State and federal officials recently brought 14 trailers to the town to house fire survivors, but they’ll have to wait for longer-term solutions. There was a housing shortage before, said Veronica Garcia, a spokesperson for Plumas Strong, a non-profit helping support residents after the fire, and now hundreds of people are still displaced. While living in the area always came with challenges, it’s been particularly difficult since the fire. Cleanup is under way, though that process is expected to continue through January and much of the rubble still remains. Greenville covered in debris after the Dixie fire.īut those houses are mostly gone. You didn’t know the names of the streets, you’d tell them ‘where Dick Hamblin lives, three doors down’,” Crouch recalled.
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“That’s how you’d tell someone how to get somewhere. Greenville was so small and close-knit that many residents got around not by street names, but by houses and who lived there. Because I didn’t want to go through Greenville.”Īctually navigating within the town can be difficult with all the familiar landmarks burned away. “That whole piece of highway is just destroyed. Traveling to the valley for an appointment, Crouch and her husband were taken aback by the stumps of dead trees along the highway, part of a massive tree removal project. She longs to return to the community she treasures, but it’s difficult to see the town in its current state and the other parts of the region badly damaged. Since the fire destroyed her home, Crouch and her husband have moved into a trailer outside her son’s house in nearby Quincy. Marilyn Crouch, 69, spent most of her life in Greenville her parents graduated from the local high school, as did she and her husband, high school sweethearts, and later their children. Theresa became upset when thinking about her community not being in one place like it used to be. Theresa Hatch hugs her friend Georgia, who she has known since she was a baby in their town. “It’s so depressing to drive through here, to see all the trees that are gone,” said Jerry Thrall, a 23-year resident whose home in Greenville survived. “It’s sad, but I’m gonna get used to it.”įor some residents the sight of the destruction is still too painful. “Everyone’s like, ‘ Oh my God, how are you handling it?’” she said while showing her mother the ruins of downtown. “It’s still beautiful to me,” she said, pointing to the trees and the mountains. This town, with its sweeping mountain vistas, community spirit and soundtrack of passing trains, is home, she says, which is why she was eager to return, even with the rubble still piled up around town. She came back to Greenville as soon as officials allowed residents to return and bought a house, spared by the flames, on a hill overlooking downtown, just next to the home she lost. Wielputz, who lost her home in the fire, is one of a few hundred people who have been able to return to the area – the majority of Greenville’s 1,100 residents are still displaced.
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