Progress comes slowly after Santa Rosa firestorm

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KGO) -- It has all the trappings of a neighborhood, minus the homes. Welcome back to Larkfield Estates in the Santa Rosa firestorm zone. "I am defining progress day by day," said Brad Sherwood, for whom 'progress' meant joining forces with 35 other neighbors to hire one contractor to do the job on many homes at discount rate.

"I think we're learning the more we do together as a group, the more money we save."

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For fire victims, that is not a novel concept. "We had nine original floorplans," said Mark Cooper as we spoke inside his temporary office on a lot in Coffey Park. He represents AMP Homes, one of the subdivision's original builders from the 1980s. Depending on upgrades, they'll charge between $240 and $259 per square foot to build new ones, and soon.

"If they are in our early sequence of homes six months from May," said Mark. He has forty signatures, thus far.

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Elsewhere, some of those lots looked more like ponds after the recent rains.

"We had a lake," said Steve MacDonell, who showed up this morning to work on a foundation, and found ten inches of water. "Just drain it and keep going," he said. "We need to get this done for these people. They have been through a lot."

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