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Welcome to the season finale of Swindled Season 7. Can you believe we've made it this far? Yeah, me neither.
As always, eternally grateful for your support. If you're a new listener, welcome. Here's what happens next. We are going to take a short break. This happens every year at the same time, so don't panic. It's just a little time off. And by time off, I mean I'm going to stand up, do a little victory lap around my living room, and then sit back down and crank out some brand new bonus episodes to hold the valued listeners over during the break.
And I can confidently say that one of these upcoming bonus episodes is probably one of, if not the most disturbing swindled episodes yet. I hate to tease it that way, but trust me, it is fucked up. So keep an eye out for that. And if that doesn't pique your interest, there are plenty of other bonus episodes available to check out. Plus everything is commercial free.
Become a valued listener at valuedlistener.com. You can listen on Spotify, Patreon, or Apple. It's only five bucks. You know the spiel. But it truly is the best way to support the show, and I can promise you, not a single person has ever regretted it. Also, go peruse the Swindled merch store if you get a chance. Lots of new stuff in there that I never mention. Go get yourself a new weed grinder or something. You deserve it.
Oh, that doesn't interest you either, huh? Fine. Enjoy the upcoming reruns then, pal. But at least tell a friend about the show. That helps a lot too. Okay. I love you. I will miss you. See you in Season 8. This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
And we're going to begin with breaking news tonight from the San Francisco Bay Area. You're looking at live pictures of a massive fire burning in a residential area of San Bruno. This is right near the airport, which prompted a lot of speculation there had been a plane crash. Eyewitnesses said they had heard what they thought was a jet engine. But right now, Federal Aviation Administration says there is no word of any crash. ♪
At 6:11 PM on September 9th, 2010, a massive explosion destroyed the Crestmore neighborhood of San Bruno, California, a San Francisco suburb. Early reports said a jetliner had crashed soon after takeoff. Others suggested that the destruction was the result of an earthquake. Some claim to have seen a meteor fall out of the sky and land on San Bruno like God's thumb angrily smearing the ink on his work.
The intense heat from the 1,000-foot flames cracked the windshield of the first fire engine on the scene. The paint was bubbling on the cars parked on the street in front of the empty lots where the houses used to be.
Compounding the situation, the neighborhood's water main had been destroyed. Residents helped first responders drag hundreds of feet of fire hoses to working hydrants several blocks away. Stop that engine! We have no water in this hydrant! We let in to us! Copy that. Nearly 200 firefighters responded to the call as planes dropped retardant on the blaze from overhead.
None of those suppression efforts were effective. The fire continued to rage, more powerful than ever. Something must be feeding it, the emergency personnel concluded.
They were correct. It was a natural gas pipeline owned by regional utility Pacific Gas and Electric, who finally realized what was happening and shut off the flow an hour and a half after the fire had started. This is San Bruno Fire Chief Dennis Haig. At 6:40 this evening we had a first alarm assignment of an explosion in the area. Units responded.
What was discovered was it looked like a broken gas line, high-pressure gas line. None of this can be confirmed. We still have yet to get to the scene of the origin of the fire. We've got 53 homes have been severely damaged. Up to 120 homes have some fire damage at this point. We have only one firm...
The massive blaze was only 50% contained by 10 o'clock that night. The neighborhood continued to burn until 11.40 a.m. the next day. The heat was still too intense to examine the origin, but the preliminary damage was breathtaking.
38 homes were destroyed, at least 70 others were damaged, and the center of the apocalyptic scene was a massive crater, 167 feet long, 26 feet wide, and 40 feet deep. Soon, search and rescue teams swooped in with cadaver dogs. They pried open warped doors, looking for bodies, and tagged the houses with green, yellow, and red tags, according to the extent of damage. Some of the tags were stuck to brick chimneys, the only part of the houses still standing.
Eight bodies were eventually recovered. Greg, Levon, and William Bolas, James Franco, Elizabeth Torres, Jessica Morales, and 13-year-old Janessa Craig and her mother Jacqueline, who coincidentally worked for the California Public Utilities Commission as an advocate for consumer rights pertaining to natural gas regulations. At least 60 other people were injured, some severely.
The displaced were relocated to evacuation centers, Red Cross shelters and hotels. Some claim to have smelled gas in the days and weeks before.
Pacific Gas and Electric declined to confirm these reports, but they were here to help. This is PG&E President Christopher Johns. But I want to make sure everybody knows that we are committed to do what's right and what's appropriate to help all of the families and others who have been impacted by this tragedy.
Many of the Creedmoor residents were able to return home that Sunday, September 12, 2010, to begin the long process of rebuilding. Many never returned, either too haunted by the memory, underinsured, or bought out by PG&E for $50,000 more than their property's assessed value.
Many others had dodged the bullet but faced a different burden entirely, learning to live with the guilt of having been completely spared. My kids play at that park which is now melted. You know, these were neighbors. You know, the woman down the block, my dog played with her dog and she's dead. It's not fair. They, along with all Californians, have many questions. Of course, the biggest question is, how can something like this happen?
How can something like this even happen? And are there any other homes that are in danger right now? These are questions that federal, state and local agencies as well as PG&E are actively investigating.
The National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene for five days investigating the cause of the explosion. It appeared that a 3,000-pound, 30-inch-wide, 28-foot-long piece of the pipe had rocketed out of the ground and landed 100 feet away. Line 132, PG&E called it, a seamless intrastate natural gas transmission pipeline that ruptured at mile point 39.28 at the intersection of Earl Avenue and Glenview Drive.
Huh, that's interesting. The NTSB investigators at the scene noticed immediately that line 132 was not seamless. For further analysis, the piece in question was shipped to the agency's lab in Washington, D.C.,
As soon as we opened the crate and looked at what was inside, it was visually evident that the pipe was not seamless. There were multiple sections of pipe that had a type of welding called double submerged arc welds where the pipe is welded from the outside and on the inside of the pipe. But then there were also these short sections of pipe called pups
And in particular, there were three where we could see that there was no weld on the inside of the pipe. Not only was PG&E's Line 132 pipeline not seamless, as the company's records claimed, but there were seams all over it. It looked like a Frankenstein of leftover parts poorly welded together, even by 1956's standards, which is when that piece of pipeline was actually installed.
