergency officials said, has been the painstaking work of inspecting neighborhoods to make sure they’re safe to return to while also rebuilding the region’s decimated power grid.

“You’re almost rebuilding a city’s worth of infrastructure,” said David Song, a spokesman for Southern California Edison. “And you’re doing that in a matter of weeks.”

Edison workers in a fleet of hulking vehicles often outnumber passenger vehicles in the burned areas these days. Dozens of workers could still be seen tinkering with utility poles and wires in the Malibou Lake area on Wednesday.

Song called the scope of their work “immense.” Each of the numerous utility poles, wires and ground structures on the electric grid in these areas must be inspected. Then, piece by piece, they must be repaired, or completely replaced if they’re damaged enough.

As of 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday, the company had restored power to 39,678 customers. Just 2,109 customers now remain without power. Getting electricity to that last fraction of customers will be a slow process, Song said — many of the communities still in need of service are located in remote canyon areas where workers have to deal with steep terrain.

Getting the message about what’s going on to residents, however, also remains a challenge for the handful of federal, county and local agencies working in the fire’s aftermath. And conflicting information from those agencies has led to more frustration from residents.

It’s not clear which agency ultimately declares when a community can be reopened. Song said Edison doesn’t “have the final say on where we can go in and where we can’t,” but other officials said the company carries a lot of weight in making those decisions.

Numerous Edison crews still out in the field need time to work, and the company was hesitant to let residents back in before they were finished, said Emily Montanez, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management.

Montanez said there are other issues that safety officials are also worried about, including toxic chemicals left in burnt out homes and hazardous conditions like downed wires and burning gas pipes.

She said county officials understand the wait may be adding to the stress of losing a home.

“People are raw,” she said. “When you lose everything, frustrations are high.”

Residents have voiced those frustrations in person at two disaster-recovery centers in Malibu and Agoura Hills. They’ve also spoken out at several community meetings for fire victims in those communities, including one Monday.

Steven Siegel, who lived in his home on Mulholland Highway for 20 years with his family before it burned down this month, was at that meeting. He said many of the attendees remained confused and frustrated with the long delays keeping them from returning to see what they could save from their properties.

Siegel himself has been to his burned property once since the fire started. He described an almost cat-and-mouse game with officials barring him from entry — he and his wife and son were only able to get to the area when a friend with access gave them a ride.

When they got to the property, his son pointed out what looked like his mom’s prized chinaware sitting untouched amid the rubble of the home. Siegel said his wife walked over to the apparently untouched stack of dishes, but when she picked them up, she saw they were melted.

“They were fused together,” he said.

Others have still not been able to return at all. Lisa Niles, who lived in her home for more than a decade, said she’s among those still waiting to return to her home in the Latigo Canyon area. In a text message, she called the continued wait “bizarre.”

Niles along with her husband, her parents and her sister all lived in the communities surrounding Latigo Canyon and Kanan Dume roads. She said they all were forced to flee on Nov. 9 when they saw an orange glow emanating from nearby canyons and smelled smoke.

She said she learned her home burned to the ground soon after the family evacuated. All she was able to take before fleeing were “pictures of my baby,” she said, referring to photos of her daughter

The pain from the fire and the wait has not lost on officials helping people recover in from the disaster.

Montanez has been working at the assistance center in Agoura Hills since last week. Hundreds of residents, each with tales of trauma, has passed through the building every day in that time.

“We hear their stories every day,” she said.