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PG&E has no estimate when it might establish a temporary housing assistance fund for victims of the Northern California infernos of recent years, the company conceded during an acrimonious bankruptcy hearing Monday that included fresh criticism of how the disgraced utility is treating fire victims.
The unsettling revelations about the special fund to assist wildfire victims arose during a meeting of creditors on Monday that is one of the proceedings connected to PG&E’s $51.69 billion bankruptcy filing, which arose from the company’s responsibility for causing infernos in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
“We are looking to provide relief for those most in need from the fires,” PG&E’s Chief Financial Officer Jason Wells testified during the meeting of creditors. “It’s our intention to file as quickly as possible. I can’t give you any kind of timetable.”
One wildfire victim, Bryan Montgomery, a resident of Mountain House in Calaveras County at the time of a lethal inferno in 2015, told the hearing that he’s been waiting for more than three years to be compensated by PG&E, which caused that deadly blaze.
“It’s been 3 and a half years. I lost everything. I have no property left,” Montgomery told a silent hearing room. “All I want is what I lost, to get back the life I was living.”
Montgomery, 62, was forced to dive into a his swimming pool to escape a wildfire that roared through Calaveras County and Amador County in 2015, a disaster referred to as the Butte Fire.
“I apologize,” Wells said in response to Montgomery’s circumstances.
Montgomery expressed skepticism about the repeated claims by PG&E during the hearing that it’s too soon for the company to specify the scope or timing for establishing the housing assistance fund or compensating victims.
“You keep saying it’s premature,” Montgomery said. “How is it premature?”
PG&E filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 29 after its finances buckled beneath the weight of mounting liabilities and wildfire-linked claims.
PG&E’s equipment caused, or was directly connected to, a string of fatal wildfire catastrophes in 2015, 2017 and 2018. These disasters include some of the October 2017 infernos that scorched the North Bay Wine Country and nearby regions and a wildfire that roared through Butte County in November 2018 that essentially destroyed the town of Paradise.
In 2016, PG&E became a convicted felon when a federal jury found the utility guilty of crimes it committed before and after a natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, a blast that killed eight people.
Creation of an assistance fund must skirt some roadblocks, Wells of PG&E warned. PG&E must navigate the bureaucratic mazes of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure that a special fund doesn’t duplicate the government’s efforts and prompt FEMA to curb or cancel disaster relief funds.
Gerald Singleton, an attorney for numerous wildfire victims, grilled PG&E executives about the company’s financial status and its ability and commitment to repay wildfire victims.
At times during the proceeding, PG&E attorneys sparred with attorneys for wildfire victims in what has become an increasingly testy set of hearings related to the company’s bankruptcy case.
Several times, PG&E bankruptcy attorney Stephen Karotkin ordered Wells and another company executive, PG&E controller David Thomason to not answer questions regarding PG&E’s finances and other matters.
“He’s not going to answer,” Karotkin, referring to the PG&E chief financial officer, told an attorney for the fire victims. “Move on.”
After the hearing, Singleton suggested that PG&E is attempting to evade its responsibilities for causing multiple fatal infernos in recent years.
“My view is PG&E categorically is not moving quickly enough and they are not treating the victims fairly,” Singleton said. “PG&E is using the wildfire victims as pawns so they can get a bailout from the state and try to avoid liabilities for future fires. All of those are outrageous.”