Especially poor was the longitudinal weld that ran the pipe's length. That particular weld was half as thick as it should have been and did not penetrate the pipe completely. It ruptured due to a pressure surge caused by a power failure at a PG&E repair site 30 miles northwest. Investigators believe PG&E pieced together that pipe because the pipe needed to be curved to fit the terrain. But they say where the pipe split is a clean break.
That pipe in San Bruno was a ticking time bomb, and worst of all it could have easily been detected in the past 50 years if only Pacific Gas and Electric had adequately inspected the pipeline even once.
High-pressure hydro tests or digital smart pigs would have discovered obvious flaws immediately. Yet PG&E, who had almost $14 billion in revenue that year, hadn't bothered because it deemed the tests too expensive and shutting off the gas for even a second would negatively affect its revenue. No inspections, despite that pipeline being flagged as high-risk because it resided in a highly populated area.
No inspections despite the Rancho Cordova leak two years earlier in which an explosion caused by a leaking PG&E gas line killed a person. No inspections despite the 1988 leak in the Santa Cruz Mountains which was caused by, get this, a quote, longitudinal weld defect.
In the company's defense, PG&E was probably relying on its own record keeping and data to make those decisions, which investigators soon learned was riddled with inaccuracies and information gaps. The company's pipeline system spanned more than 6,000 miles. "God knows what is underground," Brian Cherry, then PG&E's vice president of regulatory affairs, confided in an email to state regulators one month after the explosion.
Making matters worse was PG&E's response to the accident. Investigators determined that 20 minutes passed after the explosion before PG&E even realized what had happened. The first PG&E employee deployed to the scene got stuck in traffic. Even if that employee had arrived promptly, there was nothing he could do because he was not qualified.
The shutoff valves for that stretch of pipeline were manual, meaning a PG&E mechanic would have to fetch their tools, drive to the physical location, fumble with their keys, attach a handle to the valve, and manually crank it shut. Which eventually did happen, an hour and a half later, after nearly 48 million cubic feet of natural gas had escaped and burned,
If PG&E had automatic or remote shutoff valves, the gas flow could have been stopped in less than 10 minutes. Today the NTSB determined what had caused that fireball, what caused that explosion, and it's a pretty devastating portrayal of PG&E, the utility. The National Transportation Safety Board completed its investigation of the San Bruno explosion in August 2011 and voted unanimously to blame Pacific Gas and Electric.
Deborah Herzman, NTSB's chairman, described PG&E's role as a, quote,
If the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation shed light on what happened in San Bruno, the following audit of PG&E from the state of California would explain why it happened. The state's audit revealed that PG&E had collected hundreds of millions of dollars from customers over a 15-year period and placed it into a fund earmarked for safety operations.
But, instead of spending that money on safety operations or improvements, over $100 million had been used for executive compensation and bonuses. A cursory review reveals that a significant portion in the millions has been awarded to the CEO, the report said, in reference to PG&E CEO Peter Darby, who retired a few months after the San Bruno explosion with a $34.8 million parting gift. Where was the oversight?
It truly is unconscionable that PG&E was allowed by the California Public Utilities Commission to steal ratepayer monies that should have been spent on safety and instead was put in the pockets of PG&E shareholders, said Representative Jackie Speier, who represented the Crestmore neighborhood. All these monies identified in the audits should be returned to ratepayers, presumably as a credit against the work that PG&E should have done but didn't.
That's a great idea, but the opposite happened. PG&E announced a potentially multi-billion dollar plan to modernize and enhance the safety of its gas transmission operations, and the California Public Utilities Commission decided that 55% of the cost would be borne by rate payers, the customers, meaning
meaning their utility bills would increase, meaning PG&E's revenue would increase, which would allow, as California State Senator Jerry Hill succinctly stated, quote, PG&E to profit from their gross negligence. And so they did.
A few years later, in 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle would uncover thousands of emails between PG&E executives and the Chief of Staff for the President of the CPUC, which included communications that show how PG&E influenced the selection of the administrative law judge who ultimately decided how much of a burden customers should bear for the pipeline improvements. Legitimate proof that there was an awfully cozy relationship between the utility and its regulator.
PG&E was eventually fined $97.5 million by the CPUC for its back-channel communications with the CPUC. But that fine would pale in comparison to what was on the horizon. So breaking news just into our newsroom. CPUC has fined PG&E $1.4 billion for the 2010 pipeline disaster in San Bruno.
Actually, the fine was increased to $1.6 billion. On April 9, 2015, the California Public Utilities Commission fined PG&E $1.6 billion for 3,798 violations of state and federal laws related to pipeline safety. It was the largest ever penalty against an American utility company. The previous record was $38 million, held by PG&E.
This time, the burden would be shouldered by the company's shareholders, not its customers. But wait. Before you celebrate, you should know that 80% of PG&E's stock is owned by mutual funds, which are owned by 401ks and pension plans, which are owned by you. Thanks for your contribution.
After the civil lawsuits were settled, the San Bruno explosion would ultimately cost PG&E more than $2 billion. After initially trying to persuade the judge that the victims were partly responsible for what happened to them, the company settled with almost 500 plaintiffs for $565 million, but PG&E's insurance policy paid for most of it.
One of the victims who settled was 20-year-old Joe Rugomez. He lived with his parents and sister at the corner of Earl Avenue and Glenview Drive, the epicenter of the blast. Joe's parents and sister were out of the house at the time, but Joe and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Morales, sat on the couch watching football.
