The Brief

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has allocated $2.7 billion in response to the L.A. wildfires, but some survivors say the agency’s support has fallen short of expectations.

According to an LAist analysis of FEMA data, the agency has covered a smaller portion of damage costs in response to the L.A. fires than was seen at this point after other recent natural disasters.

Assistance to eligible survivors has covered an average of about 7% of the damage costs FEMA assessed to their properties so far, less than one third of the proportion covered after the California fires in 2017 or 2018, or the 2023 Hawaii fires.

Eligible survivors of the L.A. fires have gotten an average of around $4,100 in direct FEMA assistance so far — average damage costs assessed by the agency are over $55,000 for those same survivors.

Experts who spoke to LAist cautioned against comparing disasters, but the complicated application process for receiving FEMA assistance has slowed the response here and frustrated some L.A. residents who are trying to decide whether to rebuild or relocate, often requiring them to make multiple appeals after claims that were denied for procedural reasons.

When Furmencio Quiroz’s Altadena home was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, he expected FEMA to help with some of the rebuilding costs not covered by his family’s insurance. After six months and multiple appeals of his application, Quiroz says he thinks the rebuilding process has gone slower than government officials promised.

" It feels like time is flying, and we're nowhere," Quiroz told LAist.

Rebuilding the family home

Quiroz grew up in the Altadena house before living there with his wife and six children, together with his parents and his brother’s family.

Then the Eaton Fire destroyed everything, Quiroz said.

"At first you're like, wow, like you can't even process it." Quiroz said about losing his family’s home. "Then you just start thinking about every little memory you had."

He said his father is a retired construction worker, and while they had insurance on the house they had never filed a claim until the fire. His father would always take care of any repairs himself.

But the insurance they had wasn’t nearly enough to cover the costs of rebuilding, Quiroz said.

After initially receiving a few thousand dollars from FEMA for essential items and temporary housing, Quiroz said his family applied for help with rebuilding costs.

According to FEMA policy, survivors who apply through the Individuals and Households Program (IHP) can receive up to $43,600 for housing assistance and another $43,600 to go toward other needs like child care, medical expenses, transportation or replacing damaged personal property.

Quiroz thought he would be eligible for housing assistance, but FEMA denied his family’s application. He said FEMA told him he was not eligible because he had already received an insurance payment.

"I've appealed the case about three times, because we're underinsured," Quiroz said. Even getting the maximum insurance payment under his policy still covered less than half of the expected rebuilding costs, he added.

FEMA can not duplicate benefits from insurance or other programs that are provided to applicants for the same purpose, according to federal law, but FEMA updated its policy in 2024 to expand eligibility for survivors whose insurance did not cover the cost of damages to their homes or property.

Quiroz said that on top of the costs of rebuilding he also has to find a permanent place where his family can afford to stay while making mortgage payments on the house that burned down.

In the meantime, he has been commuting from an Airbnb in Pomona to his job as a mechanic in Downey. He said he can’t seem to get straightforward answers about FEMA’s process or why he was denied assistance.

He's been going to a disaster recovery center in Altadena and calling FEMA, but he said he has gotten "a different answer every time" he has asked for clarification.

FEMA representatives did not respond to LAist's request for comment.

Navigating a bureaucratic "labyrinth" 

To get assistance, disaster survivors like Quiroz often have to navigate a complicated process that is fragmented across many agencies and programs, according to Chris Currie, director of homeland security and justice at the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, a non-partisan federal watchdog agency that examines how federal funds are spent.

"None of those programs were ever really designed to work together in concert, which makes for a very frustrating recovery process for survivors," Currie told LAist.

The GAO reports to congress and federal agencies, and keeps a list of programs across the federal government that they assess to be high risk, or most in need of reform.

Delivery of federal disaster assistance was recently added to that list, joining issues like federal oversight of food safety and contract management at the Department of Defense.

"I don't think anyone at FEMA tried to design these programs to be difficult and time consuming," Currie said. But rules put in place over the years to avoid fraud and abuse have inadvertently created a complex "labyrinth" for survivors to navigate, he added.

