Passports, Photos, Patriarchal Blessings

As the days go by and we get back to normal everyday life I continue to be grateful and thank my Father in Heaven that we did not suffer loss from the fire.  At the same time I am continually thinking what should I have taken or what would I have taken if I had more time and if I was prepared.  

We were not prepared.  We do have a 72 hour kit.  It along with our tent, our sleeping bags and a case of water were thrown into the truck.  Tom opened the safe and brought all of our vital records like birth certificates etc.  But in reality we were not prepared.  I remember as a kid having the dreaded family home evening where we talked about a plan for fire escape and I would have nightmares for several nights of being trapped in my room caught in a fire yet if the fire had made it to our door what would I have done.  I worry every night (even before the fires hit) because Tom has so much saw dust, varnish, paint etc. stored in the garage yet I don't have a ladder to escape out our window if there ever was a fire.  

I learned a valuable lesson and have set my course to get prepared and know exactly what I would want to take and have it copied and stored offsite (like kids pictures) or have it handy and ready to grab.  I joked about coming back for my pillow and not knowing where my passport is but it's not really funny I should know where my passport is and I should have thought clearly enough to know I would need the comfort of my pillow to help me deal with the stress of being evacuated.  

Yes, we were prepared on the surface and we could have lived in our tent and eaten our 72 hours worth of supply but is that enough?  

In Relief Society today we talked a lot about what we did and how we dealt with the evacuation.  In listening to others who brought pictures of their horse, or all their shoes, or their surfboard I think we were pretty level headed but I would have been heartsick to have lost everything and not had some momentos.   Everyone made suggestions of what we should have taken and I think we are going to compile a list. 

The weather has cooperated and the fires are about 50% contained.  But the news said there are still over 2,000 residents at risk.  

Over 2, 300 homes burned last week and with the best count the church leaders have been able to do only 18 members of the church lost their home.  Nobody in our stake lost their home.  Our bishop came close but he stayed and saved his own home.  Don't know that I would recommend that but it worked to his benefit.  

Coming that close to losing everything has been a valuable lesson and I hope none of you ever half to learn it.  Be prepared, you never know when there will be the need. 

Pres. Bush comes to San Diego

The air is considered unhealthy maybe even hazardous so we are under direction to stay indoors. No errand running or shopping etc. Darn it, I love to run errands and shop why do they have to make me stay home. Please don't throw me in the briar patch.

So, I am just staying home and working on finding that AWOL passport and I hear this thunderous noise overhead. I ran to the window because I thought it was one of those tankers going to drop water on us or something. It was a fleet of helipcopters coperting right over our house (what do helicopters do anyway fly? chop?) Braden would have loved it. It turned out to be the air escorts to Marine One the helicopter Pres. Bush was touring the area with. Kind of cool. Of course we would rather there wasn't a need for him to tour but we are being compared to Katrina.

Over 400,000 acreas burned, over 1,600 homes destroyed and the Witch fire is only 10-15% contained. There is still fire on Del Dios it is about 10 miles away and the winds have died down a lot.

Although our problem is small compared to others we do still have the problem of clean up. Everything is covered in Ash. The plants, the house, the lawn furniture, sidewalks, driveway etc. The news reports are the ash is toxic and we should not clean it up with a leave blower, or a broom or a vacuum. Has Ronco made a new gadget I am unaware of maybe a Chris Angel Ash Cleaner? I am not sure yet how we will clean it but maybe I will let Tom worry about that. I will make him a deal, I will clean the inside and you clean the outside.

Home Sweet Smelling Home

Wed. Oct. 24th

We woke up this morning and of course turned the TV on immediately 

(finally Tom has an excuse).  Wow were we excited to see the winds have changed directions and instead of blowing southwest (straight at our neighborhood) the wind was now blowing away from us in the northeast direction.  Our mandatory evacuation was lifted and we were able to go home.  We were packed and headed home in under 5 minutes.   The fires are still only about 5 miles away but with the wind change the city officials (who have done a phenomenal job) felt we were in the safe zone.