We heard a loud rumble. Then it was like a jet engine right in your ear. And my first thought that it was an earthquake, Rue Gomez told the San Francisco Chronicle. Then we saw a big red glow through the window and then whoosh. Fire just shot through it and down the hallway like a huge flow, like a river. I remember Jessica screaming and we ran out the back, Joe said. I touched the doorknob and it was so hot my life flashed before me. I thought, this is it. We're going to die.
Right after that I was in a coma for two months.
Joe Rue Gomez woke up on November 1, 2010 with burns on 90% of his body. The body of his girlfriend, Jessica Morales, was found several days after the fire.
She had tried to hide in the neighbor's shed. -Rigomez says that another real struggle after the recovery and then the lawsuit with PG&E is another lawsuit. This time, the one filed against his own personal injury attorney who represented him in the first case. He claims that that lawyer turned "Real Housewives" reality show star Tom Girardi ran off with his settlement money.
80-year-old lawyer Tom Girardi barely waited for Joe Rugomez's skin to stop smoking before he pursued him as a client. Girardi was best known for being part of the legal team with Erin Brockovich when they famously and successfully sued PG&E in 1993 for contaminating the groundwater of Hinkley, California. More recently, Tom Girardi became famous for being married to Erica Jane from Bravo Channel's Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Allegedly, Tom Girardi settled Joe Rue Gomez's lawsuit against PG&E for $53 million without his client's knowledge. Mr. Girardi told Rue Gomez the settlement was for a little more than $7 million. Then Girardi convinced his client to let him invest the funds on his behalf. Rue Gomez agreed. He said Girardi never sent him a statement and the payments were slow until they eventually stopped altogether.
Joe Rugomes sued Tom Girardi's law firm for pocketing his settlement. A bunch of plaintiffs related to victims of an airline crash in Indonesia were suing Girardi for the exact same reason. Ultimately, a $100 million Ponzi-like scheme was uncovered in the law offices of Girardi and Keese. Tom Girardi was stealing money from paralyzed children and boating accidents to pay back money stolen from victims of faulty medical devices and so on.
The scheme potentially involves multiple lawyers at the firm and others, including the 49-year-old CFO Christopher Kamen, who was indicted for being involved in the larger scheme and operating an entirely separate side fraud of his own. Tom Girardi was disbarred. He is currently awaiting trial on five counts of wire fraud for bilking his clients out of more than $15 million.
and he doesn't even know it. The 84-year-old Tom Girardi reportedly has dementia and is currently living in a nursing home, but he will most likely die in a prison. Are you nervous, Tom? Do you know who is not going to prison?
anyone working at Pacific Gas and Electric. The corporation was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 1, 2014 for multiple criminal violations of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968 and an additional charge of obstructing justice for lying to the NTSB regarding its pipeline testing policy. PG&E pleaded not guilty.
Did people make bad judgments? Yeah, they made bad judgments, Tony Early, PG&E's new CEO, told the Chronicle. But did they say, "I know this is what the law requires, I'm just not going to do it that way"? We haven't seen any evidence of that, or at least I haven't, and that's what the issue will be. This is PG&E spokesperson Greg Snapper. "We can never undo the pain from the San Bruno explosion."
We're accountable, and we know a substantial penalty is appropriate. We have respectfully asked the Commission to ensure that the final penalty is reasonable, it's proportionate, and it takes into consideration all the significant safety actions we've made on behalf of the communities that we're so fortunate to serve. Now is the time that we get around one goal of making this gas system the safest in America.
In the closing arguments of the six-week trial, PG&E's defense team denied that the company had engaged in any unsafe cost-cutting measures and accused the prosecution of trying to tap into some kind of anti-corporate resentment. A six-year investigation to quote, "make PG&E look terrible" to convince others that they quote, "might be a little greedy." PG&E was definitely engaged in greed, the US attorneys argued. The motive was profit over safety.
It was all but spelled out in a 2008 memo the prosecution cited, in which ensuring a shareholder return of 8% was not negotiable, but safety and reliability were listed as up for debate.
PG&E was the company that lost its way, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Schenck said. Its employees were trained to, quote, act more as business people than as engineers. Now the verdict came down this afternoon. PG&E was found guilty of one felony count of obstructing the federal investigation into the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. The company was also found guilty of five federal felony counts of knowingly failing to inspect and test its gas pipelines for additional danger.
On August 9th, 2016, a jury found PG&E guilty on six of 11 counts, five felony violations of pipeline safety laws, and a sixth charge of obstructing the federal investigation of the explosion. The company was sentenced on January 21st, 2017 to a maximum fine of $3 million.
PG&E, a corporation, was also placed on probation for five years and assigned an independent monitor of its safety practices. Additionally, the company's employees and executives were ordered to perform a collective 10,000 hours of community service, which has since been satisfied. A reported 82 hours of that community service was served at a charity golf tournament.
As part of its criminal sentence, PG&E was also required to spend $3 million dollars publicizing its criminal conduct in radio, TV, and print ads. Those advertisements finally hit the airwaves more than six years after the disaster. All in all, a pretty disappointing verdict.
This is California State Senator Jerry Hill. But that's, you know, beside the point. That's just money and it's a cost of doing business for many corporations and companies. What the sad part is in this case is they acted criminally. We know that. We've seen it. And no one's going to prison for it. And that's really the sad part because eight people lost their lives. Thirty-eight homes were destroyed. Someone made the conscious decision.
to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from safety, from maintenance, and from testing. They diverted that to profits, incentives, and bonuses for executives. That's where we're not seeing justice, but this is a good first step.
After the verdict, PG&E released a statement, quote,
Less than two years later, PG&E would find itself at the origin of another disaster. The parallels with San Bruno cannot be overstated. The lack of maintenance and inspections, the flawed record keeping, the cost cutting, the criminal neglect, the same company, Pacific Gas and Electric, proving time and time again to be an existential threat.
California's largest investor-owned utility is blamed for the deadliest wildfire in the state's history on this episode of Swindled.
