Tuesday, October 23, 2007
San Diego firestorm
The Spousal Unit and I evacuated last night due to the fires. We're staying at my Mom's house in University City (a neighborhood of San Diego for those who aren't familiar). We're fine, except that I had to take the SU to urgent care last night for an infected cat bite.
We left home about 7pm Monday. We checked our voice mail today; the mandatory evacuation notice for our area came in about 9pm via reverse 911. We're pretty sure the house is ok; we haven't heard of any serious problems in our neighborhood.
This seems to be even worse than the fires of October 2003. (Those fires got to within a few miles of us, but we didn't have to evacuate.) I thought this kind of thing was supposed to happen once every 30 years or so, but it looks like it's been rescheduled.
Many thanks to our friend KB for helping us to gather the cats and what little stuff we could fit in around them. (Yes, we managed to get all the cats into cages and carriers and into 2 cars.) Some stuff that can stand being submerged is sitting in the swimming pool, where it should survive even if the house doesn't.
My access to the InterTubes will be sporadic until we get home, which I'm guessing will be in a day or two. I won't try to post up-to-date news here; there are much better sources.
So far this has been a major annoyance, but just an annoyance. A lot of people are a lot worse off than we are. If you're in an affected area of San Diego (or elsewhere in Southern California), pack up anything you can't replace and be prepared to bug out. The reverse 911 system (automated phone calls sent out by the police department) seems to be working well, but don't depend on it; watch the news. The advice I've heard is, if you see flames, get out -- which is not to imply that you're safe if you don't see flames.
Stay safe.
We left home about 7pm Monday. We checked our voice mail today; the mandatory evacuation notice for our area came in about 9pm via reverse 911. We're pretty sure the house is ok; we haven't heard of any serious problems in our neighborhood.
This seems to be even worse than the fires of October 2003. (Those fires got to within a few miles of us, but we didn't have to evacuate.) I thought this kind of thing was supposed to happen once every 30 years or so, but it looks like it's been rescheduled.
Many thanks to our friend KB for helping us to gather the cats and what little stuff we could fit in around them. (Yes, we managed to get all the cats into cages and carriers and into 2 cars.) Some stuff that can stand being submerged is sitting in the swimming pool, where it should survive even if the house doesn't.
My access to the InterTubes will be sporadic until we get home, which I'm guessing will be in a day or two. I won't try to post up-to-date news here; there are much better sources.
So far this has been a major annoyance, but just an annoyance. A lot of people are a lot worse off than we are. If you're in an affected area of San Diego (or elsewhere in Southern California), pack up anything you can't replace and be prepared to bug out. The reverse 911 system (automated phone calls sent out by the police department) seems to be working well, but don't depend on it; watch the news. The advice I've heard is, if you see flames, get out -- which is not to imply that you're safe if you don't see flames.
Stay safe.
