California FIRESTORM!

October 22, 2007, 05:43:52 PM

Isn't it funny how when you want to write, every situation can be a story? Therefore, you have to pick and choose what to write. At times, we are compelled by an event, situation, emotion, or simply a desire to try to reach our audience, share with them, and put them in the moment. It all boils down to story telling, the conveyance of words.

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Right now, here in California we have this terrible firestorm in the middle of the windiest days and driest year we have had for as long as I can remember. Wind is blowing at a steady 20 to 45 mph with wind gusts of 80 mph! Branches busted to the ground and smashed on the occasional, unfortunate vehicle and debris strewn about everywhere.

We have three major fires, one to the southeast, another five miles east and, the other 20 miles northwest of us. School is cancelled for tomorrow due to the possibility of a mandatory evacuation in our area. Our little town sits in a valley swirling with smoke and dust with fire closing in on two sides. I shudder to think about the 1100 homes lost in San Diego due to the 2003 firestorm.

Firefighters are attributing some of these fires to arson. Why would anyone want to deliberately cause such destruction? Such a thought process is beyond my grasp. Can they blame negative ions and the effect it has on the psyche? I doubt it.

The last news update I heard, Malibu's governor is worried that the entire city may succumb to the flames. A few celebrities have lost their mansions, many homes are still threatened, and a castle has burned to the ground. I thought this odd because it seems castles made of brick would have more resistance to fire on the exterior walls. Castles seem impenetrable to me. The way the wind is blowing embers and ashes around, every home, castle, and doghouse is at risk. Malibu Beach is bracing for a possible evacuation.

Yesterday at noon, the sun was totally shrouded by reddish-orange, grayish, black smoke, whipping about ferociously in the wind. The sky wore a sinister veil in the middle of the day with the reddish glow of a solar eclipse but much more menacing, dark, and foreboding. It looked like Armageddon!

Still, the firestorm rages on. Ashes with a texture more like gritty sand pelt your skin when you step outside. Breathing actually hurts because the smothering smoke filled with odoriferous, particulate matter hangs heavily in our lungs. We have suddenly become a bunch of smokers with a raspy smoker’s cough. The mere act of breathing burns your throat. Singing? Forget about it. With all of the moisture sucked out of the air from the hot, dry, relentless winds, skin feels parched, stretched to the limit, and cracking. We are now the possessors of chapped lips, dry mouth, and worry. Should we prepare to evacuate?

They have closed the roads and requested a voluntary evacuation for neighborhoods within a half-mile our house! Want to hear how the city fathers have planned for this one? The shelter they are asking voluntary evacuees to stay in is a building within one block of the actual evacuation area! Oh the irony! Since the shelter is also a block away from our home, I guess we are safe. I feel so much better now.

If our home survives, I’ll be thankful that the only thing I have to complain about in my everyday life is the thick layer of ash everywhere inside and outside, including the swimming pool and the vents of our cars. I made the mistake of turning on the air conditioner this morning and a cloud of dust sputtered into my face and eyes. Ash was sandblasted in every possible nook and cranny. What a mess to clean up! But hey, I’ll be happy to have a home to clean no matter how much I loathe housework! After all, housework, especially after a firestorm, is a pain in the ash.

-Deb