GRIDLEY, Calif — The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] welcomed the first family at its Camp Fire temporary housing community in Gridley's city-owned industrial park Thursday.
The 72-acre site took 70 days to prepare and will house as many as 400 families, or 1,200 people, in modular housing units. Butte County wildfire survivors who were displaced last November have since been living with friends and family, in hotels, shelters, or trailers. Families are expected to move into the community over this coming weekend.
“All around us right now you see a lot of activity. We are putting finishing touches on the first phase of this construction project,” said Mike Peacock, FEMA spokesperson.
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The homes will come furnished and range from one to four bedrooms. FEMA also pays for all utilities. So far, 300 units have already been filled. The site is prepared to accommodate an additional 100 units over the next several weeks.
FEMA officials said they hope these temporary homes will provide relief and a sense of normalcy for the families who have lost so much.
Since securing the site in May, FEMA crews have turned what was an empty field into a level neighborhood complete with underground electric, water, and sewer lines, as well as paved roads and sidewalks. The cost for the project is estimated to be in the tens of millions, according to a FEMA spokesperson.
“They’re not walking between trailers. They’re running from trailer to trailer to jump on the next project... and that to me is pretty amazing to watch that kind of enthusiasm to help get the project finished at that pace, Joseph D'Angelo, a FEMA deputy logistics section chief, said.
The Gridley community will house wildfire survivors through at least July 2020, and as long as July of 2021, according to the city’s website. The small Butte County City of Gridley is expecting its population to increase by as much as 20 percent while the survivors temporarily move-in and live there.
At the end of the FEMA contract, the disaster agency will remove all of the mobile housing units from the site.
The Gridley project is the largest of five FEMA sites meant to temporarily house those displaced by the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and left an estimated 30,000 people without homes.
There are an additional 120 mobile housing units at two additional sites in Chico and Oroville, which opened earlier this year. There are 132 FEMA travel trailers in use at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds and the Bidwell Canyon State Park, according the federal disaster agency.