Skip navigation
Center for Plumbing Safety

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

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

 

Join us and learn about the 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 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.

Register here for the Zoom webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. Persons not able to watch the webinar live can review the recorded event at the location mentioned below.

The webinar will explain study discoveries and lessons learned. In partnership property owners, swimming pools were visited, inspected, and sampled. The team, led by Purdue University Professor Andrew Whelton, will share the study justification, the methods applied, initial results, and recommendations.

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.

Speakers

  • Andrew J. Whelton, Ph.D., Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering and Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering, and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University 
  • Cristiane Grossi Ferrarezzi, PhD student in School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering, Purdue University
  • Lauryn Spearing, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University
  • Brianne Gilbert, Director of StudyLA, Loyola Marymount University, California
  • TBD

Contact Details

Andrew Whelton, awhelton@purdue.edu

Video recording to be posted at www.PlumbingSafety.org