Credit: Kat Miner via Wikimedia Commons
As we approach the anniversary of the massive October 2007 wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands of San Diegans- I think of Hawaii.
That’s because, on the Sunday the massive wildfires started in San Diego- just a few miles east of the 76th Assembly district I represented- I was flying westward over the Pacific, looking forward to a relaxing week on Maui. It had been windy, dry, and hot in San Diego as the flight departed, so I welcomed the relatively mild tropical island weather and rented a convertible for the drive to town.
Unfortunately, the fires intensified rapidly throughout the day. But I watched a baseball playoff game, not the news, when I got to Lahaina and remained unaware of what was happening. After the game, I went out and bought a week’s worth of groceries from a supermarket, then went to bed.
Which is why, on Monday morning, I was puzzled to be awakened by frantic text messages telling me to turn on the TV. As soon as I saw CNN anchors interviewing San Diego officials about dangerous fires I realized that instead of spending a relaxing week in paradise, I was lucky to have a 24 hour Maui layover.
A few hours later, I was running through the airport to catch a flight back to San Diego, listening to details about massive wildfires threatening lives and property near my district.
I was patched into a conference call with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services- but the Homeland Security officials in the airport didn’t know that. They demanded that I stop running, and hang up my phone to go through the security lines. I kept the phone turned on as it went thru the X-ray machine, trying to listen to the muffled voices as the tray moved along the conveyor belt.
Meanwhile, on the tarmac, the same airplane that had carried happy vacationers to the island the day before was waiting for me to board. The captain even held the plane a few extra minutes- I had met him on the outbound flight, and he knew I was the representative for an area where thousands of people were suddenly hoping to find refuge from a rapidly growing conflagration east of San Diego.
The last call I made before turning off my phone for the flight was to my 78-year old mother, at her home in North Clairemont. She lived alone, in the house where I had grown up, only a block away from dry canyons at risk of fire. Mom was busy packing supplies and getting travel boxes ready for her collection of pets, in case she needed to evacuate: plastic carrying cases for the dog and cat, a small box for the parakeet, and larger cardboard boxes for the desert tortoises.
After assuring her I was returning home and would arrive in 5 or 6 hours, I texted a friend who had a truck, and was housesitting for me. I asked him to go stay with my mother, in case she needed to leave in a hurry with pets and whatever belongings she could carry. I hoped my apartment, a few miles away, would be safe if they needed a place to stay.
For the next 5 hours, the pilot and crew kept us informed as we headed east over the Pacific. It was sunset by the time we began our descent over the California coast. I’ll never forget seeing the orange ring of flames surrounding much of San Diego. Even from 35,000 feet it was a frightening sight.
As soon as we landed I called my mother to make sure she was safe, and to let her know I was back on the mainland. Fortunately, the fires had not made it to the Clairemont canyons. She was sitting with my house sitter, watching TV and worrying about the fires that were destroying homes only 15 miles away.
Next, I called my District Director, who was waiting at the airport. She quickly explained the situation: thousands of people from throughout the County were heading to Qualcomm Stadium – in our Assembly District.
We headed for Mission Valley, and at the stadium we began meeting Red Cross volunteers, EMTs/first responders, police officers and sheriff deputies. I asked for an update.
We were told that older adults from an assisted living facility were being housed in the “Stadium Club” – one of the few areas with air conditioning and electrical power for medical devices.
Families were setting up tents and sleeping bags on various levels of the stadium. Volunteers were providing toys and books for children, and offering to keep an eye on them, so their parents could make phone calls to their insurance companies and try to find more comfortable places to stay.
RVs, trailers, and cars were filling up the parking lot. People hauling horse trailers were directed to Fiesta Island, where they could let the animals out for some exercise. Before they left, a few horses were walking around in the stadium area.
I thanked everyone for providing safety and comfort to these fire refugees, asked what else they needed, and finally- close to midnight- headed home. I knew it was going to be a much different week than I had anticipated 24 hours earlier.
For the next 7 days, my staff and I drove all over San Diego- from the stadium to the district office to various schools and churches that were providing emergency housing for people too old or infirm to be outdoors or in the hot stadium. We watched as members of the California National Guard arrived, and began assembling massive canopies to provide shade for people in the parking lot, to get them out of the sun beating down on the black asphalt.
Radio and television stations began broadcasting live from the stadium, providing updates and information for people who otherwise were out of touch. In these early days of social media, we still relied on radio and television broadcasts to put out the call for supplies. Soon people began arriving at the stadium delivering donations of bottled water, food, clothing, bedding, water, diapers and other materials. Grocery stores provided supplies. Restaurants brought in hot meals. Insurance companies set up satellite offices to begin processing claims.
