San Diego fire update with comments

I sent the following email to my family (with certain portions deleted/changed on here for privacy). It's long and descriptive, but has my comments on personal reliance v. government reliance at the bottom. I know, comparing this to Katrina is not a complete fit, but it does say a lot.

I have received a few emails from family asking how we are here in fire country, so I figured I would send a mass email out. They have asked a lot of questions, so here is the information, sorry for the length.

First, some geography. We are located in Santee, which is just South and East of the Miramar Air Base extension on the west side of Interstate 15 freeway. From our front door, you can see the back of the base. The section we live next to is a much narrower swatch of land than the actual base. Poway is the first city North the airbase. Lakeside is the first city East of our city.

The Witch creek fire started near Ramona and has moved West and South. It is currently 196k acres, 1% contained with 500 confirmed homes damaged, 250 destroyed and 150 other structures destroyed. The southern line has spread down the 67 freeway and has finally made it to Lakeside outskirts. This is the fire we are concerned with.

The 2003 cedar fire spread this way, then went onto the airbase and down the 52 freeway (right by our home), almost to the ocean. The fire spreading east jumped the 15 and has devastated Rancho Bernardo and moved on to Solana Beach. It may go all the way to the ocean this time.

The other big fire is the Harris which started near Descanso, right on the border and has moved North to Rancho San Diego and West to Eastlake/Chula Vista. It has 72k acres burned and 10% containment. That fire is slowly moving and they have evacuated almost to where we used to live in Spring Valley. There are also fires in San Marcos (contained) and Fallbrook (Rice fire), to the North. The rice fire may hook up with a fire in Temecula and spread. Finally, there is a fire in Imperial Valley which was contained.

The Witch Creek fire has recently moved North to Riverside county and East to Harbison Canyon. We were packed yesterday morning and have spent two days inside due to the horrible air quality.

(Daughter's) school was closed for the week. I am the acting supervisor for my unit, so I had to go in yesterday and they are open tomorrow, which I think is a terrible idea. Today, I left to go to a doctor's appointment and we took a brief trip to get charcoal in case of a power outage, but that has been it for (my daughter). The main power source in the South was knocked out by the Portrero fire (Harris) by the border and the North line is threatened.

Yesterday, my work was dismissed early, so I was home early. I made sure the weatherstripping on the front door was sound and the back door, which has the dog door, was re-stripped. I asked (X) to go to Lowe's very early to get some as I had run out, and the smoke had not yet reached us. She said the masks were all out and there was a lot of activity there. We have replaced the air filter and the house is pretty much air tight.

We already had plenty of food storage, portable food, first aid kits, high rank emergency air masks, emergency packs and our important documents are in one small file cabinet which is easily moved. We also have battery and crank powered flashlights, candles and battery powered radios. We also have a large supply of water as well, and I know how to tap into our water main if needed. I am so thankful the church stresses emergency preparedness and my parents were good examples.

I went to the store on my way home yesterday, to pick up a few small "non-necessity comfort" items, and the store was in chaos. Many people had no preparation and the water supply and bottled water was stripped to nothing. People were wandering the area near the water complaining about how the store did not stock enough water. They did not seem to figure out it was their fault for not being prepared. The first aid area was pretty well raided as well, and canned food was holding out ok. People were asking about grills and other sources to heat food.

I had started a project of donating clothing, books and other items to the Salvation Army about 9 months ago, in order to clear out clutter in the house and it just so happened that I was working on blankets. I made a run last night to Qualcomm stadium, which is an evacuation center, and handed over blankets, pillows and sleeping bags. In total, we have about 300k evacuees throughout the county and about 6 major rescue centers.

Across the street, there are about 3-4 motor homes in the restaurant parking lot and at the store we saw about 6-7 more, so some people are finding places to stay and getting permission from the stores/restaurants where they are at.

I wanted to make a comment on the evacuation centers and make a political point that there is a big difference between people who depend on the government for everything and those who don't. After Katrina, people complained about being stuck at the Superdome and being trapped in their homes. There were over 3 days to leave.

In San Diego, people had less than one day. We could not go East, South or North, so were confined to San Diego unlike many of the refugees in New Orleans. Within 2 days, the Superdome toilets were overflowing, there was no food, no donations (though it was accessible) and even deaths. Even after rescuing had begun, the community made limited donations and there were limited volunteers. All you heard about was how FEMA was ineffective.

Last night, less than 24 hours away from the fire and in some areas, a matter of minutes, over 250k people in San Diego had moved to a center or elsewhere. When I dropped off my supplies, there was a bedding and blanket section over 7 feet tall and approximately 40 yards long and 10 yards wide. There were volunteers passing out water and food and had over 90 large tables and areas for food donations.

Del Mar fairgrounds had some supply issues, but had housed over 10k of people and over 1500 horses and livestock and could support them! There were almost no stragglers and the move was pretty orderly. Two major hospitals and countless convalescent and hospice homes were evacuated, mainly by citizens volunteering to help. Pomerado hospital was evacuated in less than 2 hours.

The only assistance we have had from the government are some marines from Camp Pendleton helping people cross the base, a unit a Qualcomm and Del Mar to help with traffic and distributing supplies and some National Guardsmen posting at a few of the fire burned areas to minimize some of the looting. There have been no confirmed reports of looting.

There are still more areas of evacuation underway and possible, yet despite the strain on emergency services, the evacuations are still orderly. I think this says a lot about attitude towards reliance on the government and reliance on the community and self reliance.

While there are many differences between the two, there are a lot of similarities between these two incidents when dealing with people's needs.