As urban development and wildfires meet, residents reckon with new risks Around 5 p.m., the residents of Santa Rosa, California?s Coffey Park neighborhood start rolling into the neighborhood to check on their homes. Sometimes Jeff Okrepkie is there to greet them?Geraldine, Jason, Bonnie, Pam, Trish.
?Everybody wants to come see their house,? says Okrepkie, waving at another passing pick-up, whose driver stops to say hello. ?Oh, how?s my house doing today" Oh, I got shingles! I got a roof!?
Okrepkie was not this popular before Coffey Park burned to the ground last October. The unprecedented Tubbs Fire jumped Highway 101 and took out the house Okrepkie and his wife were renting, along with more than 1,000 of their neighbors? homes. In the weeks following the fire, Okrepkie, who works as a commercial insurance agent, saw the community struggling to understand what rebuilding would mean for them?from city planning permits to utility infrastructure changes to the often-maddening insurance claims process. With the support and input of hundreds of his neighbors, he formed the nonprofit community group Coffey Strong. ?We?re a clearinghouse for information and advocacy,? says Okrepkie. ?We have one voice for 900 people.?
Today, one year after the fire that destroyed it, Coffey Park, a suburban subdivision in the North Bay Area?s wine country, appears to be the picture of post-disaster recovery: construction on every block; model homes with buzzing weekend open houses; a...