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On September 9th, 2010, PG&E learned a tragic lesson we can never forget. This gas pipeline ruptured in San Bruno. The explosion and fire killed eight people. We are deeply sorry. We failed our customers in San Bruno.
We can never forget what happened in San Bruno. That's why we're working every day to make PG&E the safest energy company in the nation. Thursday, November 8th, 2018, 6:20 AM. A Pacific Gas and Electric Hydro Division employee was driving eastbound on Highway 70 near Polga, California in Butte County. The sun was rising over the ridgeline. It was beautiful, or at least he thought it was the sun.
But as he drove closer, that PG&E employee realized that bright light was emitting from a small fire underneath the electric transmission tower near the Poe Dam on the north side of the Feather River, closest to Camp Creek Road.
Lacking cell phone service, the employee radioed to the nearest PG&E powerhouse. Then someone at the powerhouse reported the fire to emergency responders in Butte County. PG&E, Rock Creek Powerhouse. Yep. Hey, I just got a report of a fire above Poe Dam on Highway 70. Poe Dam? Yeah, on the railroad side, under the transmission line.
10 minutes later, Fire Captain Matt McKenzie had eyes on the blaze. It was inaccessible. The narrow, dirt mountain roads were too windy for a truck, and it was too windy for an aerial attack. Not good. The whole state of California was in a severe drought. It hadn't rained in Butte County in more than 200 days. Captain McKenzie radioed in to request more resources.
Eyes on the vegetation fire. It's going to be very difficult to access. Camp Creek Road is nearly inaccessible. It is on the west side of the river. Underneath the transmission lines, we have about a 35 mile an hour sustained wind on it. This has got potential for a major incident. We're going to request 15 additional engines, four additional dozers, two water tenders, four strength teams, hand crews.
Major incident would prove to be an understatement. The Jarboe wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour sent softball-sized embers through the air. Within minutes, the fire grew faster than one football field per second. Within an hour, the entire town of Poga became engulfed.
Fortunately, Polka residents were given enough notice to evacuate. The town of Konkow was not as lucky. The fire was on its doorsteps at 7:00 a.m. 911 calls cascaded in. Hey there. Hey. So we're getting reports that the fire may be moving towards the Konkow area. Is that... I don't have information on that. It is big. It is moving.
The initial calls were mostly casual concerns and non-emergencies, but within minutes the two dispatchers on duty became overwhelmed with hundreds of panicked reports. Several callers were told there was no fire in nearby Paradise, California, only in Concow.
but that information was outdated by the time it left the dispatcher's lips. In less than two hours, the campfire had spread to the eastern outskirts of Paradise, seven miles from its ignition point. Paradise is a small town in the Sierra foothills. About 26,000 people live there.
Okay, ma'am. Are you trapped? Okay. Ma'am, there are already a bunch of resources there. There might not be engines that make it to that area, though. So if you feel threatened, you need to get out, okay? If you're feeling threatened, if the fire's taking out, you need to get out of there. Okay?
Lowry Lane. And it's in your backyard? How big is it? It's just getting big by the second. It's like my whole backyard is smoking. It's coming up to my house.
At 8:03 a.m., the town of Paradise was under mandatory evacuation.
This wasn't the town's first fire scare. Typically, according to the plan, the residents would evacuate by zones to avoid mass chaos and not to overwhelm the narrow roads. But that wasn't going to work this time. The campfire was moving too fast from three different directions.
and new spot fires were popping up everywhere because of the windstorm of sparks. You're unable to evacuate? Yes, I don't have a vehicle. Okay, do you have neighbors? Yeah, but they don't want to take my dogs. Okay, well ma'am, you need to save your own life. I understand that your dogs are precious to you, but you need to save your own life, okay? Leave the dogs inside, leave them water and food and go. Ma'am?
Do you understand me, Ann? Yes. Okay. This is a serious fire. I need you to leave the dogs with some water, close all the windows and the doors, and get into the neighbor's car. Do you understand me? Yes. Ann? Yes. Do you understand me? Yes. Ann? Yes. Okay. I need you to do that. I'm going to have to get off the phone, but you need to do that right now, okay? Okay. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Everyone with the ability stuffed almost everything they loved into their cars and hit the road. It was just after 8:00 a.m. and dark as midnight because of the smoke. The power went out. Dead ends and escape routes were lined with the glowing embers of once familiar homes and businesses and the brake lights of gridlocked traffic. Heavenly Father, please help us. Please help us to be safe.
This is me trying to evacuate. Pence Road is on fire. Everything is burnt. The road's completely engulfed in flames and we're stuck in the middle of it.
That tree could come down on me at any moment. It's ridiculous that I'm stuck behind these stupid... We are stuck in it. Hot right now. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, what is going on? I know. Oh my god. I'm so scared. Oh my god.
It's okay you guys, it's okay. Just keep going, keep going baby, keep going. Oh my god. Keep going. Oh my god. I don't wanna die. Okay, oh my god. I don't wanna die. I'm sorry. I don't wanna die.
The firefighters on the scene made no attempt at suppressing the flames. There was no use. They turned their efforts to directing traffic and clearing roads to help as many people get out alive as possible. Some residents in Paradise had no choice but to take matters into their own hands. The only escape route available to Travis Wright and his neighbors on Edgewood Lane, Paul and Susie Ernest, was blocked by the fire.
So they decided to flee on two ATVs, Travis on one, Paul and Susie Ernest on the other. Together they headed off trail to the fields with the least vegetation. On the way they crossed paths with neighbors Michael and Jeanette Ranney, who were on foot with two cats and carriers. There was no room. Travis left them behind.
Coincidentally, Michael and Jeanette Ranney ultimately took refuge in Travis Wright's house and successfully defended it against the flames with a water hose. Meanwhile, the campfire continued to chase Travis Wright in the earnest and it eventually caught up. Travis, Paul, and Susie were forced to abandon their four-wheelers and took shelter behind a six-foot boulder. Travis had just enough time to call his wife, who was stuck in traffic, and say goodbye.
