Our evacuation story is below the fold, but the primary purpose of this diary is to raise funds for Bésame who escaped the Camp Fire with her beloved parrots.
Yesterday’s launch diary can be found here, and the tale of Besame’s harrowing escape is here. Our wonderful community has made a very good start on helping our friend get back on her feet. Please start with Besame, and then if you’re not already sick of evacuation stories ours is below.
If you would help Bésame out we would be most grateful.
If you haven’t already done so, please go to Bésame’s page, where you’ll be able to share on Facebook and Twitter as well as donate. And thank you!!!
I explain here why we are not asking for any funding for ourselves, but we certainly do welcome and relish your loving-kindness in the face of the destabilizing upheaval we also find ourselves in.
Want to know how to help?
Good place for donations list
California Fire Relief list
It’s still hard to wrap my mind around the idea that the little mountain town we’ve lived in for 28 years is gone. Ironically, John and I left Santa Cruz a couple of months after the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake to open our practice in Chico and buy a house in quiet peaceful Paradise, on our own little year-round creek the neighbors playfully called Smiley Creek.
P50 posted a series of comments describing his real-time experience in the New Day diary as reports of fire across the Feather River were just beginning to come in. Fires across the canyon are common. I woke up at 8:30 am with a vague sense that something was wrong. At 8:31 the Code Red app on my cell phone went off, and I fumbled with my glasses to read: Due to the fire in the area, an evacuation order has been issued for zones 2, 6, 7 and 13. We’re in lucky Zone 13. There’s a fire? Where? When did it start? How close is it? No matter, I was fully awake. This was no “prepare to evacuate” reverse 911 call as in the Humboldt Fire of 2008. The fire plan we’d rehearsed and talked about was suddenly on. No time for questions.
I put the harnesses and leashes on our two rat terriers, Sancho and Cayden while they were still calm. John ran down to the basement for the “fire boxes” which consisted of two boxes of family photographs and a metal box with passports, deeds and other essential documents, grabbed the dog food, and threw those into the trunk of his car. I quickly dressed for work (dress, tights and shoes) and threw my laptop and all the power and charging cords I could see into my carry-on tote bag. Looked out the window. It was suddenly getting very dark but no visible flames. I ran back to the kitchen and got the thumb drive from the desktop computer with all the financial back-ups and while trying to disconnect the external hard drive the phone rang. No time, leave it. It was my sister, asking if we knew what was going on. “We’re evacuating right now,” I said. We agreed we’d meet at her house in Chico. I felt calm, determined, and dissociated from my emotions — this was like working in the emergency room again. Do what you have to do now and feel the feels later. Follow the fire plan. Pets. Fire boxes. Electronics. Clothes. Go.
On the way back to the bedroom I grabbed our 14 year old cat Jordie but she was having none of it and ran off. No time. I hurried back into the bedroom and threw the pajamas I’d just taken off and the jeans t-shirt and shoes I’d been wearing the day before into my carry-on suitcase. I was going to put my contacts in but instead threw my travel case with my spare pair into the suitcase along with my reading glasses. I opened the dresser drawer to get enough clothes to last a couple days but that was to be the sum total of possessions I had time for, because another Code Red text came:
An immediate evacuation order for zones 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 14 due yto fire. You are receiving this message because You should evacuate immediately. (sic) Less than 10 minutes had gone by. How much more could we, should we grab. I stopped still for a split-second, listened to my gut, then turned to John who had just begun throwing clothes into his suitcase and said, “We have to go. NOW.” He didn’t hesitate, just zipped up his suitcase and headed for the door with me behind him. I grabbed the first coat I felt in the closet and ran to the garage for Cayden’s dog crate.
While I was wrestling the crate into my back seat John arrived with Jordie the cat. We both tried to stuff her squirming body into the dog crate but she clawed John and took off. No time. Good-bye, Jordie. We pulled out of the driveway, Sancho in John’s car and Cayden in mine, and navigated the single lane road that winds around in one large circle behind a few neighbors until we got to the first main intersection at Pearson. There it was obvious that turning right towards Pentz Road which would take us to Highway 70 was clearly closed. One exit down, two to go.
