A Reed College alumnus who built his career inside the electric power industry warns that the catastrophic Eaton Fire in Los Angeles last year should be treated as a warning shot for Portland – and this region is not moving fast enough to prepare.
Speaking in Reed College’s Vollum College Center to about 100 guests, Eastmoreland resident, economist, and former Portland General Electric executive Robert McCullough used the 2024 Eaton Fire – which swept through the Altadena area of the Los Angeles metro – as a “case study in institutional failure”.
The blaze killed at least 17 people, turned cars into pools molten metal, and destroyed more than 9,000 structures, mostly homes – despite Southern California Edison’s (SCE) prepared 900‑page “wildfire mitigation plan”, and what he called “the most sophisticated wildfire planning exercise in the world”…