For Christine Anderson, the morning she learned her home in Ashland, Oregon was lost to Jackson County’s Almeda Fire was simply surreal.
“It looked like a bomb had dropped,” Anderson said. “Everything was flat. It was ashes. I almost did not recognize it. There was just nothing there.”
A resident of Ashland’s Bear Creek Mobile Home Park, Anderson is the single mother to two twin girls. She leaves behind two small businesses, one selling plants and another selling her own music.
On September 8, Anderson and her children were heading home from the dentist on what seemed like a normal Tuesday, the day after the twins’ birthdays, when they saw a plume of smoke in the distance.
It was minutes later that they saw an orange blaze that chased them all the way to the closest freeway exit.
Anderson began her passion for music when she was nine years old and later had a recording studio that took a decade of her life to build.
“All my music, all the pictures of my children, everything, all my art, everything that I could never reproduce is gone,” she said. “But it’s the stuff that I poured my heart and soul into that we don’t have anymore.”
Anderson received an emergency alert on her cell phone telling her to evacuate immediately minutes after getting home. Anderson only had a few minutes more to gather anything she could for herself and her children as the sheriff banged on their door telling them to evacuate.
For days she held out hope her family could be returning home.
“I kept hoping, ‘Please let my house for my house be okay,’” Anderson said. “But that first night was like the night of hope. Your adrenaline gets so high, that you almost don’t believe anything bad’s really going to happen because you feel that invincible rush of adrenaline. “
Almeda Fire has killed at least four people, the Jackson County Sheriff reported last week. It was 100% contained by fire crews last Tuesday, but not before burning 3,200 acres and the towns of Talent and Phoenix.
Ten major fires are still burning in Oregon, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. The state’s three largest fires—the Santiam, Riverside, and Holiday Fires—were 20 percent contained or less on Monday.
Anderson and her children are now living in a spare room at her mother’s house in Medford. Like many thousands of Oregonian families, they do not know when their home can be rebuilt.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has announced that the wildfires burning across the state had forced as many as 40,000 people to evacuate statewide.
State officials reported last Tuesday that wildfires have destroyed at least 1,145 homes and displaced more than 3,100 people after burning one million acres.
And like so many others across the state, Anderson is relying on a Go Fund Me set up by her cousin to help their short-term needs.
“I have been so grateful for everybody who has reached out to support us,” Anderson said. “I know people are really stretched thin right now. Because if you live in this community, I’m not the only person who’s lost everything.”
Under the Presidential Major Disaster Declaration that Oregon was granted by the Trump administration, the state is eligible for federal resources such as Disaster Unemployment Assistance for Oregonians out of work due from the wildfires burning across the state.
Oregon Employment Department (OED) Acting Director David Gerstenfeld said last week that the department also plans on paying out $300 in extra weekly benefits from the federal Lost Wages Assistance program by the end of the month.
According to a report released on Wednesday by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, Oregonians still paid out a record $7 billion in personal income taxes between March and September, representing a decade-long growth in state revenue.
Oregon saw a 7.7% unemployment rate in August, down from nearly 15% in April.
Despite cutting its unemployment numbers in half, OOEA analyst Josh Lehner warned that Oregon could see its job gains dissolve if consumer spending fizzles in the coming months, especially from among workers themselves.
“Although the reduction in state revenues has been delayed, the pain will eventually be felt given the magnitude of the damage to Oregon’s labor market,” Lehner said.
Lehner cited a number of potential factors influencing the state’s record tax revenue this year.
One of them is the disproportionate impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession has had on low-wage service industry jobs.
Another factor according to Lehner was the extension of the 2019 tax filing deadline well into July. Oregon’s highest-earning taxpayers, Lehner said, frequently file extended returns in the fall and may have earned enough to boost state revenue through September.
Around $170 million in personal income tax collections were already withheld from unemployment insurance checks, Lehner noted. He estimated that federal aid to businesses alone increased traditional corporate tax collections by as much as $300 million.
Oregon’s General Fund is still on target for an ending balance of $1.7 billion for the 2019-21 biennium, according to the OOEA report, following a round of budget cuts from Oregon lawmakers during a special legislative session this August.
Brown has since taken a line item veto to those cuts to save funds for forest and state police resources.
A survey conducted by Portland State University and the Community Alliance of Tenants this month found that around 53% of tenants in Oregon reported going without food and medication to meet their monthly rent payments.
Of the 460 Oregon tenants surveyed, more than one in three reported they could not pay their full rent this year and cannot pay what they still owe. Oregon’s moratorium on residential evictions expires September 30.
While Oregon’s economic recovery from the previous recession took five years, OOEA analysts expect it to recover by 2023 based on its strong performance prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, that outlook hinges on future federal aid for the state and the spread of COVID-19, Lehner added.
“It takes time, even under the best of circumstances to regain lost ground due to recessions,” Lehner said. “However, the fact of the matter is that the economic pain has yet to be fully reflected in Oregon’s revenue data.”
The price tag for Oregon’s wildfires is currently estimated at $100 million.
