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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.”
Mr. Migliozzi and Ms. Callimachi shared why they decided to pursue the article and their most surprising findings. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How did you get involved in this story?
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI We had both independently set out to cover the aftermath of the fires soon after they occurred, and the toxic smoke issue. Then a colleague at The Times connected us. I was sitting in The Times’s cafeteria one day in April, and I was on a call speaking about this story idea. She came up to me and said, “I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but there’s an amazing reporter who’s working on this, too” — and that was Blacki. I reached out to him the same day.
Where did you start?
BLACKI MIGLIOZZI I knew that for the idea to work, we needed to see inside these homes. So I convinced an industrial hygienist, Dawn Bolstad-Johnson, to let me follow her as she tested homes. I would have conversations with the homeowners when we showed up, explaining what we were trying to do. The base line was that I wanted to see the results of Dawn’s report on their home when it was filed.
What were some of your biggest challenges?
CALLIMACHI Dawn does, as far as we can tell, the most extensive report available. Most hygienists are testing for a limited panel of toxic substances: lead, asbestos, soot, char and ash. But she and higher-end hygienists are also testing for heavy metals like chromium and cadmium. Her reports take months to prepare.
MIGLIOZZI Part of the reason this story took so long was because Dawn needed time to get the chemical samples back and then prepare the reports.
What precautions did you take?
CALLIMACHI I went into plenty of these homes wearing either an N95 mask or a respirator — I didn’t understand the extent of this invisible damage yet. When you meet someone on the street who’s going through something traumatic, to humanize myself as a reporter, I would take off my mask to speak with them.
MIGLIOZZI Dawn recommended a full-face respirator attached to a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear filter, and I listened to her. But it’s really hard to fit in when you’re wearing that with a full Tyvek suit and nitrile gloves. It’s challenging to breathe in that, let alone spend a 10-hour day inside a home. Some of the homes don’t have power, which means there’s no air conditioning, and there were many 100-degree days.
CALLIMACHI That brings up another issue — when insurance companies deny testing for this kind of toxic damage and recommend, basically, just a deep cleaning, guess who’s doing the cleaning? Typically, underpaid workers, who don’t take these kinds of precautions. There’s a whole class of people being put at risk.
How did you feel as human beings reporting on this story?
CALLIMACHI I grew up in California; my family moved to America when I was 9. The first drone shot in the story is the scenery I remember from high school, so it’s shocking to see a catastrophe of this magnitude in the U.S. It’s jarring to realize that, in the face of such destruction, even people in a wealthy place like the Palisades will have a hard time rebuilding.
MIGLIOZZI Every day I’d have five of the hardest conversations I could imagine having talking to homeowners about their experiences. I felt a responsibility to everyone. It pushed me to do things I wouldn’t normally do as a data journalist. Being on the ground, going into homes where people had died — I was very moved. I felt like a piece of me had been left in Altadena.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
CALLIMACHI I was thinking of all the time I spent reporting in Iraq, where burn pits were a fact of life on American bases. I didn’t realize until I worked on this story that burning plastic or car tires releases potent toxins that can harm people — me included. And I can’t tell you how many demonstrations I covered in West Africa where tires were being burned, which I learned gives off benzene. It never occurred to me to wear an N95 mask.
MIGLIOZZI I’ve covered wildfires — though usually from a distance — and I’m well aware of how much wildfires are affecting the U.S. and Canada. I thought we would’ve been further along in understanding this problem, so I was taken aback by how far the public is from comprehending how bad it is.
What do you hope happens next?
CALLIMACHI Without sufficient testing for these toxic substances, insurance companies are unable to detect them. If they can’t detect them, they can’t remediate them.
MIGLIOZZI They aren’t looking for the right things.
CALLIMACHI According to Dawn, a meth lab in a home infects it with just four dangerous compounds. What happens in these homes exposes people to potentially dozens of toxic substances, and yet there’s no acknowledgment that these homes are affected.
Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times.
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