The GAO has pointed to the need to simplify the process for years, but Currie said that hasn’t translated to system-wide progress that's needed.

The Trump administration created the FEMA Review Council in January, and Currie is optimistic this could spark more significant reform.

"I think everyone is waiting for the results of this FEMA Council to come out, to provide the framework and the instructions on what specifically is gonna change," Currie said.

President Donald Trump threatened to "phase out" the agency last month, but the administration’s stance toward the agency has since softened, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem telling NBC News on Sunday that the president now wants to see the agency "remade."

FEMA’s response to other recent disasters

LAist analyzed public data to see how FEMA’s response to the L.A. wildfires compares with other natural disasters in recent years and found some notable differences.

According to monthly FEMA reports and estimates of total damage costs, overall financial support allocated by the agency in response to the fires has covered a much smaller portion of damage costs than seen six months after hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.

Currie said there could be a number of reasons for differences in FEMA funding provided after natural disasters, like the types or concentration of damage.

"The scale of the destruction in Helene dwarfs [the L.A. fires], but the concentration of damage in L.A. was horrific. " Currie said. "So the cost you're going to see just to deploy across a massive geographic region in Helene is gonna be way, way higher than L.A."

The largest amount of money from FEMA goes to state and local governments in what the agency calls public assistance for things like repairing public buildings and debris cleanup, Currie told LAist.

Currie said debris cleanup is a key first step toward recovery, and that FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and leaders at state and local levels worked very quickly to clear debris compared to other large-scale natural disasters.

LAist also looked into differences in direct assistance to individuals and found that so far FEMA has covered a much smaller portion of assessed damage costs after the L.A. fires than were covered after the 2024 hurricanes, though the agency assessed that damage costs for L.A. fire survivors were higher.

This gap affects survivors like Quiroz who believe they should be eligible for more assistance and have experienced denial letters or process delays.

Currie told LAist that applications are often denied by FEMA initially for technical reasons, but they may still be eligible when they have completed more of the process.

"It can just be a very long, difficult process that requires a lot of back and forth between a survivor and FEMA or other government agencies," Currie said.

Quiroz, who has missed work from his job and is currently waiting to hear back from FEMA, said his family still plans on rebuilding but isn’t counting on more support from the agency.

"We had hope . . that they were gonna help us out," Quiroz said, "but it seems like it's not gonna be that way."

Long term recovery

Local agencies and organizations have been working to cover some of the gap in support left after insurance and FEMA assistance.

Jorge Anaya, an emergency management coordinator at the L.A. County Office of Emergency Management, told LAist that the county previously provided assistance to disaster victims of up to $18,000 through the Household Relief Grant program and has kept a comprehensive list of other existing resources for residents.

 "As we approach long-term recovery, there is existing aid," Anaya said, "However, it starts becoming a whole-of-community response, not just a whole-of-government response."

He said the county has partnered with the L.A. Region Community Recovery Organization, or LARCRO, to help people get continued assistance.

"It’s important for us to recognize that FEMA is in no way meant to make people whole with their funding," said Jenni Campbell, the executive director of LARCRO. "The community is responsible for recovery in the long term."

LARCRO is a nonprofit that was organized after the Woolsey Fire in 2018. Campbell said they work closely with FEMA and lead the recovery arm of Emergency Network Los Angeles, or ENLA, which includes other nonprofits involved in disaster response like American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and 211 LA County.

She told LAist that direct assistance from FEMA is just one part of what FEMA refers to as "the sequence of delivery," which also includes insurance, loans from the Small Business Administration and long term recovery groups.

LARCRO and ENLA have been organizing long term recovery groups to support the Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena areas, bringing together nonprofit organizations, disaster case managers and community leaders to support survivors who won’t be able to recover on their own.

Those groups will soon start holding weekly meetings, but Campbell said community organizations like hers have been involved in supporting survivors since the beginning of the recovery process.

