Evacuation

Today is the third day we've been under evacuation. As far as we can tell - from informal reports from neighbors online and the fact that answering machine is still picking up, our house is still standing.

Sunday afternoon, our friend Linda and her mother Jane were visiting (I will post another blog entry with pictures on that). When we saw them out, we noticed it was smoky and figured there was a fire somewhere. It is prime fire season out here and it's not uncommon to have smoke from distant fires, especially with Santa Ana winds to blow the smoke from the east. We watched the news briefly and saw that the fires were well east of us. Then we headed to a our friends' home for their daughter's birthday party. I didn't think too much about it, but when we got home, it was as bad or worse, meaning that the fire was not under control.

I don't think I realized how bad it was at first. We watched the news a bit before bed, but although I went to bed at the usual time, Thom stayed up late looking for information on the internet and TV. I assumed the fire was far enough east that it wasn't a threat to us and that we'd wake up to the reverse 911 call if we needed to evacuate. But after Thom was in bed about 2 hours, we were both awakened by the strong winds and by Aaron. Thom got up to watch the news. Several new fires had started, one of which was too close for comfort. By the time I finished feeding Aaron, we were ready to start packing a few things up - just in case.

It was 3:30 in the morning and I was half asleep. I packed a bag for Aaron with spare clothes, diapers, burp clothes. Then I pulled out boxes of pictures and mementos to have ready to go. Thom started to gather important papers. After the last fires in this area, I had gone over in my head what I would take with us in the event of an evacuation, so I had a good idea of what to take. I packed a couple of overnight bags for Thom and I, fully assuming we might be gone for a day at the most. As we continued to watch the news, we were pretty sure we'd be leaving soon. I continued to pack up things as I thought of them - quilts of Aaron's that had been hand made, receipts for my home business (for tax purposes), some leftovers from the fridge, more burp cloths, coffee (since I knew my Dad would only have decaf).

Around 4:20am, the phone rang. It was a reverse 911 call from the police telling us to leave. So Thom started packing up the car as I continued to throw random things into bags. We waited until the last minute to call my parents to see if we could come here, then we woke up Aaron and got him ready to go. He seemed to think it was fun to get up early.

With everything packed up, we locked up the house, turned off the gas, and headed towards the freeway to my parents. We noticed a lot of cars going the other direction which was our first clue there might be a problem. Sure enough, the freeway towards my parents house was closed, so we had to go the opposite direction and head around the long way. What would normally be a 30 minute trip ended up being about an hour. Since it was still early for normal rush hour traffic and evacuations in our area were just starting, traffic was thankfully not too bad.

When we arrived, my parents were up and our room was ready for us. We set up the portable crib that we leave here for Aaron, but couldn't get to sleep ourselves. I had gotten about 4 hours and Thom only 2. But we stayed up, made some coffee, and had some oatmeal that Dad fixed for us, while watching the news. Not long after, my sister and her 3 kids arrived. My brother-in-law had left town for work on Sunday, not realizing he'd be leaving her to manage the evacuation of 3 kids, a dog and a cat.

My parents have a 5 bedroom, 2 story house, so there is plenty of room for all of us, but with all the kids and a puppy (the cat is stuck in the garage), it gets chaotic. Plus with the air quality so poor, the kids can't play outdoors for extended periods of time. But so far we are all managing, getting out each day for trips to the grocery store and other minor errands.

I'm going to post a few more entries on what is going on, but figure this one is long enough.