                                                                                                                                                                       It is so good to be home legally.  We did make a few illegal trips in to get important items like genealogy, insurance papers and my PILLOW!!  It's a weird feeling to sneak into your dark disserted neighborhood.  A disaster always brings greater appreciation for the "things"  you have.  We are grateful to have a home to come home to.  We will be more prepared the next time and as I create lists of what we should have taken, where important things are (like my passport that is still AWOL) and what items are good to have on hand I will share with anyone interested.  

We have some clean up to do but the house does not smell of smoke which I feared it would.  The front door and laundry room door have small piles of ashes inside (proof we can run our kerosene heater without a worry), a bathroom window got left open and the bathtub and toilet are full of ashes, the outside of the house and lawn furniture etc. are filthy so we have a little clean up but nothing to complain about. 

Thanks for your prayers and concern.  Please keep the rest of So. Cal in your prayers.

PS I left the important papers and a suitcase packed and in our car so we are ready for a quick get away if necessary.  

 

Be careful what you ask for

A good friend of mine has the coolest blog. He and his family have the most entertaining events in their daily life. As I read his blogs I have wanted to create a family blog but I wasn't sure if life was interesting enough to journal. Well, I wanted interesting. . .

Sunday afternoon we started smelling the smoke and knew the fires were getting closer. Sunday evening I went outside to meet Patty at the curb and was outside 5 minutes and came inside covered in ashes. So as I went to bed Sunday night I thought I will just lay my clothes right here on the foot of my bed just in case I need to leave in a hurry. Tom just looked at me and rolled his eyes.

Monday morning 6:30 am Tom's phone rings and his partner tells him we are under mandatory evacuation the fires are headed our way. As you can only imagine, I was out of bed and dressed in under 30 seconds ready to leave with no personal belongings whatsoever. Chanelle, you will be glad to know I did not run up and down the halls yelling a fire was coming and I did not trip over anything and fall down. Tom however thinks nobody official called us so I don't know if we really need to leave. He proceeds to take a shower and shave and then gets down his suitcase to start packing. I, on the other hand, had a laundry basket full of garments and a few other clean clothes sitting on the floor so I opened a suitcase dumped the laundry basket in and said ok I'm ready let's go. Tom's still not sure we should leave because we haven't had an official word.

7:00 am a member of our old ward called and said she had gotten a call from the ward and asked if we had gotten a call from our ward leaders. Being new to the ward I think we fell through the cracks and we did not receive a call.

7:30 am Bags are packed (not very well) Tom is trying to keep me calm as the news station shows mandatory evacuation for our entire area. Aubri calls just to talk because we haven't talked for a while and she innocently asks what I'm doing. Well, I'm video taping all of our belongings, the newly remodeled kitchen and bathroom. You know just the regular monday morning activities. I didn't quite know how to calmly tell her why I was video taping but I managed to let her know I needed to call her back.


8:00 am Tom finally agrees we should do ask the city officials have asked and evacuate. We are out of gas and head for the gas station that has a line of about 50 cars. The line is out of the gas station and down the street so we decide to driver further away from home to get gas and head for the freeway. the onramps are backed up worse than the gas station lines. So we take indirect roads until we make it to the 5 and head to our friends that live right by the temple and Tom's work. We had brought our temple bags and recommends along incase the temple needed us for our shift on Wed.

10:00 am we arrive at our friends who live about 4 freeway exit away from us and 10 minutes on a normal day.

Tues. 2:00 pm

It has gotten very boring and monotonous ever since. We are just waiting out the mandatory evacuations and hoping to go home soon. The stats are a little mindblowing. The last count was 513,000 people evacuated and just 1 of the fires (the one headed toward our neck of the woods) has burned over 400,000 acres. If you want to see maps etc. here is a good site to check out.

http://www.topix.com/san-diego/2007/10/san-diego-fire-maps

http://sosdfirreblog.blogspot.com

http://signongsandiego.com