He told the Mercury News that the fire then washed over them. It sucked all the air out of his lungs, he said. In a last-ditch effort to save his life, Travis Wright jumped through the flames and successfully reached the other side. Paul Ernest chose to stay and showed his wife Susie with his body. Travis said he could hear them scream when the fire roared by. When the flames passed, Travis Wright saw Paul and Susie's bodies smoking, and they were moaning in pain.
He told the Mercury News that he reached for Paul's hand and the skin slid off. He tried cooling them off with the ice packs they'd brought and promised to return with help. He remembers Susie Earnest repeating, "Please come back." Travis Wright returned an hour later with two firefighters on the back of his ATV. He told the Mercury News that they picked up and carried the couple gently, cradling them like babies.
72-year-old Paul Ernest passed away from his injuries nearly nine months later. He never left intensive care. Susie Ernest survived. Well, my son is... Wait a minute, I'm not there. Okay. My son is there and he's paralyzed. Okay, I'll pass it on to CHP, okay? Will they do that right away? I don't know that they will, ma'am. We have fire everywhere and multiple evacuations. We'll do the best we can.
While evacuating Paradise, many people were forced to abandon their cars and evacuate on foot. The asphalt was melting, tires were popping, some dove into the nearest bodies of water and waited hours for certain death to move on to the next town. Others sheltered in place, and not necessarily by choice.
For whatever reason, the federal mass notification system was not utilized. Many people hadn't opted in to the local one, and the cell phone towers were dropping like flies. So many people still asleep or whatever simply did not know what was happening. Others had no way to leave, even if they wanted to. Not everyone had immediate access to transportation, or they had a disability. This was the case with the Heffern family.
Christina Heffern was a 40-year-old agoraphobic. Her 20-year-old daughter, Ishka, was in a wheelchair. The grandmother, Matilda Heffern, 68, also used a wheelchair. She, too, lived in the house on Norwood Drive.
Christina Heffern called 911 as the campfire burned through their yard toward the house. The dispatcher talked them out onto the porch, but soon the porch was ablaze.
The Heffern family retreated back into the home. Christina stayed on the phone with 911 the whole time as the house filled with smoke. The phone call lasts 12 minutes.
The line eventually goes silent. The dispatcher hangs up and takes another call. The entire town of Paradise, California was destroyed in four hours. The fire burned for the next two weeks until the winter rains on November 25th, 2018 finally put it out.
It had burned for 17 days in total. More than 5,500 firefighters from the western United States responded in some capacity. More than 153,000 acres burned. Almost 19,000 structures were destroyed. Nearly 14,000 of them single-family homes. Schools, churches, the Safeway, the McDonald's. Not to mention hundreds of small businesses. Gone in a flash. More than $16 billion in damages.
Approximately 30,000 people lost their homes. They were housed in motel rooms, evacuation centers, and other shelters. Hundreds of people briefly lived in a tent city in a Walmart parking lot near Chico, where a stomach virus spread rapidly, hospitalizing 145 people. Some people have all the luck. Those who could return to their homes found a nasty surprise waiting for them: benzene in the drinking water.
Benzene was a cancer-causing industrial chemical that was present in the toxic fumes from the fire that had found its way into the water pipes. But out of all the possible outcomes, not the worst draw, because a lot of people perished in the campfire. How many exactly was still undetermined. It would take weeks to sift through the ashes. Support for Swindled comes from Simply Safe.
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We're looking for any sort of human remains, any sort of hazard that might prevent people from coming back in here. Well, you feel terrible for these people. It's been devastating for them. And I couldn't imagine coming back here if this was my home. Our hope is that we, if there are missing people, we can find them and bring some closure to people that need that. During the first week of the recovery mission, volunteers were discovering nearly 10 fatalities per day.
Many of the remains were unidentifiable, but you could almost tell their stories by the scene in which they were found. There were the hiders, like 88-year-old Julian Benstock. He was found in the shower with the remains of his rescue dog. There were the fate acceptors, like Cheryl and Larry Brown. The couple in their 70s were found seated in their recliners next to one another.
90-year-old Shirley Teeves was discovered clutching a framed photograph that was no longer recognizable. Another unnamed soul took his own life as the fire approached. There were the helpless. 96-year-old Ethel Riggs's power went out, and she couldn't reach the manual release to the garage door. TK Huff's remains were found 10 feet away from his wheelchair. There were grooves behind him from where he was dragging his body, an oxygen tank along the ground.
Then there were the runners, like 69-year-old David Young, who crashed his truck into a tree a mile and a half away from his house. He survived the crash but was swallowed by the fire, him, and two unidentifiable animals. 58-year-old Greg Woodcocks saw the fire coming and warned his ex-wife and neighbors. He arranged a caravan to follow him safely northbound on Edgewood Road. There were four cars behind Greg.
36-year-old Andrew Burt was driving one of them, a minivan. His dog was in the passenger seat next to him. 72-year-old Joy Porter was driving another. Her 49-year-old son was riding with her. 76-year-old Robert Duvall was driving a truck. His girlfriend, 64-year-old Beverly Powers, was driving another one.
Greg Woodcocks told SFGate that he was leading the caravan down the narrow road when he noticed in his rearview mirror that the group of cars was no longer behind him. There was no turning around. The fire was upon him. Greg Woodcocks said he abandoned his Jeep with his two Chihuahuas, Romy and Jules, still inside. Mr. Woodcocks told the news website that he followed a wild fox which led him to a stream of water.
Greg says he jumped in and submerged himself for 45 minutes and the fire burned over him. It sounded like a freight train, he said. When the coast was clear, Greg Woodcocks climbed out of the stream and back up to Edgewood Road. He found his Jeep partially melted and by a miracle, Romy and Jules were still alive. Greg then hiked up the road to check on the others. What he found was horrific. The car behind him had gotten stuck, trapping everyone else. Everyone in the caravan burned to death.