It was now dark as midnight with a powerful red glow behind us where our watershed canyon is, and a lesser red glow to our right where Feather River Hospital is. Good, we’re driving away from it.
And there we sat. And sat. The sky getting darker, the glow getting redder, the cars not moving at all. We would have turned right onto this intersection but clearly Pentz Road leading down off the ridge was already closed. This was my greatest fear, and why the plan was always to get out fast. It’s not the fire that will kill you— it’s being stuck in traffic with no escape that will.
My office manager texted at 9:20 am — where were we? Her friend’s house and two others next to Feather River Hospital had already burned down and Skyway was also on fire. Two of three lower exits out of town were now blocked. Moments later she texted that Clark Road, our last remaining exit out of town which follows Morgan Ridge and Clear Creek down to the college was also severly impacted. I was behind John’s white Subaru WRX and I knew I had to stick to him like glue, because if there was an opening he wouldn’t hesitate.
He didn’t. For the next two and a half hours I stayed glued to his bumper. Sometimes he’d see a second lane open up and swing into it. Sometimes he opened a second lane himself. Sometimes I’d see him get ready to bolt like a rabbit out of its hole and think, oh no you don’t but when he did I followed, no matter what. We were not going to be separated. At the Pearson Road driveway into Ace Hardware he rolled down his window, said something to a man standing there (“Is Clark open?” “Yes”) and then cut across their parking lot past fire engines and then cut left onto Clark Road and down Highway 191, me right on his tail. And then traffic was stop-and-start through heavier and heavier smoke and darkness. Time and again he’d pull out, dash forward into a temporary second lane that our small cars could squeeze into, then dash back when a fire truck or ambulance approached. Just like he trusted me when I said We have to get out NOW , I trusted him that he was going to get us out of there no matter what.
During yet another traffic jam my office manager texted me the Broadcastify app link for emergency radio and I listened in amazement. A pregnant woman in active labor with complications needs a cesarean section. (Why does every disaster movie ever made feature a woman in labor?) A group of people on foot are trapped— get two engines down there to surround them. A car is flipped over on Honey Run— sorry, we have no resources to spare. An elderly disabled couple on Bille Road can’t evacuate. Tell them to walk out to the road and flag down a passing car— it’s their only chance.
Ten minutes after we made it onto Clark it was closed to allow emergency vehicles to come up. And then suddenly we shot out from under the dense black cloud of smoke into sunlight — we were safe— and I looked to my left and saw all of Morgan Ridge on fire, the flames following Clear Creek drainage up into Paradise.
I knew then our house was gone. But we didn’t lose our practice, as a colleague of ours on Skyway did. We’re so sorry, Sheryl.
Ten minutes. Ten minutes was all that was between us and being turned back from Clark Road. Our evacuation took three hours. Others took 6-8 hours to escape, being turned back from exit after exit. Others didn’t make it out at all.
We’re safe, our house was insured, we have each other and my sister and shelter and safety and our livelihoods intact. For people on a fixed income like Besame who were able to enjoy the low cost of life in Paradise, this is a difficult financial blow.
Chico already had a housing crisis, and there is virtually nowhere to stay there now. Many, many people will have to relocate, temporarily or permanently, to find a place to live.
If you were affected by our story and want to help, we would consider it a personal favor if you donate to our friend Bésame through her GoFundMe Page.
Aftermath: Last night we received this photo taken by a California Highway Patrol Officer who checked on our property at the request of a friend. The house, garage, greenhouse and woodshed are all completely gone (no need to show you a picture of a pile of ash and rubble) but look what made it: The infamous paving stone project. John’s fundie friend Bill who helped him build it has relocated permanently to central California.
I’m watching the shelters but no sign of Jordie yet.
Haven’t caught site of Dave but I kinda think he made it too.
And so it goes.
Barn’s burnt down
Now I can see the moon