Evacuation update Tom Smith

I usually don't blog in my pajamas, but today is an exception, coming to you live from the seedy but cheap, and fortunate to be had, Travelodge in La Mesa.  Everybody evacuates in their own way.  The sister of a friend of ours had evacuate Rancho Santa Fe and was tracked down at La Costa, a famous spa, getting a massage.  The only massage you might find at this place is the illegal kind.  But, I am not complaining.  Everyone has been very nice, and the rooms are clean.

Well.  We still have a house as of now, and the Harris Fire seems to have stalled out (knock on wood) south of Skyline Truck Trail, north of which we live.  Tom at Jamulblog is off the air, so his excellent reports are no longer available.  He evacuated from Lawson Valley, maybe 2 miles up the road from us.  Wait; he's back on.  He has been the best source of information on the Harris Fire I could find on the web.

Today was spent moving the dogs from my office, where they stayed illegally last night, exercising extraordinary continence.  Some very generous friends of ours took them in, then fed us home made pizza into the bargain.  What people are saying on the media about the generous responses of people to this disaster seems absolutely true to me.  I am even experiencing some civic pride at the well organized response of the various agencies and ordinary people to this unbelievable event.  I think overall the resources devoted to fighting fire are woefully inadequate, but 2007 has been far better than 2003.

Everyone in my family unit is holding up well, with the weakest links being four year old Mark and me.  He doesn't understand what is going on, and I understand only too well.  But if ever there was a day the troubles of which were sufficient there unto, that has been the last 24 hours.  The next 24 will have to wait their turn.  We need the wind to stay down and the helicopters to keep dropping water as necessary.  They put on quite an impressive air show above Rancho San Diego this afternoon.  I tried to take a photo with my cell phone, but realized there is no shortage on the web of images from this fire.  I was standing there trying to figure out how to make my cell zoom, when it rang.  It was a friend of mine saying his parents' palatial house in Fairbanks Ranch had burned and that his whole street had burned.  I hope he was wrong; he wasn't completely sure his house had not survived.  But clearly many homes had not.

The hotels are packed, the freeways are empty and night time near our neighborhood was eerie.  You could see the flames on San Miguel mountain looking like lava flows.  But at the base of the mountain, cars drove normally along.  It had a weird "About suffering they were never wrong" quality, for those of you who know that Auden poem (Musee des Beaux Arts).  You almost wanted to stop and say, excuse me officer, but are you aware the mountain behind you is on fire?  But of course they were quite aware of that, as it had been burning for the last 12 hours.  I tried to drive back to my house to pick up a few things, including some meds we forgot, but CHP would not let me pass. We went to the pharmacy we use and the pharmacist insisted on replacing them for free. 

The MSM has provided some amusing or annoying moments.  The BBC sent their reporter to Malibu, perhaps in the hope of running into Magnum PI or Olivia Newton John on the beach.  Breathlessly the young reporter spoke of the surrealism of California with smoke in the air and windsurfers in the water.  Then she went on to allow there were fires in San Diego too, but that the evacuation to "Quwhale-com" stadium was orderly, and that the stadium was the home of the famous San Diego Dodgers.  At last count I heard, Malibu lost 6 homes.  San Diego has lost more like 1800, and will probably lose more before this is over.  Rarely has a reporter so deservedly made a fool of herself.  I hope she finds her movie star.  The New York Times was equally offensive with a tiny blurb on the bottom of page 1 this morning noting that 250 000 people had been evacuated in SD.  America to NYT, that is major news, much bigger news than girl-insurgents in Kurdistan, you pathetic, self-absorbed dorks.  President Bush is arriving in San Diego tomorrow, which will no doubt cause the news mediators at the Times to ask, why is Bush going to San Diego?  I recall something is going on there but what was it?  Maybe their coverage inside was better, but I did not want to give them my dollar after seeing their front page.

All the Starbucks were closed in Rancho San Diego.  As my son Luke noted, when Starbucks is closed, you know it's the end of the world.  But we found one open near USD later when we got the dogs.  They botched my quad latte and give me four shots of espresso on ice instead, but it hit the spot.  The world was not ending, just taking a different turn.

I have been very touched by the emails, supportive comments, and offers of places to stay I have received from my friends, some of whom I didn't even know I had.  I hope we won't have to take anybody up on these, but it is good to know they are there.  So far Jamul has been lucky, and I hope it stays that way.  You really have to feel for communities like Rancho Bernardo that have just been hammered by this fire. I hope I get the chance to do something useful myself.

Emblematic of SD's generosity somehow seemed the repeated calls of what sounded like a mega-church in the Point Loma area that kept calling all day on KOGO for some evacuees to come stay in their large, new facility.  They had room for 1600 they said, but so far, only 50 or something had shown up.  They had some private rooms, video games for the kids, and so on and so on.  I almost wanted to check out of my motel and go there, just to make them feel better.  I envisioned all these earnest people, standing around with no one to help.  I know I am not always very kind about San Diego on this blog, but I must say as dreadful as these events are, they have made me feel a perhaps somewhat unaccustomed civic pride in the response.

And now if you will excuse me, it is time for a very large scotch.

Comments

[Adam Mossoff]

In your inimitable style, you have succeeded in making me laugh amongst the craziness that is this fire storm. As I mentioned when we first met, you certainly have quite a felicity with the pen -- or at least the virtual pen that is a computer.

I am very glad to hear that you are safe, and seemingly well caffeinated, on one hand, and well liquored, on the other hand. I hope your home stays equally safe and sound. We must get together again after school starts up again next week.

[Jonathan]

All the best to you and yours. Stay safe.

[corkiethedog]

Best of luck to you and your family, Tom.

We were in an evacuation zone near the Ronald Reagan Library. This was the "Skylight fire", of which even fewer people are aware. Our property was crawling with heroic and very professional firefighters trying to keep the fire back. Fortunately for us, they succeeded, stopping the fire some 100 or 200 yards from our home.

The worst part of this ordeal for me was that I was out of town, and my wife had to deal with all of the evac issues herself. The first I heard of any of this was when I got a call Sunday morning from her, saying the sheriff ordered her evacuated, and asking where she could find the backup flash drive for the computer.

The worst is over for us. Good luck to you and all of yours!

Sincerely,
Corkie the dog

[Francine Lipman]

As a long-time SD taxprof working in the OC at Chapman, I really loved your poetic piece. In response to the Cedar fires I wrote a user-friendly article on the tax consequences of a disaster using the Cedar fire as a template . . . The article is titled "Anatomy of a Disaster under the Internal Revenue Code" and can be found at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=795865. If I can be of any assistance in this matter to you or any disaster victims have them contact me.

[SilverSurfer]

Heh. I used to live about half a block down El Cajon Bl from the illustrious Travel Lodge in La Mesa. Good luck to you and yours -maybe you ought to check out the Pt. Loma facility instead of staying at the TL, Tom. Oh, and would you also enable the RSS feed on your blog?? I like vicariously enjoying SD through your musings. I had to move to the eastern bloc County of Orange and I dearly miss SD.