Venturing Inside L.A.'s Toxic Homes
Normally, Blacki Migliozzi, a Graphics editor for The New York Times, spends his workdays in front of a computer screen, working on a spreadsheet. But for the past few months, he has donned a full-face respirator, nitrile gloves and a full-body protective suit to report from inside carcinogen-contaminated homes in Los Angeles.
'It's definitely different from the work I normally do as a data journalist,' said Mr. Migliozzi, who is based in New York, where he produces data-driven articles and interactive visualizations.
Along with Rukmini Callimachi, a Real Estate reporter who covers housing, and K.K. Rebecca Lai, a Graphics editor, Mr. Migliozzi spent about five months working on a visual investigation into the toxins left behind in homes that were thought to have been spared from the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, which killed at least 30 people and destroyed about 16,000 structures in January. The idea stemmed from a meeting he had with his editor on the Graphics desk, Monica Ulmanu, in late January, when they discussed looking into smoke damage from the fires.
Mr. Migliozzi suited up to shadow industrial hygienists and interview residents inside dozens of homes where toxins lurked in the walls, the furniture and the air. In all, he spent 100 hours inside toxic homes. Along with Ms. Callimachi, he also examined dozens of toxicology studies and interviewed residents about the challenges they were experiencing with their insurance companies.
A majority of people who responded to a Times questionnaire, and whose houses were still standing, said their insurance companies had declined to pay to test for toxic substances — or, if they did, they checked for only a few harmful substances and omitted dozens of others that researchers say can cause negative health effects in the long term.
'The people who came back to find their homes still standing thought they were the lucky ones,' Ms. Callimachi said. 'But it's so much harder to prove this invisible damage.'
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