Greg Woodcocks documented the gruesome scene with his cell phone. Well, I'm going to show you what happened here. This poor soul right here got burned out. Literally burned. This is a body, people. A body. This is what fire does. A small dog. This is what happens.
I was not, but... Oh, my God. I'm feet away from here. This is where I jumped over the fence right there. This guy didn't make it. There's a bunch of dead bodies here. We got trapped. Oh. Oh. Now, this is the poor guy who came down to get my crippled friend out. And...
He didn't make it. Nobody made it down here. These people all got burned out. I was right down below them here and my friend, as the car's on fire, you can see he's dead and his mother. I'm sorry, buddy.
Greg Woodcocks, with the help of his nephew, posted that video online as a warning to the public about the dangers of fire.
Woodcock says it was worth sharing if it helped save one life. It was too late for his friends. 85 people died in the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest fire in California's history. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection arson investigators were also interested in saving future lives. There were always lessons to be learned.
So Cal Fire and the Butte County District Attorney's Office launched a joint investigation into the cause of the campfire and its immediate aftermath. Investigators headed for the transmission tower where the initial blaze was spotted, Tower 27222, part of the Caribou-Palermo transmission line owned and maintained by PG&E, if that wasn't evident from the company's helicopter buzzing around the scene earlier.
From the ground it was clear something on that transmission tower had broken. A detached high voltage power line was hanging down. That made contact with the steel structure, showering molten steel and aluminum onto the dry grass and brush below. This is Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. And that is what killed 84 Butte County citizens. This fell, sparking the conflagration that eventually destroyed a town
Upon further inspection, investigators determined that a broken cast iron suspension hook called a C-hook was the point of failure. That C-hook was determined to be the original C-hook used by the Great Western Power Company in the construction of the 56-mile Caribou-Palermo line back in 1920.
The 3-inch hook had been purchased for 56 cents back in 1919. It was manufactured by the Ohio Brass Company, which originally made metal harnesses for horse-drawn buggies. That C-hook, responsible for holding up the highly energized power line, had been in place for almost 100 years, swinging in the wind, grinding against the metal until it was 80% worn through and then snapped.
Investigators said the wear, called keyhole ink, was probably visible for the past 50 years and could have been replaced for less than $13. Similar wear was found on C-hooks and hanger holes on neighboring towers on the same line. The utility acted surprised.
PG&E had no information about the equipment. After acquiring the Great Western Power Company in 1930, PG&E never bothered to catalog or replace the original conductors, insulators, or attachment hardware on the Caribou-Palermo line, which runs through an extremely high-risk area. You have this type of wear, and from the experts that we had, some of these hooks were purchased in 1919.
And those hooks, good hooks for their day, but you don't leave them in the tower for nearly 100 years. Why was a 100-year-old C-hook allowed to remain in place for so long? Because PG&E did not regularly inspect those towers, at least not thoroughly. Investigators found that no one from the company had physically climbed the tower in over 17 years.
During those 17 years, PG&E's equipment had been blamed and fined millions of dollars for starting numerous wildfires. The 2007 Rock Fire, the 2015 Butte Fire, the North Bay fires just the year before. Investigators have already determined that PG&E's equipment played a role in starting 18 wildfires in 2017 that killed 22 people.
Even before then, the company knew there was a problem with the Caribou Palermo specifically. In 1987, PG&E engineers noticed worn hooks on the southern portion of the transmission system. Investigators also found evidence that someone had recently installed new hanger brackets on some of the towers to reinforce the obvious key-holing, but there was no documentation as to who or when.
However, there was documentation from a construction engineer in 2007 requesting $800,000 for preliminary engineering to replace aging infrastructure on the Caribou-Palermo line. The probability of that failure is imminent due to the age of both the towers and the conductor, the engineer warned. The project was approved for a fraction of the requested budget before it was canceled altogether.
In its own presentations, PG&E acknowledged that the mean life expectancy of its transmission towers was only 65 years. It was widely known that the Caribou Palermo was almost 100 years old and even considered a historic state landmark at one point.
PG&E knew that equipment failure starting fires was the company's number one risk. And it knew that the state of California was in a historic drought thanks to PG&E's own in-house meteorological department and ability to look out the window. But the company couldn't be bothered to climb the towers and inspect the equipment. Why? It was too expensive. Too time consuming. Instead, PG&E opted for aerial inspections from a helicopter once every five years.
this all but guaranteed problems would not be detected that was probably by design pg e had implemented a run to failure policy on its electrical equipment which is precisely what it sounds like instead of ramping up inspections and maintenance on aging infrastructure as common sense dictates pg e just beat it into submission one of the analogies that we saw it was not unlike someone buying a car
a used car, not taking it to a mechanic, not checking it's how well it's run, and then running it into the ground, not changing the oil, not maintaining it whatsoever. From the district attorney's conclusion in the report, quote, this is, in essence, what PG&E did.
PG&E bought a used transmission line in 1930. PG&E knew next to nothing about the transmission line and made no attempt to learn about the line. PG&E ran the line for 88 years with minimal maintenance and repair, but for the Camp Fire, PG&E would have continued using the line with minimal maintenance and repair.
Now, there have been budget money set aside for replacing deteriorating equipment, but PG&E reportedly used it as a bucket of money for whatever projects it wanted. In recent years, the company had focused more on renewable energies, wind and solar, and its natural gas system for reasons for which we are familiar. So who do you blame?
I mean PG&E obviously, but what is PG&E other than a group of different people making decisions over the course of decades with no thought given to a catastrophic future? It was a systemic failure and it was rooted deep. Pacific Gas and Electric serves 16 million customers from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, 40% of California's population, 1 in 20 Americans.
It is an investor-owned utility company and a regulated monopoly. Since 1905, the company has gobbled up all of its regional competition to the point where anyone living in their service area has no other choice
Knowing this, PG&E is committed to maximizing shareholder value instead of reinvesting profits to benefit the public good. Cost cutting is rewarded. There's no shareholder incentive to increase inspections and pay for repairs. It's the logical conclusion of laissez-faire economics where even the most basic of services such as flipping on a light switch are beholden to exponential growth.
