Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Fire Watch Update


The fire pretty much took over the entire San Diego County these past three days. My brother and his family got a reverse 911 call (this is when the sheriff calls the neighborhood and tells them to evacuate..) had to evacuate his home on Monday night and stay with us but thankfully, they were cleared to go back yesterday afternoon. Their house and surrounding neighborhood were fine. My friend Jenessa and her family stayed with her mother and waited the fire out. I don't know if she was able to go back to her house or not, but I'm sure I"ll hear from her soon.
As for us, on Tuesday morning I started to pack because the winds were not working in our favor and had two fires headed right for us. Thankfully it never reached our area and we didn't get the dreaded reverse 911 call.
But it was close, as you can see from this fire map. Oceanside is on the upper left hand corner, we were kind of in between two fires but far enough away that we just missed being evacuated.

That being said I have to say San Diego has handled the entire disaster and evacuations smoothly and efficiently. Entire neighborhoods were evacuated with no hassles, people were informed minute to minute about where to go, who to call, resources the could use. The community came out and supported everyone, in fact they had so many donations to the evacuation centers that they actually had to tell people to stop and that they had enough. There was an abundance of volunteers, supports groups, you name it, they came out and stepped it up and made the best out of the whole situation. In fact, the hotels in the area provided free hotel rooms for those that had to be evacuated. Needless to say those hotels filled up fast. For being a big city, San Diego still has a little bit of small town mentality which is why I love love San Diego. (Honestly, you don't see this kind of support or camaraderie in Los Angeles, but I think that is because L.A. is so huge and spread out).

Anyways, everyone is fine, we THINK the boat is okay, but we haven't heard anything just yet. Thank you guys for your well wishes and like I said before, hopefully the Santa Ana winds and the heat will ease up in the next few days and everything will be back to normal again by the weekend!

3 comments:

IDigHootchAndCootch said...

wow. glad to hear the family is okay. I guess its impossible to prepare for something like that. You just roll with the punches and hope for the best, eh?

good luck

Tug said...

Glad to hear you're still there, doing all right!! Thanks so very much for all of your help with my brother, mucho appreciated.

Shannon Bieger said...

Yikes. Is that picture one you took?? I'm so glad you guys didn't get an evac call. Stay safe!!