Quiroz told LAist he has gotten support from local churches to help buy food and from 211 LA County, which provided his family with Airbnbs like the one they're staying in now.

Campbell said LARCRO has connected with more than 5,000 people affected by the fires to coordinate disaster case management, and that disaster victims can learn more on their website.

The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.

Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer.

"We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.

Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.

'If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table," Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.

Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.

But the political realities, combined with Paramount's owners' relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.

Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.

On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.

The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.

President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.

While Netflix's courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.

The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.

Not unnoticed: the Ellisons' warm ties to Trump world.

Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.

David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president's key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.

Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison's pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division's direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.

"I think they're doing a great job," Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it "agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Each spring, the land around Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County bursts into a vibrant array of native wildflowers. This year, it’s happening earlier than expected because of the recent rains.

The lake’s wildflower trail is scheduled to reopen this Friday, Feb. 27. Here’s what you should know before you go.

What the trail has to offer

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which manages the body of water in Hemet, says wildflower blooms are already dotting the hillsides around the ecological reserve at Diamond Valley Lake.

Think of a bright color wheel — that’s the kind of colorful blooms you’ll see. The hills grow orange California poppies, baby blue eyes, red bush monkeyflower and yellow tidy tips, to name a few. You’ll also get a peek at SoCal’s largest drinking water reservoir.

Known as the Judy Abdo Wildflower Trail, the 1.3 mile loop extends from the Lakeview Trail, close to the trail head and parking area. You can see a map here. The hike has some rugged terrain, but it’s rated as easy-to-moderate.

• Address: 2615 Angler Ave., Hemet
• Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

When you visit, don’t go too late! No entry is allowed after 3:30 p.m. Starting March 8, it’ll be open until 5:30 p.m. (with no entry after 4:30 p.m.).

You’ll have to pay $4 per person to use the wildflower trail. Parking costs $11 (or $5 if you’re: 62 years and older, a military member or a veteran).

Observe safely

Wildflower blooms are very popular in Southern California because of how beautiful (and Instaworthy) the scenery is, but you should tread cautiously.

About 10 years ago, Diamond Valley Lake’s trail had to be closed because crowds of visitors trampled the wildflowers. So when you visit, make sure to follow these etiquette tips so the bloom can be enjoyed by everyone.

A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities. Huge batteries will store some of that power until it's needed most.

Farmers are among the project's backers. They don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it.

"We're farmers, and we would rather farm the ground," says Ross Franson, president of Woolf Farming and Processing, his family's business. "If we had the water to do it, we would farm it. But the reality is, you don't. You have to deal with the cards you're dealt."

Franson is on the board of the Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization that's a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members. Westlands is an agricultural power and has long represented the interests of farmers in a large swath of land on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, between the towns of Firebaugh and Huron. Decades ago, it helped persuade the federal government to build a giant canal to deliver irrigation water to this area from rivers far away in Northern California.

Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District, on land that could become a solar farm.

(

Dan Charles

)

Yet these farmers are now facing a new water crisis. The canal has been delivering less water in recent years because of droughts and competing claims on that water. Until recently, the farmers had a backup water supply: They could pump water from aquifers a thousand feet underground. Now, though, a new state law is coming into force that bans overpumping from the aquifer.

So farmers in Westlands have been leaving large chunks of land unplanted. Another large piece of land, now owned by the Westlands Water District itself, has been fallowed because irrigating it could release high levels of a mineral called selenium that can poison wildlife or people. The farmers, and the district, have been looking for new ways to put that land to use.

A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy seized the opportunity. Several years ago, it presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects.

Developers say scale will justify new power lines 

Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.

"In order to actually have solar be productive, you need size and scale, a mass of projects that support the necessary investment in high voltage transmission lines to collect the electrons and move them," Mealoy says.

Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.

Franson says his immediate reaction to the proposal was "Yes, we need to do this." Negotiating the details and completing an environmental review took several years, but in December, the Westlands Water District's board voted to move ahead.

