President Biden Tours Devastation As Caldor Fire Victims Repopulate Areas Hit Hardest
GRIZZLY FLATS (CBS13) - President Biden and Governor Newsom took an hour-long aerial tour of the Caldor Fire and its destruction in El Dorado County on Monday.
One area they surveyed was the hard-hit community of Grizzly Flats, where, on the ground, more residents are being allowed to return home. Sandy Mecham is one resdient. She was seeing what she could salvage after the Caldor Fire destroyed her home and several of her husband's classic cars.
Her town was practically wiped out by flames.
"I feel like we were erased, the town was erased you know. We are all homeless because of something out of our control," she said.
Marine One flew over mounds of rubble Monday in Grizzly Flats where hundreds of homes were destroyed as the President took a look at the devastation.
Michael and his mom made it out just minutes before flames ripped through their home.
"Panic because we didn't know what we were coming back to if we ever were," he explained.
Now nearly a month since evacuation orders forced Michael to leave, he and his mother are back at their property where a purple piggy bank seemingly untouched by flames survived.
"That's about it; everything else is no longer. It's just rebuild, rebuild, rebuild everything...everything I once had no longer," he said.
Both families have fire insurance and are planning to rebuild.