ELIZABETH COOK:
00:00:34
The pickleball courts where Joy Chen used to play at Altadena's Town and Country Club might otherwise not be noteworthy, given that some 9,000 structures were destroyed by the Eaton Fire here. The fire jumped over the pickleball courts and burned the clubhouse.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:00:51
But pickleball is at the root of how residents in fire-ridden Altadena came together and are pushing to rebuild a beloved community. It started this way. I happened to be the admin of the pickleball WhatsApp at the Altadena Country Club, and that's what turned into the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:01:12
In other words, she had names, phone numbers, and emails of some 50 pickleball players at the critical moment on January 7. Somebody texted into our pickleball WhatsApp and said, there's a fire on the mountain. And immediately, our pickleball WhatsApp transformed into our emergency evacuation network.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:01:33
Altadena is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. And what we've learned from a report in September, the official evacuation notification system didn't work well, but then the pickleball WhatsApp was instantly important. We started saying, OK, the fire's here, the fire's there. Call Jean. Fire's getting close to Jean's house. Get Jean out. So it was just like that all through the evening. And so we all ended up evacuating on that Tuesday night because of the WhatsApp. So at the end of the day, 18 people died in the fire, but none of us did. That WhatsApp pickleball group saved lives. Pickleball Whatsapp, yes.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:02:15
And when days turned into weeks, displaced homeowners, people who never played pickleball jumped on the pickleball WhatsApp. And so we started trading notes on what was happening at different shelters, what FEMA was doing for us, how to get access to emergency resources. So now we're a community of 5,000, by, for, and led by survivors.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:02:39
In fact, they overloaded the app, so the Eaton Fire Survivors Network migrated to the Discord servers. That allowed them to prioritize their needs. See that we have all these different channels-- banking, mortgage, debris removal.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:02:54
It should also be noted that Joy Chen is a woman with a resume, with know-how, a pickleball player at the right place at a tragic time. And you're so uniquely qualified to serve this role because you're not only a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles. You understand the bureaucracy. You understand local governments. But you're also a best-selling author who wrote books about leadership that include media training and being a good communicator. It is kind of funny, isn't it, that I took on the job of pickleball admin and then everything else came along. In Chinese, we have a saying called "yuanfen." It means serendipity.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:03:35
That serendipity, if it is just that, has also been noticed by elected officials. Jeff Prang is the LA County assessor. She's probably one of the leading voices in fire relief coming from the community. I don't know how they would do it without her. She's a force of nature.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:03:52
Much of that force came about because Joy Chen says Discord users kept tabs on insurers. Whether a family was on the road to recovery or was sinking further into trauma seemed to come down primarily to one question, which insurance company they were with.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:04:12
Her Discord website showed some insurers were less responsive than others. According to claimants, State Farm topped her list on the survivors' website, a pattern in both the Eaton Fire and in LA's other fire in the Palisades. According to a formal study from October of 2025 by the Department of Angels nonprofit found 54% of State Farm customers reported negative experiences, compared to 73% positive experiences with USAA. In a statement, State Farm said they have paid out over $5 billion to help victims recover, and "nearly 200 State Farm team members are on the ground working with customers in Los Angeles." They went on to say "insurance claims can be complex, especially after disasters. We are committed to clear communication, listening to our customer needs, and addressing concerns promptly." Thank you for being here.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:05:11
The Eaton Fire Survivors Network has also taken issue with California's insurance commissioner when he was considering an emergency request by State Farm to increase rates for homeowners. I actually want to see these complaints myself. Can you please do that before approving the rate hike?
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:05:30
Since that meeting on Zoom in May, the insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, who has refused our request for an interview, started an investigation to State Farm's wildfire claims and in December of this year said in a statement to CBS News, in part, "Insurance companies finally must guarantee they will write more policies in wildfire distressed areas. This is a huge turnaround and a big win for consumers." The insurance commissioner has launched an official investigation, primarily State Farm. Which we forced him to launch. Because of the pressure that your groups and others have put on them. That was huge.
ELIZABETH COOK:
00:06:10
But still, at the end of 2025, the frustration Eaton Fire survivors has not abated. In their October survey, the Department of Angels nonprofit found nine months after the fires, 70% of displaced families still can't go home. As for Joy Chen, she would like nothing better to be back playing pickleball. But for now, these courts serve as a reminder of something bigger than a single sport. For CBS Saturday Morning, I'm Elizabeth Cook in Altadena, California. Liz did such a nice job describing the impact at that infrastructure level, but she was also sharing with us that Joy actually went sometimes to the insurance companies, had meetings, called on the phone. It's just such an impact on a personal level for people who are struggling with something that feels overwhelming. Right, because she knows how to navigate the bureaucracy not only of the recovery, the first responder efforts, but also the aftermath, the insurance claims that people are trying to make. And she's written books about leadership, and she is a part of this speaker conference that she runs where she talks about leadership. So she's incredibly impressive and that helped a lot of people after those fires.
