Re: San Diego Firestorm

**"* O* <t*@earthlink.net>**

Debra Lee,

 Thanks for sharing that with us...very interesting! How wonderful that you
didn't lose your house.
And yes, it was bad, terrible, but not Katrina.  I was in New Orleans a few
months ago...an almost total disaster.
Tom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Debra Lee Baldwin" <Sunwriter7@cox.net>
To: <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 6:58 PM
Subject: [GWL] San Diego Firestorm

> It's tempting to dramatize my recent experience, perhaps by embellishing
> the fact that I have ash under my fingernails (which I do), but the truth
is
> I spent my two days as an evacuee in complete comfort, watching TV at my
son
> and daughter-in-law's house in the coastal San Diego community of Ocean
> Beach. My husband Jeff and I continually surfed channels and the Internet,
> hoping for status reports on our 1,200-home neighborhood, Hidden Meadows
> (which is in north Escondido, 30 miles northeast of downtown San Diego).
As
> it turned out, a lack of wind had defanged the brush fire, and the closest
> it ever came was about 10 miles. So no news really IS good news, although
we
> spent much of our time wondering.
>
>
>
> On the first day of the Santa Ana winds, after wildfires broke out
> elsewhere, Jeff and I had gone ahead and packed suitcases and filled our
> cars with family memorabilia and anything else irreplaceable. Tuesday
> morning's reverse 911 call gave us two hours to evacuate. Yet because of
> near-gridlock traffic from our home to Interstate 15, it took half an hour
> to reach the freeway, which is normally a five-minute drive. If that
sounds
> disconcerting, we were never in danger. The exodus used only two lanes of
a
> four-lane road -- at any time, police or fire crews could have closed the
> inbound lanes and made another available. The only thing I wish I had done
> differently would have been to update my evacuation list (which is several
> years old), and categorized the items on it according to 15-minutes
notice,
> half-an-hour, one-hour and two- hours-or-more. It's hard to think clearly
in
> the midst of an emergency, and I did overlook essentials.
>
>
>
> It used to be -- when I was growing up here -- that winds that blew in
from
> the desert were merely a sign of autumn, like the start of school. Warm,
> blustery days were followed by nights during which tree limbs thrashed,
like
> a storm without rain. Any trees turning color became bare-limbed in hours.
> Grit piled up on windowsills and seeped inside. "East winds" (the name
> "Santa Ana" came later) preceded winter rains, which used to fall
> dependably, if sparsely. I don't recall a defined "fire season," although
we
> did hear about wildfires. They were usually started by lightning, and
> because they burned backcountry brush, they enabled seeds of wildflowers
and
> other chaparral to pop open and germinate. Nowadays, those same areas are
> residential communities that provide the best of both worlds: a country
> lifestyle near a major city. Up until recently, there was no deadly
> downside.
>
>
>
> When Jeff and I arrived home, the air inside as well as out was as stale
as
> a restaurant smoking section, which is ironic, because such things are no
> longer allowed in health-conscious San Diego. Sunlight, orange-tinged,
made
> shadows blue. Our home's entry porch was an ashtray. As Jeff helped sweep,
> he likened the task to cleaning a fireplace. Along the driveway was more
of
> the wind's mischief: drifts of black grit covered by mounds of dry pine
> needles from neighboring trees. To stop soot from being tracked into the
> house, I hosed the concrete, creating inky rivulets that fortunately won't
> harm the garden, in fact, are probably good for it. I hosed shrubs, too,
so
> their leaves could breathe, a task that refreshed me as well; the
> temperature was in the high 90s. My potted plants had received no water
> during several days of heat and zero humidity; the succulents of course
were
> fine, but the herbs had desiccated. On the sidewalk were paper sacks of
> clothing I had set out for AmVets the night before the evacuation. You can
> imagine how filthy they are -- I may just leave them as trash.
>
>
>
> Thursday morning, when Jeff and I caravanned home on Interstate 15, we
> passed Miramar Naval Air Station shortly after President Bush's helicopter
> took off to survey the damage. Ten or so miles north, cars slowed where
the
> freeway bisects Rancho Bernardo. Along with dignitaries in choppers
> overhead, we gazed at blackened ridgelines lined with chimneys and
colorless
> rubble. Each house, like mine, was someone's universe. Every house that
> remained standing, like mine, is a testament to the skill of firefighters.
> Yet I couldn't help thinking how New Orleans after Katrina must have
looked
> to this same President -- all those flooded neighborhoods and all that
> floating debris. Ninety-nine percent of what he saw that morning was
simply
> suburban Southern California on a gorgeous fall day -- one that happened
to
> be a little more hazy than normal.
>
>
>
>  A lot of people whose only source of information is TV assume San Diego
> County and all its residents have been singed off the planet. My heart
goes
> out to those whose homes burned, but despite record-setting numbers of
> evacuees, 1,600 homes lost, and tens of thousands of lives changed
forever,
> this was nothing like Katrina -- as the death toll attests. My experience
> was typical -- a very good thing, and a good thing to know.
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Debra Lee Baldwin
>
> Garden Photojournalist
>
> Author, Designing with Succulents
>
>             (Timber Press, 2007)
>
> www.debraleebaldwin.com <http://www.debraleebaldwin.com/>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Debra Lee Baldwin
> Garden Photojournalist
> Author, Designing with Succulents
>             (Timber Press, 2007)
> www.debraleebaldwin.com <http://www.debraleebaldwin.com/>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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