Tahoe Mountain News -- Angora profile

This is the unedited version of what appeared in the July Tahoe Mountain News:


Editor’s note: The Tahoe Mountain News intends to follow John Mauriello through the months and potentially years it will take for him to recover from the Angora Fire. His story mirrors that of many in this community whom are just now beginning life after Angora. This is intended to give readers a glimpse into what our neighbors are going through.

By Kathryn Reed

“As I left I had my kitchen light on. The electricity went out. They cut it or a transformer blew. I went in and turned it off thinking why waste electricity when it comes back on.”
That was the last time John Mauriello saw his home at 1440 Mount Olympia Circle.
His is one of the 254 houses reduced to rubble in the Angora Fire. Like many in the area, he left with little and returned to nothing.
“I miss everything,” he said without hesitation more than two weeks after the June 24 firestorm erupted. “I picked up the sound board on my piano and started crying. I had wanted a grand piano all my life and bought one four years ago.”
The sound board has that classic shape of a grand piano. Covered in ash, it lay in ruin and unrecognizable to the uniformed witness. Next to it is a rather intact woodstove and chimney. Yellow hazard tape cordons off the unstable mason structure.
It’s the second week of July. Mauriello’s street is abuzz with telephone crews hooking up wires. Construction workers dig up an asphalt driveway around the bend. Fire trucks from the U.S. Forest Service and Lake Valley cruise by. Trucks are in front of existing houses to clean smoke from ducts and carpets. A neighbor down the street, whose house is standing, offers Mauriello friendship and whatever else he may need.
“Now I have to be dependent on others. That’s killing me,” Mauriello said. He’s tired of apologizing. He’s just plain tired.
“I miss my life, the life I had. It is totally turned upside down,” he said.
It’s like a full-time job to sort through the paperwork and plans for the future. Each day brings a new set of questions with answers he’s not ready or is unable to give. Tedious things like going to the DMV to get a copy of the registration for the burned out vehicle that was in glove compartment all take time.
While surveying the wreckage – something Mauriello does almost daily – his neighbor Alex Bebout came by with Steven Solomon of The Greenspan Co. out of Sacramento. Solomon is a public adjuster – someone who works on behalf of the consumer when it comes to negotiating settlements with insurance companies.
This is the first Mauriello has heard of such a service. He said he doesn’t feel like vultures are coming in for the kill despite the brother tandem of James and Michael Feller from Policyholders Adjusting Services lingering at the foot of the driveway. More public adjusters.
He takes all of their cards. He’s polite. He says it’s OK for them to call some other time.

Life before June 24

The 68-year-old Mauriello moved to Lake Tahoe with his four cats three years and one week before the fire hit.
His 1,720-square-foot two-story modified A-frame had four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-car garage. The bachelor had filled it with a mix of old and new things. As an accomplished chef his kitchen was full of All-Clad stainless steel cookware. A full pantry was at the ready to whip something up for guests.
It cost him $900 to move a dining room set his aunt had in New Jersey – more than it probably was worth. But it was a table he had eaten at as a kid – having grown up in Brooklyn.
It’s gone.
So is the flat screen TV that sat on the table and the two other televisions in the house.
“This is stuff I accumulated and had a place to put it all. And I bought new stuff because I knew this would be my last house,” the retiree said. “I was totally wrong on that part.”
A bit of sarcasm is used as a defense mechanism. His matter of fact speech is interrupted by tears welling up. Sometimes his voice cracks. His voice inflection and demeanor reflect the roller coaster of emotions he continues to ride.
But he’s staying in Tahoe. He’s going to rebuild. This is home.
Mauriello moved here from Studio City. The live theater he’d been doing for years no longer held his interest. His search for a place to retire led him to the Lake.
“It was a dream that came true that became a nightmare,” he said of finding his home and Lake Tahoe. Of the three houses he thought about buying all are gone.
“I used to say I can’t believe I have this out my window seeing the forest land. It was a paradise. Where the fire started (at Seneca Pond) was a two-hour hike every day after I finished my coffee.”