It was an exhausting but educational week. Businesses and schools closed down to keep roads clear and conserve energy since the fires were threatening to destroy power transmission towers and lines. (Later, we would learn the fires had been started by those transmission lines.)
With the regional college and university campuses closed, co-generation energy facilities at UCSD and SDSU were able to provide emergency energy into the local grid.
One-stop shops for fire survivors were set up, with city, county, state and federal staff helping them cancel water, cable, gas, electric and other utilities, to avoid paying for services no longer being used at their burned-out homes, and apply for emergency aid. I drove a friend to one of these, after visiting a huge pile of ashes that had been her home a few days before.
Governor Schwarzenegger initiated several steps to reduce the financial burden on those who had already lost so much. Since businesses were closed, the one-week waiting period for receiving unemployment insurance payments was waived. Fees to replace lost legal documents lost in the fires were temporarily eliminated. Certain requirements for securing contracts to remove fire debris were suspended to expedite the clean-ups.
A few weeks afterward, I joined with other legislators and participated in a Joint Legislative Task Force that held a day-long hearing at the University of San Diego. Other meetings were convened around the state.
We heard suggestions and after-action reports from emergency responders from throughout the region and began the process of preparing for the next fire or other major disasters. Recommendations were offered on new standards for brush-clearing, improvements to interoperability of emergency radio networks, the need for up-to-date mapping of fire-prone areas, and ideas for streamlining evacuation procedures vs. “shelter in place.”
One of the subsequent reports- “California Fire Siege 2007- An Overview” – provided us with legislative and policy recommendations to prevent future wildfires, and improve the state’s response.
Several bills were introduced, and policies initiated, as the result of these fires. Because, in the end, we know it is not a matter of “if” another wildfire or other disaster will force people to make plans for evacuations to avoid threats to lives and property.
It’s always a question of “when.”
Lori Saldaña is a candidate for the 4th District Board of Supervisors seat in 2018
Lori Saldaña
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- Lori Saldaña: Remembering the October 2007 Wildfires - October 20, 2017
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Every October since 2007 some forgotten clock sets memory in motion. First, looking at the palm tree across the street with the eerie hazy white marble of the sun over its shoulder. The sky dark, ashy with a hint of plum.
Second, the numb stunned look on my colleague’s face. She turned to me, said, “I don’t even have a pair of nail clippers.” Her house in Harbison Canyon had burnt to the ground. She fled with her purse and dogs. That was all she had left. She came to work.
Third, watching local news, watching where the fires were headed, paralyzed in terror that one would jump the freeways, edging closer to the city core.
Every October I am reminded of how flammable and fragile my immediate and larger world are.
I am reminded of the resources and people we would rely upon when the unspeakable happens,yet again.
So true… the visceral responses are triggered by deeply buried memories.
In Sept. 2003 I awoke to an eerie red glow thru my east-facing bedroom window in South Park.
I walked out to see an incredible, unimaginable sunrise- blood red, smoke gathering high above the mountains to the east. A short time later- ashes began falling out of the sky, and refugees began appearing in our local coffee shop.
Rebecca’s old, tiny location on Juniper Street filled quickly with people carrying bird cages, or accompanied by pets on leashes. They sat stunned and silent, trying not to think of the unthinkable: returning home to ashes… Unnerving.
What do you say to someone who just fled their homes with what they could carry, leaving all their belongings to the cruel vagaries and uncertainties of a firestorm?
Then- two years later- I awoke to a similar blood-red sky in Sacramento. My entire body responded with nervous, anxious energy. I called my Assembly chief of staff and asked about the status of the fires. Clearly they were massive and nearby. What was the plan?
She was a native of the delta, and calmly replied: “They are burning the rice fields. They do this every year. It’s nothing. Relax.”
Easy for her to say…
Correction: the Cedar Fire of 2003 was in October- not September.
The 2007 October wildfires made thousands of San Diegans homeless in a matter of hours. We responded with care, comfort, food and lodging.
What has happened to that compassion since then?
Today- right now- homeless people are being arrested and jailed and their belongings confiscated and destroyed. They are dying from exposure and hepatitis on the streets and sidewalks.
We have done so much better before. We must do better again.
