San Diego Fires

Photo by John Gibbons, UT
Photo by Charlie Neuman, UT



For the past week, there have been devastating fires in San Diego. Over 500,000 people were evacuated and 1500 homes were destroyed. The 919 Gang was offline for a week as Jack Reber was unable to go to his home in Ramona. His, and all the others that I have heard of from the 919 gang, homes were safe. I sent him this message today:

I was very glad to see you came out of the fires relatively unscathed, Jack. I covered several of those nasty things for the UT and understand how devastating they can be. I happened to be in SD a couple of years ago when they tried to burn Tierra Santa etc, and got a good reminder of why they call them "wild fires" My wife's cousin lives south of Mission Valley and had houses all around him burn but the fire chose not to come up his canyon.

Is there anything that 'outsiders' can do to help? Perhaps a 919er or someone in Ramona you know of who needs ??? Or after things calm down a bit, there might be someone, older or widowed etc. There are a myriad little things that get forgotten in a disaster. I have had two brothers lose their homes to fires and I understand a bit about that. I suspect there are a lot of folks in this group who would be glad to help if they knew who or where or how.

My son Nathan and our Spanish exchange student Javier and I went to Hawaii several months after hurricane Iniki blasted through Kauai in 1992. It is the worst recorded storm in the islands and there were lots of folks who had no insurance or assistance and were living in temporary digs, even tents. Others had their roofs blown away and were living under huge blue tarps that covered their houses, while they tried to gather enough money to start repairs. We were able to join one of the work gangs for a week or so. The gangs were simply neighbors helping neighbors to start the re-building process when there was no more help coming from outside. We helped take off damaged roofs, tore an unsalvageable building down, helped clear the debris. It was not all hard work though. There were other neighbors who brought incredible Hawaiian food around for the crews! They were simply trying to give each other a little breathing room as they figured how to start their lives over.

Nathan, Javier and I also helped an old kamaaina Hawaiian named Tony Wong put a new roof on his house after his insurance company went bankrupt. Tony had gotten shingles somewhere but had no money to pay anyone to put them up. He was too old to climb the ladders or help shingle, but he easily made up for it by telling us non-stop stories about his life on the island while we worked. What a great experience for my son and me... and Tony's new red roof was the pride of Kekaha Road... even if the shingle lines are a bit wavy.

Email from Jerry Windle:

John,
You been gone longer than I but I kind of missed being in the thick of the wildfires this time around now that I are retired. Last time in 2003, I worked non-stop for several days. One lab tech was sick and the other had been evacuated so I worked 10-12 hour days. Even though I was not out there on the lines, I was in the newsroom downloading digital photos and placing them in the archive system and folders so the editors could easily find them. I enjoyed sitting there and listening to all the bickering going on behind me.

I never got into the politics of the newsroom. When they combined the papers in 1992, I got "reclassified" taking an $8,000 loss per year in income so I was bitter for several years and finally realized there was more to life than the UT so I went in did my job and that was it. Usually did a lot of personal work as well - that is once the company work was done.

Kind of like an old race horse, I wanted to be back in the fray of things again.

My reply:

Hey Jerry.... Yeah, I miss it. Its the old firehorse thing I suppose. I watched the fires on TV and found myself thinking... if I were on that little ridge right there, I could get SUCH a picture of that fire snake running up the other canyon!!! It was so much fun back then, how could we not get all nervous and twitchy? But I am also realistic. I would never want to go back, even if I could. I remember the politics and the stress... ok, spell that BS... and the long boring stuff with those three ladies and that stupid piece of paper... But the rest sure was fun wassnit?