Phase 2 of the debris cleanup caused by Los Angeles County’s massive wildfires began on Tuesday, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Eric Swenson, tasked with overseeing it all, has been waiting for this day.
For Swenson, it follows weeks of trust-building in the Palisades and Eaton fire burn areas. Telling people whose dreams, memories and things have gone up in smoke that federal crews are going to come on to their property and clean it all up is not an easy thing. And then there’s just coordinating the whole thing – right of entry, securing the 12,000-plus properties to clean.
And he has to do it with some speed and efficiency in an era of tight timelines and residents eager to rebuild.
As he puts it, the clean-up has to move “at the speed of trust.”
Swenson, tall and always donning the ubiquitous camouflage uniform, has been at the front end of that message. At numerous community town halls and events, you might likely have seen him — explaining how his teams will clean up what’s left at private properties (after the EPA cleans up hazardous materials in the Phase 1 cleanup) get it to a collection site, to make properties ready for whatever the future holds for thousands of homeowners.
It means working with local officials, anxious to reconstruct their fire-ravages communities. It means securing collecting sites, contractors and the trucking routes for hauling the debris in what officials say is the largest wildfire clean up ever in the nation, given the sheer size of homes involved.
But there’s a certain tact to it. Not too heavy handed. A knack for talking to people living in their worst moments.
At a recent town hall at Pasadena City College, he even got a round of applause after his presentation to hundreds of people who’d lost their homes. And he stayed long after the event to take on one-on-one questions.
Swenson, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has seen destruction and its impact on people before.
And he’s seen the aftermath of fires.
He helped complete the clean-up of the 2023 Lahaina fire in Maui, Hawaii.
According to his bio, he assumed command of the Corps’ St. Paul District in July of 2022, becoming the district’s 67th commander and district engineer.
The St. Paul District employs around 700 people that work at more than 40 sites in five upper-Midwest states. The district serves in areas such as navigation, flood risk management, environmental enhancement, water and wetlands regulation, recreation sites and disaster response.
When a disaster of the magnitude of Eaton and Palisades happens, he’s the guy who gets the call.
When he’s done, his goal: He wants to make sure that “When I’m done, it’s done right.”
We caught up with him at a recent town hall.
Q: What’s been the biggest challenge so far?
A: It sounds shallow, if I say L.A. traffic, but I do think that will be a challenge for us when we start to do Phase 2 debris removal.
Because all of this fire ash and debris, the green waste, the concrete … all of that has to get out of these neighborhoods and to a proper disposal location. Which means we’re gonna be on the roads. That is going to be a challenge.
The other challenge,… is just being here, every fire, it’s emotional.
I’ve never experienced a fire myself but I’ve walked with hundreds, thousands of people who have lost their home to fire. I’m honored to be here, but the scope and scale of this devastation is enourmrous. And so I know there are thousands of people who are really hurting. I feel their energy. I wanna just give them a hug and tell them it’s gonna be alright. and walk with them on this journey.
One of the things I’m a big believer in, is moving at the speed of trust. I want to build that rapore with the commyunity. When we trust each other, we’re gonna go fast. It’s distrust that is what causes barriers, and we don’t work as well together.
I want people to know we’re here to help. We’re here to walk with them.
I treat every survivor here as a partner. Not as a client. Not as a customer. Those are transactional relationships. This is not transitional. These people have suffered the greatest tragedy of their life. They need a partner to help them get to the finish line. I want to be that partner.
Q: How does what you’re seeing in L.A. County compare to your past experience in Maui, and others?
A: I wasn’t here for Woolsey. But compared to Maui it’s 10 times as big. The suffering is the same. The suffering that individuals feel is the same. The emotional that people feel is the same. But the size of this one is just far greater
We’re talking 12,000-ish people lost their homes. And these urban fires are really challenging because they take whole neighborhoods with them.
It’s terrible if it’s a house fire, and the neighborhood comes and rallies a person who lost their house. But when you have an urban fire like this, which takes out an entire neighborhood, it really strains the community, and the community connections that were once there, because everyone is displaced, and living in hotels and different living combinations, and it really undermines the sense of community people used to have.
Q: Do you have a deeper perspective on that now?
A: This is my second fire. First one was Maui. I’ve been in the Army a while, and I’ve seen a lot of disasters — a lot of communities that are struggling. But fires are particularly the worst of the worst in terms of natural disasters. Because everything that you hold dear turns into ash. And that is really said.
Q: Where do you get your energy and stamina?
A: I have good friends and I am an extravert. I draw strength from helping other people. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s what keeps me up late and night, knowing that we’re here to make a a difference in someone’s life who needs it. Because they are at the worst of their life.
Q: Are you living in the area?
A: I’m like the flyaway team. I live in Minnesota. I’m the district commander of the St. Paul District of the Corps of Engineers.
When there is a natural disaster of this size, the Corps of Engineers, when they are called, they form a pick-up team, which is really like an all-star team. So we take experts in fire debris operations from around our organizations, which is about 40,000 employees, mostly Army civilian employees.
We go out and we take our best and assemble them at the location, and we build a team around them and we take that team to provide the resources to the community, and then the pick someone to be in charge of it. And they pick me to be in charge of it.
Q: How big is your team in L.A. these days?
A: It’ll grow to a size of maybe 200. As soon we start getting into Phase 2, and the number of crews increase, my staff will increase.