In May 2019, the Butte County DA's office released a summary of its investigation. It named Pacific Gas and Electric responsible for the fire and convened a grand jury for criminal charges. The California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory authority that presides over PG&E, followed with the results of its own investigation, which corroborated previous reports. In early 2020, the CPUC decided to fine PG&E $200 million
PG&E argued that the fine was too large on top of the potentially billions of dollars in civil settlements that loomed and declared bankruptcy. The CPUC then decided to permanently suspend the fine and renew PG&E's safety license.
Later, the commission issued a press release saying it had penalized the utility almost $2 billion. The truth is that most of that fine would be used to repair PG&E's equipment, which it should have been doing since day one. The company was essentially forced to reinvest in itself and fix stuff they broke, only it would be covered by the shareholders, which, again, is probably you.
In the wake of the Camp Fire, as PG&E and its victims waited for bankruptcy and criminal proceedings to move forward, the Caribou-Palermo line was removed from service permanently, and the company initiated thorough inspections on the rest of its power grid. Those inspections flagged 250,000 repairs that had not been previously identified. PG&E rushed to make the repairs before the next wildfire season, cramming decades worth of work into months.
I am here today for one reason and one reason only, and that is to help fight and ensure that Pacific Gas and Electric is held responsible to these fire victims and accountable to them in making them whole and helping them to rebuild their lives. As we know, PG&E has filed intent for bankruptcy. I'm here today to ask our governor
and our legislator to keep Pacific Gas and Electric accountable to these victims. We should all be beyond frustrated. Every one of us should be good and mad. And it is time for the state to get to work. That's Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist and whistleblower whose legal battle with Pacific Gas and Electric in 1993 was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie.
She began speaking out against the company's latest plan for its latest bankruptcy. Brockovich warned the victims that if PG&E filed for Chapter 11, they would not be paid what they deserved. That remained to be seen, but PG&E claimed they had no choice. In April 2019, the company replaced its CEO with energy veteran Bill Johnson to see the process through.
There were calls from the public for the state of California to take over PG&E. The state's new governor, Gavin Newsom, even threatened to do so at one point as the company failed to progress, but instead to speed up the process, Governor Newsom inserted his office into the bankruptcy proceedings and acted as a broker. The result was a new state law, Assembly Bill 1054, passed in July 2019.
The new bill, also known as the California Wildfire Fund, is exactly that: a multi-billion dollar state-run fund funded by the utilities for wildfire expenses.
No, not for prevention and maintenance expenses, but for penalties and settlements. AB 1054 was a fund to pay for the future liabilities of utilities blamed for the fires. It was a total bailout for the corporations, a thumbs up to Wall Street that the company's future was bright.
Governor Newsom knew that. Reportedly, the law firm privately representing the governor was paid $10 million taxpayer dollars to write the bill. Funny enough, that same law firm had spent the previous two decades working for PG&E. That legislative effort was an extraordinary one because it brought this legislation
legislature, both in the Senate and the Assembly together, with experts that we hired from O'Melveny and Guggenheim and others to consult. And we were able to lay out a strategy in detail of what was needed
in order to not only get bankruptcy, or rather PG&E bankruptcy, but also to make sure we secure the fate of the other investor-owned utilities in Southern California whose fate is connected to the fate of PG&E. We wanted to save those utilities from falling into bankruptcy as well. It's also important to note that PG&E donated $208,000 to Gavin Newsom's campaign for governor, which he had won three days before the campfire.
ABC 10's Brandon Ritteman, who produced a fantastic series about PG&E called Firepower Money, confronted Governor Newsom about these donations on multiple occasions.
How can you assure those people, including the fire victims, that your office can act neutrally considering that PG&E donated more than $208,000 to help you get elected? I know this is a mantra and I don't know how many times I've answered this question. I would encourage you to go back to all my previous answers. If the suggestion is somehow I'm influenced by that, you're wrong.
If PG&E wanted to be eligible to be one of the first companies to dip into that wildfire fund, part of the deal is that the company would have to exit bankruptcy about one year after AB 1054 was signed into law. In the meantime, the company's equipment started another fire. October 2019, the Kincaid fire. Nobody died, but the investigation revealed that it was caused by a loose PG&E energized line that had been twisting in the wind near a shuttered geothermal plant for almost two decades.
As potential new charges piled up, the company was finally indicted on criminal charges for the 2018 Camp Fire, 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, and one felony count of reckless behavior for starting the fire. PG&E agreed to plead guilty to all 85 charges. In June 2020, CEO Bill Johnson showed up to court to do the honors. It can never be said too many times
We accept responsibility for our role in the Camp Fire and all 23,000 employees are committed to making sure our equipment never again causes a catastrophe like this. On behalf of everyone at PG&E, I'm truly sorry for the terrible loss of life and the physical and emotional damage resulting from the fire. I recognize that no apology, no plea, no sentencing can undo that damage.
At that hearing, the family and friends of victims were given the opportunity to speak about their lost loved ones.
One by one, they recounted the pain caused by a corporation on a crime spree. Many of the speakers used the opportunity to criticize PG&E publicly. It disgusts me that PG&E can pay millions of dollars in executive bonuses and not pay $13 for a new C-hook. My brother Andrew Downer paid the ultimate price because PG&E, a convicted felon, just did not give a damn. This has left an indelible emotional scar that haunts my dreams.
My heart breaks thinking of how Herb must have been terrified as he watched the flames creep ever closer with no hope of escape. It was not a corporation that made the decision over and over and over again. Those decisions were made by people. People focused on profits. How many more lives will we let them take? How many more communities will we let them destroy?
PG&E must be held accountable for the crimes they've committed. I would go on to tell PG&E, you murdered my dad. And I don't know how he died. I'll never know whether it was asphyxiation as the fire sucked the oxygen out of his house, smoke inhalation, or a heart attack from burning to death. He might have heard his dog whimpering and howling. And you did that to 85 people.
