Vacant lots, empty homes and dying orchards on California's bullet train route attract squatters, vandals and thieves
CORCORAN, Calif. - Charlene Hook cherished her home of 30 years north of Corcoran, where pomegranate and pistachio orchards stretched for miles. So choosing to burn it down last year was a difficult decision.
She and her husband had no plans to leave their 2 1/2 acres until the day California's bullet train authority said its rails would go through their bedroom.
Not long after the couple moved out, thieves broke into the house and stripped almost everything of value - even taking the doors off her husband's shop where he restored classic cars. Soon her former longtime neighbor's homes were being burglarized and vandalized.
After all the frustration of losing her home and indignation of it attracting criminals to her old neighborhood, she convinced her brother-in-law, a battalion chief in the city fire department, to burn it down for firefighting practice - and to let her light the match.
"It was hard to burn down," she said. "I thought it would bring me closure."
What happened to Hook is a part of a painful spectacle up and down the Central Valley. The California High Speed Rail Authority now owns more than 1,272 parcels stretching from Madera to south of