Golden State is the plan's architect, but other solar developers will build sections of it. Construction could take a decade. Even though the Trump administration has abolished some financial incentives for solar projects, Mealoy says it's still a solid business opportunity.

"The state needs it. It's permitted. It's the right place for it. I'm excited about this," he says.

Grace Wu, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says "this is a fantastic place for solar" because the fallowed farmland isn't high-value habitat for wildlife.

Farmworkers wonder if they will also benefit

About 150 farmers within the Westlands Water District, including Jeremy Hughes, have signed up to put solar on some of their land. "We look at it as a new crop. We're harvesting electricity," Hughes says. The guaranteed income from those acres makes it possible to keep farming the rest of his land.

"Because of solar, we can continue farming in Westlands. It'll keep the farming community alive," says Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District.

In the small towns nearby where many farmworkers live, however, there are worries that local residents won't see many benefits from the project. Among those towns is Huron, home to about 6,000 people. Rey León grew up here, working in his family's restaurant. Now he's the town's mayor.

Rey León is the mayor of Huron, Calif., home to many farmworkers who aren't yet sure what they will get out of solar coming to the region.

(

Dan Charles

)

"I'm worried about Huron," he says. This solar deal may be great for the landowners of Westlands, he says, but less farming means fewer jobs for people who worked in the fields and orchards. León wants some of the solar revenue to flow to this community for education and training, to help people find jobs in this new solar industry.

"We are shareholders," he says. "We kept these communities alive, these economies robust. There's no excuse to leave us out."

Westlands and Golden State Clean Energy have been discussing what they call a community benefits package, but officials haven't released any details.

A possible model for other parts of California

Caity Peterson, at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), says other farming communities in California may try to imitate what Westlands is doing. Because they, too, will have to stop pumping so much water from the ground as the new state law comes into force. "There's going to be some kind of right-sizing of agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley," she says.

According to a study that PPIC carried out, farmers in the valley will have to stop growing crops on between 500,000 and 1 million acres. There will be a lot of dry, sunny land in California, just waiting for a solar developer.

Copyright 2026 NPR

A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.

Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.

After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.

The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.

“No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.

Voting kicks off this weekend, and the winner will be crowned by April.

How it works

The competition is divided into four rounds based on the general geographic area, with nine intersections in each round.

Starting Sunday, @americanaatbrandmemes will post the competitors on Instagram with a poll attached around 11 a.m. each day throughout March.

The polls will be open for 24 hours, and the intersection with the most votes will move on to the next round to face off against the others.

To complete this year’s lineup, Mr. Glen Dale again started with a list of his personal worst before turning to his followers for some suggestions.

The intersection of Harvey Drive and East Broadway toward the Glendale In-N-Out was a popular proposal, for example, but Mr. Glen Dale said he felt that may be too niche for the bracket.

“I tried not to narrow in too much on one area,” he said. “And then tried to use my own experience to be like, ‘Oh yes, these ones feel like hallmarks.’”

If your personal worst isn’t in the competition, you can also suggest an intersection in the comments by writing “WILDCARD: (your suggestion).” The suggestions with the most likes will be added to the competition, with a wildcard slot in each of the four rounds.

Some popular wildcard suggestions include the Cypress Park roundabout at Riverside Drive and San Fernando Road, the Glendale Boulevard and Riverside Drive intersection with the wonky left-turn lanes in Silver Lake, and for another year in a row — all of Koreatown.

“I always put [wildcards] in there because I'm always like there's something I'm not thinking of that someone's going to suggest,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “This is a fluid list, we could change it.”

The intersection voted as L.A.’s worst of the worst will be crowned on Americana At Brand Meme’s account by April 1.

The East Side-ish Round

The first round focuses on the “East Side-ish” of L.A., including Silver Lake, Highland Park, East L.A., Echo Park and Eagle Rock.

The rounds are broken up by “side-ish” so people can focus their debates on the intersections, not the geographic boundaries of the bracket, according to Mr. Glen Dale.

