My family is in San Diego. My sister and her family, whom I was just visiting last week, has been evacuated from her home. Another sister is on standby to evacuate. My dad, who isn't in the best of health, is hemmed in by freeway closures in the north part of San Diego county due to the fires. This is a personal fire for me obviously. I couldn't probably get down there due to all the fires and carnage between my home in the San Joaquin valley and San Diego. Roughly half a million people are evacuated from their homes in San Diego county.So, I watch the live streams on the internets..from San Diego and Los Angeles. Firestorms that can do as much damage as a massive tornado in the midwest my dear reader, but on a much larger scale. The difference is..a tornado just touches down and then nature takes it away..not so with firestorms. I call my family every hour or so. I silently freak out at what I witness live and in burning color.
Four years ago this week was the Cedar fire. It was a horrible week long firestorm that took lives and hundreds of homes. These fires in San Diego have claimed at least one life and roughly 600 homes and 150 businesses. Friends lost their homes in that fire. Some lived with my sister, who has been evacuated this time, for weeks.
Back to the big sleep-in at the "Q". There hasn't been a "Katrina" debacle yet. People are being fed and sheltered, they do not want for anything..except of course for this hell on earth to end. Michal Chertoff has of course been on the ground, surveying everything and sending in supplies to make sure San Diego doesn't have a Katrina-like situation. The schools are also temporary homes for the displaced who have no where else to go, and most of those are full by now. People and pets are crowded into places with other victims of the firestorms..getting to know folks that are also afraid that their homes are gone when all this hell is over.Its much too much reminiscent of the Cedar Fire for me..and I am sure for many of them, since the fires are taking some of the same paths they took 4 years ago. A few of my friends are suffering through PTSD at this point..the horrible nightmare of 4 years ago rushing back to them.
I feel so helpless, I can only sit and watch..and call them all..saying always that I love them..and they respond back the same. Its not the rich that are suffering like the Malibu fire in L.A., these are hardworking middle class families who have mortgages that are losing everything. Its the fear of losing everything that haunts them all as they sit somewhere unfamiliar with strangers in the same boat.
Unlike a tornado or hurricane..this will go on until the weather changes and the fires run out of fuel. They won't run out of fuel until they burn to the ocean my dear reader..and that is what they are doing.If you pray..pray for them..pray for all that are caught up in this hell on earth.
Tags: San Diego Fires, Qualcomm Stadium,
