Evacuation

Well, after growing up in San Diego as a kid I remember watching news reports of wildfires while my dad would go to help friends and church members in other neighborhoods evacuate their houses. Wildfires are scary, but are a pretty "normal" thing growing up here -- usually it seems there would be at least one a year within an hour or so of where we lived. 

So, for the first time ever, the neighborhood I live in was evacuated for a brush fire today. It started near the high school, went through the open spaces in the canyon south of our neighborhood, continued through the Lusardi Creek preserve where we always go mountain biking, and is still going out towards Rancho Santa Fe. Fortunately, the news reports are making it seem like it's winding down and getting under control, even though fire fighters are still hard at work. Amazingly, I don't believe any homes were burned, even though I saw on the news that it came up to the edge of some peoples' property. 

It was a little crazy today, since I was helping at a field trip with Camden's class out in Poway, 30 minutes from home, when I learned that our neighborhood was in fact officially being evacuated. I was never overly concerned that our house would burn down, but it was a little stressful to watch posts stream in on Facebook about the fire until it did end up that we were evacuated, and then leaving in the middle of the field trip, bringing Camden & Isaac home from school with me, and rushing back across town while I watched my cell phone battery slowly drop down from 8%, to 4%, to 2%, to 1%, and then turn off (with no charger cord on hand, of course). 

My kind friend sent her husband to our house to help get our dogs, and I arrived home about the same time he got there. I got the dogs out, gathered up boxes of genealogy, and as many photo albums and journals as I could, plus the laptop and external hard drives, and 1 stuffed animal for each boy, and then headed to the older boys' elementary school to pick them up. I arrived to find a long line of parents waiting to sign their kids out, so I signed out the boys and waited, and I picked up their friend too. But my boys didn't come down to the office, and someone said they were sending kids out to the buses to be evacuated so I went to check outside, but didn't see them. Then I noticed that they were locking the gates to the school office, and I friend told me my boys were in there, so I rushed over and told the lady I had already signed my boys out and when she started to object I just pulled the door open and went past her and got my kids. 

So I was glad to get them all with me. We stopped and snapped a couple photos of the smoke from the school parking lot, and texted a bunch of our neighborhood friends offering for them to come hang out with us at my parents' house, before I drove the car full of boys, dogs, and family photos to my parents' house. Since then I've been following my neighborhood Facebook page, responding to texts, emails, and phone calls about the fire, and watching the news. It seems like the fire is under control around our neighborhood now. Michael's on his way home from work and will drive through our neighborhood on his way here just to check things out, but I'm guessing we'll be home before too long. And then I'm ready for a nap -- I can tell you that running back and forth from a house to a car in 95 degree whether carrying big albums and boxes is quite a work out. :)   I'll be glad to go back home.