It’s been over a month since the Lineage cold storage warehouse erupted in flames, and we haven’t even finished the beginning of the end of the beginning stage of the cleanup.
Crews are working nonstop to meet Mayor Karen Bass’ mid-August deadline to clear out 85 million pounds of food that continues to rot in oppressive heat. The mayor’s office and those of L.A. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis have joined local nonprofits and mutual aid groups in the herculean effort of distributing masks, water, air conditioners and air purifiers and hosting pop-up health clinics for all locals affected by the mess.
But no amount of handouts, Hefty bags and Windex can pretty up the scene right now around Lineage, as my colleague Salvador Hernandez described this week in vivid, vile detail.
“There are flies, rats and, if the wind shifts ever so slightly, a waft of thick, nauseating air,” he wrote about the dense neighborhoods on Union Pacific Avenue near the ruins of the warehouse, which stands on Indiana Street right on the border between Boyle Heights in Los Angeles and unincorporated East Los Angeles.
Excuse me while I gag.
An unusual request to help neighbors of the warehouse
No wonder people affected by the fire showed up to this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting to ask for a simple, if radical request: Declare a mandatory evacuation for the neighborhoods around the Lineage site — not just the Eastside but also parts of cities in southeast Los Angeles County — until all cleanup is complete.
A mandatory evacuation notice not only would mean residents wouldn’t have to bear the stenches and sounds currently disrupting their lives, but also would allow homeowners to file claims with their insurance company for costs such as food, housing and travel. The action would also allow all residents to get local, regional, state and federal agencies’ help with the financial aftermath that households and businesses now must deal with — utility bills, loss of wages and revenue — for weeks, if not months.
Alma Marquez thinks such a move isn’t a far-fetched idea but a moral responsibility. She’s the founder of Protect L.A., a coalition of residents, nonprofits and activists who aren’t pleased one bit with the official response so far.
“What’s happening right now is compounding trauma,” said the urban planner by training, who hasn’t slept in her Monterey Park home since a thick plume of smoke from the Lineage fire enveloped it in its early days. “There was eight days of smoke because of the fire, then all the smoldering, now all the pests — and we still don’t know the effects from all that people have suffered.”
A mandatory evacuation notice “protects public safety, protects public health and it protects the poor,” Marquez added, noting the working class makeup of the neighborhoods on Union Pacific. “Right now, the poor have no options.”
What elected officials say about an evacuation notice
Bass’ office has already announced that Airbnb will offer $1 million in credits to affected residents. But for the moment there seems to be little political appetite for something as drastic as a mandatory evacuation notice.
Supervisor Solis told Hernandez and me that only the city can call a mandatory evacuation because the Lineage fire happened within L.A. city limits. “That does not mean I’m standing still,” she said. Her staff joined a Department of Public Health team to talk with hundreds of affected households, and she said most wanted to remain in their homes “while seeing the incident resolved as quickly as possible.”
Jurado, meanwhile, in a statement said that an evacuation notice “may be warranted” if things worsen. But without a “clear plan” on where and how to relocate the thousands of people possibly affected — addressing questions such as who would watch their homes and how financial losses for businesses would be covered — an evacuation order right now “could create further harm, fear, and displacement.”
Protect L.A. is undeterred. It has been holding workshops at Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights to try to organize people on the matter — the most recent one attracted more than 80 people, Marquez said. Members are also holding weekly evening vigils at the parish to draw attention to this latest Eastside environmental catastrophe.
“Planning to keep people [near the Lineage disaster] is not a plan,” Marquez said. “Planning to further endanger people’s lives is not a plan.”
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