I would go on to tell PG&E, and what's even more galling is that you will retain your bonuses, and through my PG&E bills, I will be paying your bonuses, your fines, your shareholders' dividends, and your settlements. I'm sorry, bro. Nothing upsets me more when money is more important than life.
Without people, money doesn't exist. The following day, June 16, 2020, PG&E CEO Bill Johnson pleaded guilty to each manslaughter count as the judge read off every victim's name. Guilty, Your Honor. Mr. Johnson replied after each count, 84 times and 30 minutes. Guilty, Your Honor.
And for its crimes, Pacific Gas and Electric was sentenced to a $3.5 million fine, a penalty so minor it was recouped in less time than it took Bill Johnson's to fly privately back to company headquarters in San Francisco. 90 years in prison is what the average person would have faced.
Four days later, PG&E's bankruptcy was approved. The company exited bankruptcy with more debt than when it initially sought bankruptcy. The reorganization plan included a total of $25.5 billion for victims' claims. $11 billion of that $25.5 billion would go to insurance companies and investment funds, cash.
Another $1 billion cash would be given to state and local governments, leaving $13.5 billion for the victims of the 2018 Camp Fire, the 2017 North Bay Fires and Tubbs Fire, the 2016 Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire, and the 2015 Butte Fire. However, the $13.5 billion Fire Victim Trust, as it was named, was funded half in cash and half in shares of PG&E.
This meant that the settlements of 70,000 fire victims were now tied to the stock price of the company that harmed them, and they would financially bear the risk of any future wildfires the company ignites. The actual fire victims were the only creditor compensated in this way. The insurance companies and governments received cash. This is PG&E's former CFO, Jason Wells.
This bankruptcy tethers the victim's financial futures to the performance of the company. Do you agree with that statement?
Even worse, the value of the shares in the Fire Victim Trust would only be worth $6.75 billion eventually if PG&E's share price reached $14 per share. At the time of the bankruptcy plan, the shares were only worth $6.75 each because of all the recent catastrophes and liabilities, meaning there was a massive shortfall from day one. It could take years for the victims to be fully compensated.
Would PG&E be able to stop committing crimes long enough for its stock price to reach that target? Not anytime soon. Yeah, it was not easy. They were just enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon, chasing lizards around, having fun. You know, I don't know how they noticed the fire was coming, smoke, flames. But anyone with a shred of empathy, put yourself in their position. What they went through that day. Fire is...
It's tough. A little eight-year-old girl and my daughter, our daughter, my wife, running for their lives, literally, down a pretty hard road to drive in good conditions, you know. So what I say to Be Genie and anyone who is capable of making changes, if you have a family or if you have some empathy, put yourself in their shoes. Think about their last moments, what they went through.
Really think about it. Thank you. That's Zach McLeod. He was on a grocery run when the September 27, 2020 Zog Fire burned down his home in Shasta County. His wife Elena and 8-year-old daughter Fela were at home but managed to escape with their three dogs and a neighbor's big Ford diesel truck.
Sadly, Elena lost control of the unfamiliar vehicle on a challenging road. Mother, daughter, and dog survived the crash but did not survive the rapidly approaching fire. An investigation revealed that a tree fell onto a PG&E power line, a 100-foot tall leaning tree that was marked for removal two years earlier that PG&E ignored.
This is Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridget. We have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company is criminally liable for their reckless ignition of the Zogg fire and the deaths and destruction that it caused. PG&E was charged with 20 misdemeanor counts and 11 felonies, including four manslaughter charges.
This time, PG&E would plead not guilty. Let's be clear. My co-workers are not criminals. Between October 2018 and last year's Zog fire, two trained arborists walked this line and, independent of one another, determined the tree in question could stay. That's PG&E's fifth CEO in 20 years, Patty Poppe.
In a statement, she said the company welcomed their day in court. Though it may feel satisfying for the company of PG&E to be charged with the crime, what I know is the company of PG&E is people, 40,000 people who get up every day to make it safe and to end catastrophic wildfire and tragedies like this.
A day before pleading not guilty to the manslaughter charges, Patti Poppi released a highly produced music video on the company's internal network for Valentine's Day. The video featured PG&E executives, including herself, lip syncing and dancing to Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together." Ultimately, there would be no trial for the Zog fire.
PG&E settled the case out of court for $50 million, promising to prevent it from ever happening again. Justin, PG&E says its equipment may be linked to the start of the Dixie Fire burning in the Sierra Nevada. On July 13, 2021, the Dixie Fire started when a tree fell on a PG&E power line just a short distance from where the campfire ignited. It was
It was a massive blaze, burning almost 1 million acres, but not as deadly. The one death was a firefighter. PG&E settled claims related to the Dixie Fire and the 2019 Kincade Fire in April 2022 for $55 million.
Soon after, CEO Patty Poppe announced a $20 billion 10-year plan to bury 10,000 miles of electrical lines underground. The company has also been relying on public safety power shutoffs in recent years when the fire threat is elevated. It seems the cost of litigation has finally outweighed the cost of repairs. In January 2022, PG&E's five-year federal probation for the San Bruno explosion expired.
In these five years, PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California. U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote, We have tried hard to rehabilitate PG&E. As the supervising district judge, however, I must acknowledge failure.
Do you agree? Fire crews are still trying to figure out the cause of the Mosquito Fire. It burned across Placer and El Dorado counties to refresh your memory, and it's already costing PG&E millions of dollars. Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, a.k.a. Deformer, a.k.a. Nervous Tom.
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Hi, this is Melissa from Richmond, Virginia. And if you hear a meow, that's my cat tater. It was not your imagination. My name is Erica from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hi, my name is Kalia from Melbourne. I'm a confirmed citizen and a valued listener. And now I know that I can't trust anybody except ACC. Thank you.
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