*sigh* Disasters get more personal.

[Alunissage]

I got a call from my sister in southern California about an hour ago saying that there's a fire in the canyon next to theirs and they're likely to have to evacuate, is there anything in the parental home I particularly want saved?

...

Having heard so much about seasonal hurricanes, I'd almost forgotten that it's wildfire season over here. It wouldn't be the first time we've evacuated because of fire, but I think the last time was in 1981 (the fire did burn the hill across the street then). I guess after hearing about hurricane evacuations I'm feeling more anxious than usual. And, of course, was drawing a blank on what to take, as most of the stuff that's personal to me is already up where I am. They'd already thought of the photos, of course (Mom's kept them by the front door for years because of this sort of thing), and the jewelry, and my sister's flute. The rest of the instruments will stay there, though, including my harp.

What else... The silver coffee service which was a wedding present from my great-great-grandparents to my great-grandparents 80 years ago and will be a wedding present to me. The quilts Mom's made over the years. My grandparents' wedding silverware. Favorite stuffed animals (mainly my sister's since mine are up there, but I think she's bringing my My Little Ponies). Autographed books. Autographed CDs in some cases. My parents' marriage certificate. I kept telling my sister to grab such-and-such if there's time after the other stuff, or to ask Mom whether it should be prioritized. (Family videos? The art glass plate I gave them for their anniversary? Old records?) At least we only have two pets right now, but how are they going to transport the iguana? She's three or four feet long now.

It's only my mom and sister, too. My dad's...out covering a different fire with NBC News. Wouldn't that be a nice bit of irony, your house burning down while you're working on news coverage of a different fire? That'd be even better than the time he was sent to Yellowstone for some event a mere week before our family vacation to Yellowstone.

At this point all I can do is compulsively keep checking my cellphone, which doesn't get much coverage at my workplace. And equally compulsively go through the house in my mind and try to think of other things. (I told my sister to not worry about her PS games, since they're all duplicates of mine, but get the TSS disc I lent her. Good? Bad?)

[phyco126]

Hmm, well, last time I had to prepare for anything was because of a tornadoe warning, so I grabbed my most precious items (oddly enough, a folder with some papers and a plastic shelf container with my Lunar items.) I figured if I had those, I would be happy. Losing anything, even something you wouldn't miss as much as something else is still a bummer though. I wish you the best, but I'm sure you hear that enough.

[Alunissage]

Actually, I haven't, so thanks.

I haven't heard anything further from my folks, which I hope means that things are fine. Still, I think I'll give them a call.

Edit: busy signal. I keep forgetting Mom disabled call waiting, after having it for about 25 years. Dad hates it, though, and figures that a busy signal gives all the relevant information, e.g., that the person you want to talk to is busy...I'm rambling. (I think he's wrong, though.)

[GhaleonOne]

Hope everything turns out good. How likely is it for the fire to get to the house? I know it happens, but it seems they do a pretty good job of containing it from residential area's. Albiet pretty damn close.

[Mormon88]

grrr im moving to southern cal in 2 weeks

[Rune Lai]

Depends where in So Cal you live. I'm perfectly fine where I am, though I know where the fire's burning and have checked with the coworkers I know who live in the area. This happens every year, but seems later then usual this time. We had a very mild August, but this September was pretty hot, especially lately, so I guess it's about time. I've heard there's been relative little fire damage to homes thus far (in comparision to other years), so hopefully your family's house will be all right, Alunissage.

[phyco126]

Though it's intresting, with time, effort, and more money than a movie star can dream of, your house can be fairly protected against many different natural disasters, mainly earthquakes and fires. Yet, the cost of doing so is so high, no one does this. Oddly enough, I can't blame them.

[Alunissage]

Sorry I didn't update sooner...I finally ended up calling Dad (who was talking with the producer of the news coverage of the Topanga fire when I called) and he said that Mom and my sister had probably left. I'd tried the house but got the answering machine, and Mom didn't answer her cell, and Sis's cell was off. But I called Mom again and she answered; she'd left it in the car. She was on the way to buy a leash for the iguana because they couldn't find theirs...anyway, she said there were about 7 fire trucks on the street (which is only a mile or less long) and then started naming their locations and got up to more than seven, so it sounds like things are about as prepared as they're going to be. She could see flames after getting out of the canyon. I haven't had an update in many hours now, but they got most of the important stuff out and they have friends in town, so I suppose it's just wait and see now. They left when it was still voluntary evacuation, but it may be mandatory now. I think my folks would have called if things were going drastically wrong, so for now I'm just going to hope that no news is good news.

I'm not sure there's anywhere that doesn't have some natural disaster potential. I was grumbling earlier about having to deal with both earthquakes and fires...then I put into Lunar terms and wished that the black and red dragons hadn't decided to live so close together. But we do get fires every year; they just don't usually come quite this close to home, literally. We've been pretty lucky, aside from living in a flood control channel and losing a couple of cars to it; even earthquakes haven't affected us much, since we're on bedrock. But the house is wood. I kind of feel like I'm whining about nothing considering the hurricane damage, but it's still hard to handle. All the news stories talk about the other fire, too...which in a way is good news, if nothing's happening to merit its own story, but frustrating since I can't see anything.