Now,imagine if it happened today? How many homeless might be killed living in canyons? I think of this because my Section 8 housing, in Clairemont near Lori’s mom has lots of dry brush on the hillside. And I was visiting my cousins, and looking after my aunt & uncles, also Clairemont, when ’03 fire hit. Fire had come to a block away from cousins at 805 & Clairemont Mesa Blvd interchange house. I packed my Aunt & Uncles valued items into her rarely used car in the garage as they were gone on a few month driving trip around U.S.A. I got prepared. I still had my RV I used to live in before getting Section 8 so I had a “mobile” home just in case.
At USD where I worked the ash had polluted the tennis courts, pool deck and pool; even coming into the old gym via the vents. The winds had picked up some of the bolted down shade shelters moving them around on the deck while tossing a few into the pool too!
The heavy white, gray, and dark ash was everywhere! I decided to see what else I could do. I found out about 211 services, it was close by in Serra Mesa, so I went & volunteered. Late night shift 11pm-7am; where many seniors who couldn’t sleep at night would call in asking what should they do…such and such: no electric, transportation, cool centers, with so much stress in their voices.
I was okay. My family and friends ended up being spared. I went for a drive the week after the fires. So much destruction in the Northeast areas of San Diego County, even to the Coastal region. The areas where I hiked trails were just ashy, smoke colored, burnt, and blackened moon/volcanic scapes. But I was glad latter to see how after just a few months growth had started back up and life began to flourish. Still smelling of ash/smoke, but healing. This is what I wish for the people in the North of California…healing, new growth, life beginning to flourish again. They are in my prayers. Yet I worry. What about my homeless neighbors? What would happen to them. They are already at such a loss without housing, few personal items to survive on and daily trauma regularly. No place for them in an emergency. And just pushed from one place to another, little to no respite.
Really strange I was a San Diego River meeting and the talk about Hep A outbreak. How people get through “illicit” drug use (needles), but I asked about diabetes medication & sharing of those needles…”oh, yeah they can get from that too!”…others at the coalition table kept say criminal behavior, when the homeless had no place else to turn. I asked City representative for Environmental Services cleaning up the San Diego River, ‘Did you ask why the homeless moved to that area?’, ‘Did you see if they might come back?’ She looked perturbed and just said: “we told them it was illegal to camp there and the rules”. But I thought you didn’t tell them where they were supposed to move to? Where they COULD go? (Got my job done to hell with them…same attitude with many of coalition & neighborhood folks at the meeting & on “NextDoor”).
So WHO IS A NEIGHBOR? WHO SHOULD BE HELPED…Wildfire Emergency victims being able to use the “Q”? What about those whom have no place to call home, or who’s “home” was just put into a trash truck while their belongs seized or washed down the sidewalk & street (into OUR Bay, streams, rivers, beaches?!?). When do we really help people…does it matter their income, their need, their color, disability, age? AND THAT IS WHY the old “Q” Stadium is sitting empty now; the lots is barely have used even during events? Who counts to you? Even more when would you help? Help your neighbor? Even if dirtied by ash and fire? How about just dirt of life/trying to survive? If not so pretty, maybe mentally ill, veteran, single mom/dad with kids? Whom? When? Why?
I THINK THE TIME IS NOW! Before the wildfire happens…Let’s make a way for those already out of a house/home. Let’s help out our neighbors, and REQUIRE our legislative & municipal staffs to help out ALL constituents! Heck, that is why we pay and fund them right? Or maybe it is just about “I got mine, get the “F” away from my stuff: street, sidewalk, neighborhood, community, city, county, state, country…go back to where you came from!!!” Like Ms. Saldana’s mother, friend and constituents just temporary visitors from someplace else even if decades or centuries of family here?!?
Good luck on your island…because I still believe what I learned in Social Studies 1977…no man is an island.
Sorry for grammatical errors, dyslexia doesn’t help. And not really understanding, learning “english” in school didn’t help either, but I did “pass”?!! Even into college!! Multiple times. But does make you wonder, b/c they are getting City,County,State,Federal funding they’ll put people into a seat? I just work much harder, hour to 2 on above. Use software editor/document programs. Did get 4.0 at Mesa College couple semesters ago, but a bit of luck, great prof. and patience along with lots of hard work. Having a desire to learn a new subject: Anthropology (Native American & Californian) helped much too! Now if there wasn’t so much red tape(funding & transcript issues) and they would let me use food-stamps/EBT on campus…see I stay late & need library ALL weekend too!, I would of kept going. Maybe next life?
Dan- Thank you for being an advocate for people who are homeless, and for assisting others during the fires. And congratulations on your educational success.