The options include:

• Virgil Avenue / Sunset Boulevard / Hollywood Boulevard vs Sunset Boulevard / Sanborn Avenue / Santa Monica Boulevard
• Stadium Way / Academy Road vs Glendale Boulevard / Fletcher Drive / Silver Ridge Avenue
• Telegraph Road / Atlantic Boulevard / Triggs Street / Ferguson Drive vs wildcard vs Huntington Drive / Garfield Avenue / Atlantic Boulevard
• York Boulevard / N Avenue 50 vs Glendale Boulevard / Alvarado Street vs Avenue 42 / Eagle Rock Boulevard

Mr. Glen Dale said Avenue 50, which came up often in followers’ suggestions, could get its own bracket because the intersections in the area don’t seem to communicate with each other.

“You'll be sitting at a red light and seeing a green in front of you and being like, oh, when I get to that one it's going to be red,” he said. “But, you know, I ended up with York and 50 … [it] felt like a good representation of that street as a whole.”

The West Side-ish Round

The competition heads to Beverly Hills, Culver City, Westchester, Venice, Westwood Village and Brentwood for the second, “West Side-ish” round.

The options include:

• Beverly Hills 6 way stop vs Pacific Coast Highway / Chautauqua Boulevard / West Channel Road
• Washington Boulevard / Culver Boulevard vs Exposition / Robertson / Venice Boulevards
• Sunset Boulevard / Bellagio Drive / Bellagio Road / Bellagio Way vs wildcard vs Abbot Kinney Boulevard / California Avenue
• La Cienega Boulevard / Centinela Avenue / La Tijera Boulevard vs Wilshire / Westwood Boulevards vs San Vicente Boulevard / Montana Avenue

“It will be the Beverly Hills 6 stop,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “It is known.”

The Central LA-ish Round 

The third, “Central LA-ish” round takes us into the heart of Hollywood, West Hollywood, the border of Miracle Mile and Carthay Circle as well as the border of Wilshire Center and the Dayton Heights neighborhood.

The options include:

• Hollywood Boulevard / Highland Avenue vs Highland / Franklin Avenues
• Fairfax Avenue / La Cienega Boulevard vs Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards
• Jefferson Boulevard / La Brea Avenue vs wildcard vs La Cienega / Sunset Boulevards
• Franklin Avenue / Vine Street / 101 Freeway vs Virgil Avenue / Beverly Boulevard / Temple Street vs Santa Monica Boulevard / Western Avenue

The Los Angeles Times released a report this week ranking L.A.’s worst intersections based on traffic data, with the troublesome top spot going to Highland and Sunset in Hollywood.

The Valley-ish Round

Last but not least, the “Valley-ish,” which includes intersections in North Hollywood, Burbank, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.

This round also features my personal nemesis — Barham and Cahuenga boulevards.

I take this route relatively often to get from Burbank to West Hollywood and have to give myself a pep talk every time. The seemingly-constant congestion over the hill, driver confusion about what lanes lead where and people cutting into lines of cars just before a turn makes the experience feel like it takes years off my life.

The options include:

• Lankershim Boulevard / Vineland Avenue / Camarillo Street vs Burbank / Lankershim Boulevards / Tujunga Avenue
• Victory / Burbank Boulevards / Victory Place / 5 Freeway / Costco vs Ventura Place / Radford Avenue / Trader Joe’s / Sephora parking lots
• Harvey / W Broadway vs wildcard vs Sepulveda / Burbank Boulevards
• Mulholland Drive / Coldwater Canyon Avenue vs Barham / Cahuenga Boulevards vs Vineland Avenue / Magnolia Boulevard

Mr. Glen Dale agreed with my assessment, describing the Barham Boulevard intersection as his “white whale.”

“I hate going through that intersection, and it's not even that it's scary like other ones where you don't know what's happening,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “No matter which way you're going, everyone is converging onto Barham, and it just creates this madness.”

But Lankershim / Vineland / Camarillo appears to be an early follower favorite, as one commenter wrote, it “takes 2-3 business days to get through” and another added, “I’m rioting if [the intersection] doesn’t win.”