Time to evacuate

Mauriello was grabbing a bite to eat when he noticed something wasn’t right.
“The sunlight was like a reddish hue,” he said. At first he thought the emergency equipment he heard was for a car accident. Then he saw the fire, dialed 911 and was told crews were coming.
Something told him to put the pet carriers in the living room.
Thinking everything was under control, he finished lunch.
Then he went back outside. This time he instinctively knew to hose down his roof.
“Everything was happening so fast. A car with a red light was going house to house. I go out there and he says, ‘You’ve got to evacuate’,” Mauriello said. “I was still being nonchalant. Maybe it was denial. I said, ‘OK, five-10 minutes.’ He said, ‘No, you need to leave now.’”
Mauriello scrambled to round up the four cats. Three pictures – one of his aunt, mom, dad and brother; one of a dog he had when he was a kid; and one of his mom in Las Vegas before she died – are the keepsakes he has left.
The folder marked insurance is all the paperwork he has.
He had to make a decision about which vehicle to take – the rare BMW M3 or the Chevy Blazer.
“I said I’m going to be here this winter. Take the Blazer just in case,” he said.
The Beemer is a total loss. No longer rare – it looks like all the other heaps of vehicle carcasses littering the burn area.
Officials directed evacuees to North Upper Truckee Road instead of Lake Tahoe Boulevard. It took Mauriello 30 minutes to reach his friend’s place on Gardner Mountain.
“When I left, the lot across the street, the Forest Service land was burning. The Forest Service land on my side was starting to burn. As I was pulling out I saw trees going up in flames,” Mauriello said.
In less than an hour he was being evacuated again because his friend lives near South Tahoe High School. The next week and a half was spent at a friend’s in Tahoe Keys. Then it was back to the Gardner Mountain house for a spell.
His insurance company – The Hartford through AARP – found a place on Lodi Avenue that would take him and his pets. He saw the inside on July 10 and wasn’t sure he wanted to sign the dotted line.
Tahoe Mountain News Publisher Taylor Flynn showed Mauriello his vacant rental in town. Though Mauriello is now a tenant of Flynn’s, Mauriello was chosen as the fire victim to profile before this transaction occurred.

Life after the fire

Mauriello was at the Red Cross shelter at the rec center on June 25 getting “a shopping bag of someone else’s clothes.” That’s when a neighbor told him about his house and vehicle.
“When I found out, I knew my life was not over, but it will be changed forever,” he said. It wasn’t until June 29 that he and a friend laid eyes on what remains.
CNN interviewed him at the Red Cross center. He doesn’t know if he made the airwaves.
In passing days he acquired more clothing from the Baptist church and at other locations. At Noah’s Wish he was given supplies for the felines.
Red Cross gave him a $249 card to shop at Ross. The card wasn’t working. People in line were getting agitated, as was he.
“I was getting embarrassed. I was losing my dignity. It was so humiliating. A woman out of nowhere said put it on my card. She gave me a hug and I started crying like a baby,” Mauriello said of the experience, which he later learned was partly his doing by not using the correct numbers.
He liked that Lake Tahoe Community College was essentially a one-stop warehouse of information. He talked to folks about a federal loan, to the tax assessor’s office and others.
A drive to Wells Fargo Bank confirmed he still has to pay his mortgage despite no structure existing.
His mail is being delivered to the main post office until he decides if he wants a box or to get mail at his new residence.
Calling South Tahoe Refuse is on his to-do list to see if he must still pay that bill.
He was told he doesn’t have to pay South Tahoe Public Utility District for now.
He’s not sure what will happen with the two-year contract he had signed with Direct TV.
“I have to cancel some credit cards even though I know they are melted. I can’t do that until I get the monthly statement,” Mauriello said.
At a community meeting the first week of July he learned the state is doing cleanup work in the residential area. His insurance company will cover the $15,000 expense. The state picks up where insurance companies leave off.
Mauriello knows this is one document he’ll need to sign sooner rather than later. He says it’s possible to have everything cleaned up in a month.
“They are also going to test the soil for toxics,” he said. “Tree removal on my land is my responsibility. You have to make a lot of decisions when quite frankly you’re not psychologically able, but you do.”
Mauriello likes his insurance adjuster. Likes that he went to the meeting the county orchestrated. But he’s wary. As of press time he had not signed any documents regarding his Olympia Circle plot.
He has praise for the county. Feelings toward TRPA swing the other directions.
“Their silence is deafening,” Mauriello said. He intended to build a drainage basin for his driveway the week after the fire started so his best management practices would be complete. That, too, will be another process to start over.
He carries the key to his front door still.
“I’ll do something with it when I get into my new place,” Mauriello said.
On his old to-do list was to set up an appointment to have fire officials tell him how to make his yard fire safe. His neighbor across the street had done it. That yard is also a pile of ashes and debris.
The insurance adjuster set him up with a builder. A preliminary conversation centered on what could be recreated and what could be changed about the old dwelling. That will be an ongoing conversation.
“It’s more than the house. That’s just the beginning. What you go through after that …,” Mauriello’s voice trails off. All he can do is look is look at what was and hope for what will be.