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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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 Giant clouds of smoke fill the sky over the Santa Cruz Mountains as fire comes sweeping over the hills and down upon the homes of hillside residents like Ellen and Alan. |
At first sight of the fire,
they knew they must go
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..Stan Isaacs |
for TheColumnists.com
Thursday 5/22/08
We had heavy (35-40
mph) winds last night and through the morning. I woke up around
6:30 a.m. to the sound of something crashing onto the patio.
As I was getting up to check, our neighbor, Diana, was calling
to tell us that there was a fire in the canyon. I looked out
our great room window and saw a small pocket of flame across
our canyon, with a bright red glow rising behind the far ridge
around a half mile away. With the wind blowing so strongly toward
us, it was clear that this could be a problem.
I woke up Walendo and we quickly started to collect our things.
I immediately grabbed my photo gear and Walendo went down to
get our server, which has all our data, including all my digital
photos. I then saved a few envelopes that contain all the valuable
documents such as passports, birth certificates, vehicle titles,
etc. plus spare cash.
Meanwhile, Walendo grabbed his backpack (with two laptops in it) and put it out on the porch, then went to collect some medicines and clothing while I was grabbing the scrapbooks and then my laptops. He also went up to get the Expedition and drove it down to the house from the garage so we could load both cars. We then got some suitcases from the shed and filled them with clothing and toiletries.
Somewhere around then Eric called to find
out if the fire was near us and if so, to make sure we were up.
(Thanks, Eric!)
Next I started walking around from room to room, looking for
things we might be forgetting. I grabbed random things, including
a little food (that we later forgot we had), various chargers
for the cell phone and point-and-shoot camera, checkbooks, flashlights
and some extra car keys. In the office I remembered to grab the
folder with our insurance information--which seems like an obvious
thing to grab but, as urgent as this sounds, all this time we
both thought that we were doing this as a precaution, so we weren't
really in a panic.
We both even initially considered taking a shower but decided we'd better get packed up. I even collected a second round of clothing, tossing in some pajamas and more shirts, even the book I was reading.
All this time we could certainly smell the fire and see lots of smoke across the canyon but we didn't see anything close. Walendo even grabbed the video camera and took some footage looking down the canyon, which was mostly smoke. (And you all think I'm the only crazy one about taking photos!) I took a few photos of the cars packed up and one of the house with the red sky and glowing red sun behind it.
 With their vehicles ready to evacuate, the fire bathes the smoky sky in shades of angry red. |
As he turned down Ormsby Road, Walendo slammed on his brakes
because he saw fire burning the brush along the road and I narrowly
missed rear-ending him. We both backed up and turned around to
head up Ormsby. This was when it really hit me that we could
actually be in danger and might be trapped, since we knew the
fire had come from above us originally.
We bounced our way up the dirt road as quickly as we could and at one point had to drive through some fire that was burning on either side of the road. Once we got up higher, there was no more fire. At the top of Ormsby we turned south toward Mt. Madonna and drove along the summit.
We decided to head back down toward Watsonville
to get some breakfast and figure out what to do. On the way I
called my parents to tell them we were okay, figuring they'd
hear about the fires on the news soon enough. First, though,
I got the update from my mother about her recent illness. When
I then told her what was happening to us, she scolded me for
letting her go on about her troubles for so long. Oy vey.
Our builder, Larry, immediately offered us a place to stay in
the little rental unit on his property, which was a big source
of comfort to me: Okay, we have a place to stay tonight, we're
good. Walendo, naturally, had driven through McDonalds and picked
up some Egg McMuffins and coffee for all of us. We ate as we
watched the TV news showing flames in the mountains but there
was no telling exactly where they were filming. The TV people
asked those who had photos to email them in, so I decided to
send them some of mine.
I called our insurance company (Farmers)
and filed a claim. They wanted to know the extent of the damage,
so I told them we didn't know for sure but it looked like the
house was gone. That made it a little more real. A year or so
ago we'd increased our coverage after we'd finished the big remodel,
so I felt fortunate about that. Within minutes, we had an email
confirming the claim, which was reassuring.
Eventually we decided to go check out our rental house in Capitola.
It so happens our renters had just given notice and were starting
to move out, and we had previously arranged to go there with
Larry to take a look at the roof, which we were worried might
need major repairs before we could rent it again. Given the circumstances,
we were now thinking maybe we would need to live in it. The news
there was good, because the roof was in much better shape than
we thought and could be fixed with minor work.
We talked a while about our possibilities for housing over the next few days and longer term. Rebuild Ormsby? Use insurance money to remodel the rental and sell it so we can afford a place over the hill? Meantime, do we live in the rental? Do we live over the hill closer to work? I think I needed a general plan to keep me calm but Walendo wasn't really ready to think that far ahead.
