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Center for Plumbing Safety

The REBUILD Survey: Overview, household experiences, needs, and perceptions

September 20, 2025 from 9:00 to 10:00 am PST

 

Lessons learned from the 2025 Los Angeles (L.A.) Fires REBUILD Survey in response to the Eaton Fire and Palisades Fire in California. This study was carried-out to investigate the experiences, attitudes, and needs of more than 1,000 households impacted by these disasters. More than 18,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, but thousands more as well as public spaces were physically and chemically impacted.

The survey was called the Recovery Efforts by Uniting Individuals, Listening, and Discovery (REBUILD) study. The survey included questions about evacuation experiences, health impacts, insurance, property damage, testing, and remediation, opinions about organizations and rebuilding actions, among other topics. The research plan was reviewed by the Human Subjects in Research Ethics Boards at our universities (Purdue University protocol IRB-2025-387).

The webinar will feature an overview of initial survey results with recommendations from a multi-university rapid response team. The team was funded by the R&S Kayne Foundation as part of the Community Action Project Los Angeles (CAP-LA) effort. Additional financial support was provided from the teams' institutions. Register to join us for the brief presentations, panel discussion, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this material are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding organizations. Work is also ongoing. The final report is here.

Speakers

  • Nicole Macalla, Ph.D., Director of Data Science and Educational Outreach, Eaton Fire Residents United
  • Reza Akef, Executive Board Member of Pali Strong, Principal of Metro Capital Builders, Inc.
  • Cristiane Grossi Ferrarezzi, PhD student in the School of Sustainability Eng. and Environmental Eng., Purdue University
  • Lauryn Spearing, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Eng., Tufts University
  • Joseph Toland, PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Eng., Tufts University

Moderator: Andrew J. Whelton, Ph.D., Professor of Civil and Construction Eng. and Sustainability Eng. and Environmental Eng., Purdue University 

Contact Details

Andrew Whelton, awhelton@purdue.edu

Video presentation posted here. Powerpoint presentation PDF file posted here. Final report is here.