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During this time I was getting phone calls from our insurance agent, Angela, who wanted to make sure we were okay and asked if we wanted to be set up in a hotel, assuring us that they would find a place that took dogs. We realized it would be nice to get settled someplace where we wouldn't feel we were imposing and could stay awhile. Meantime, they arranged to send us a check for $2,000 just to handle any initial outlays. I was pretty impressed with the speed and efficiency of their response.
Not sure what to do next, we parked near the rental in a nice spot overlooking the Capitola downtown and talked about what to do. This is when we picked up a bunch of emails from friends on our phones and let more people know we were okay. It was really nice to know so many people were thinking of us and wanted to help.
We then got to Gigi's in Santa Cruz and had lunch and compared notes on our reactions and tried to figure out what to do next. We swung by the Corralitos Market, where we'd heard they'd set up barricades, to find out any news. I spoke to a cop there who said the firefighters thought that none of the homes on Ormsby had survived. I was already operating on that assumption, but again it had an impact for him to say it.
On our way to Larry's we passed our UPS
guy. It turned out that he had a package for us--a bathroom heater
that we'd ordered for the bathroom remodel. That'll come in handy
now! We also remembered that we have two toilets on order to
be delivered to the house. Now that's going to be interesting...
We met some other friends who had been evacuated from their homes.
So far the fire hadn't gotten to theirs. We watched some news
and saw lots of fire but again couldn't tell where they were
filming. Larry's son said they had shown one of my photos on
TV, which delighted me.
We then headed out over the hill to the hotel. We brought in
our stuff, took showers and checked the news and I did indeed
see one of the photos on the air. We talked with a few friends
and family on the phone to give them updates. Most people offered
different ways of helping. Some were ready to leave work and
help us get stuff out. Walendo's mom wanted to mail us supplies
from New York. . Everyone wanted to us to know they were thinking
of us.
Then we headed out to get some supplies. We went to Target and
got some underwear, toiletries, dog dishes (and a chew toy) for
Cassie and some food. By now it was around 8 p.m. and we were
pretty hungry, so we decided to just go to the diner called,
of all things, Flames. Amazingly, it wasn't until a few hours
later that the irony of this dawned on us.
 That evening they ate at a restaurant called, ironically, Flames. |
It was at dinner that I had my first feeling of real sadness as the adrenaline of the day started to wear off and the impact of all that we'd lost started to sink in. The thing that made me tear up was imagining each room of the house going up in flames and all the contents burning or melting away. All that effort remodeling the house. Our beautiful kitchen with the gorgeous cabinets All those tiles we laid by hand! The artwork and crafts we'd bought in New Mexico, Hawaii, Australia, Japan, Italy. And, oh no! My stockpile of Bud's chocolate ice cream melting...
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custom-made "good fortune" tiles |
Now we're back at the hotel where we've been communicating with
some of you, watching the news reports on the fire, and trying
to absorb it all. Throughout the day we had been giving Cassie
water, but we didn't realize until now that we hadn't explicitly
taken her out to pee. (She's a shy dog and needs to know the
time is right.) So when Walendo took her out tonight, she unloaded
a full day's worth of supply. Poor sweetie.
All in all, we feel pretty lucky about a lot of things: It happened
when we were at home so we didn't have the horror of not being
able to get back to rescue Cassie. We had enough warning to get
out the things that are most important to us. We keep all our
data on a single raid array, so it was easy to get out all the
critical information, photos, and videos just by grabbing one
box. In particular I was grateful that this happened in the spring,
so we won't have to deal with all the things to come in the cold!
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destruction to the garage area and the remains of his valuable tools. |
And, as I mentioned, we had an outpouring of people get in touch with us expressing their concern, which made us feel grateful for the people in our lives.
So far we haven't thought of too many things that are really painful to have left behind. One of the few is the realization that, now that our book is out of print, the 15 copies or so that we had were the only ones left, and now they're gone. Some others are the quilted bedspread my mother made for me and the picture that Walendo's father once painted.
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Now we have to figure out where we'll live and how our life will change. Tomorrow we're going to try to get up to the house. We saw shots of Ormsby on the news tonight and it looked like it wasn't burning anymore, but we don't know if we'll be allowed to get up there. The front gate looks fine and the car is sitting in the driveway, but the house is just rubble. So we'll have to brace ourselves for that.
We'll keep you posted as the events unfold. Thanks again to everyone for all your support and concern. Some of you have asked how Cassie's doing. She was pretty agitated all day, but now she's resting peacefully and happy to be settled in with us.
 Ellen's husband, Alan (Walendo), with their dog, Cassie, her fire-scorched feet bandaged. |
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Ellen and Alan, living in temporary quarters, are now in the process of living happily ever after, taking care of a million details, contemplating their future, whether to rebuild at the old site or another site in the area. They are indomnitable. ....STAN ISAACS |
©2008 by Ellen Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photos are the property of the author. All rights reserved. This column first posted June 9, 2008.
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