Thanks for your good wishes, all. I was just so shaken after hearing about this that I had to get some of it out, and I appreciate the read/listen.

[phyco126]

You should move to Colorado Springs, nothing happens here. The last major event happened in a small town just south of here when my mom was a child, and that was a tornadoe. We rarely get them, move even closer to the mountains and the worst you will ever have to worry about is ice on the roads

[knuckles90]

Yeah well same here. I live in Kentucky and yeah we get tornadoes all the time but i never really thought of what would happen if we were really effected by this. Like the last one i left my turtles in my room (its on the 2nd floor) and just grabbed a couple things that werent really that important. I dont know what i would have done if i lost the little guys. Im sorry for you problems. And your family is in my prayers.

[Alunissage]

Thanks for the good wishes. Things seem to be back to normal now, with my folks back home. The fire came pretty close, though -- across the street from the house. I wonder what it will look like next time I'm back home.

[phyco126]

Barren and black, depending on how soon you are planning on going back home. Oh, and if it's within a week, enjoy the wonderful smell that comes with wildfires (you know, the smell that makes you want to puke ) I remember when Colorado had all those major fires a year or so back, or maybe it was more. Can't remember really, but anyways, over a year later I went into the mountains for a funeral service, and you could see plenty of really pretty green trees, with a really nasty circle of dead, burnt forest. I have pictures on my laptop, but I don't have my laptop with me...

[Ardekh]

Dang...if I had to get out quick, I'd be like, throwing my boxes of records out of my window and getting everybody to cary all hundred pounds of them. XD It would be terrible. I'd probably only take the Seona Dancing record. And I'd forget all my art and cry.

[Agawa]

Well, I'm glad to hear your home is alright. I've had some close calls with fire in the past, and although mine concerned high teenagers setting a large portion of the forest behind my house on fire rather than a forest fire, I can understand how terrifiying it is.
Good luck with that, I hope the surrounding area wasn't too severly damaged.

You should move to Colorado Springs, nothing happens here. The last major event happened in a small town just south of here when my mom was a child, and that was a tornadoe. We get them, move even closer to the mountains and the worst you will ever have to worry about is ice on the roads

Oh, someone from Colorado! I grew up there, and I still love it. It's true that nothing happens though. The only thing I can remember was some town getting hit by a tornado while it was flooded...not a great situation, but we don't get horribly strong ones. (My town got a few small tornadoes, but they didn't do much.)

[phyco126]

Yeah, the last time an area near us had a tornadoe and did any damage was, oh man... several years back. A list below is all the natural disasters that has happened within a 30 mile radious of us since we moved here back in '96.

1997 - Blizzard, killed roughly 16 people nation wide, very high snow drifts
pre1999 - wild fire burned near Ft. Carson for about a week, very unpleasant smell
1999 - Litterally just days after Columbine, we suffered several days of rain, causing power to go out for several days and massive flooding to occure by the river and creeks in the surrounding area (and a couple of washed out roads and bridges.)
1999/2000 - can't remember what year, most likely 2000, but a several tornadoes struck in one night, destorying some homes and a new school (ironic)
2000+ a small handfull of tornadoes that have done little or no damage.
2005 - Earthquake, rattled some dishes in a city an hour south of here, no more damage than some broken glass around the state border.

That pretty much sums up all THE major disasters that I can remember. Some affected me, some haven't. (more specifically, I was never affected by the Earthquake, I just felt like mentioning it.)

By the way... Colorado pwns j00

[Guest]

1999/2000 - can't remember what year, most likely 2000, but a several tornadoes struck in one night, destorying some homes and a new school (ironic)

Ha I remember that tornado it actually flipped over the place i'm living in now thank goodness we hadn't moved there sooner or I wouldn't be posting on these bords right now.
But I hope things can get back to normal for you and your family Alunissage you have my best wishes.

[Alunissage]

I'd intended to just let this thread sink, since it was no longer relevant, but just thought I'd add this little bit:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/10/18/c ... index.html

That's my street (where the fires were, I mean) in the photos. The kid in the first one is the oldest son of a girl I carpooled with in high school. Apparently my mom saw our house on the Weather Channel yesterday, too. I only found out about all this from reading my sister's LiveJournal...she didn't want to tie up the phone line calling (she was the only one home) and actually forgot about email. Her journal entry about it is pretty long, but rather entertaining:

The fun never ends.

Remember at the end of my last post I made a comment about it being nice and clear? That is no more. All day today, and yesterday, it's been cloudy. Starting last night around 1:00 am, it's been nice and cloudy and rainy. Nice big thunder claps, nice bright thunder. It was so awesome. I saw probably the most lightening in my life last night. It was over the hills, so I didn't actually see it, but I saw a lot of blurry flashes (in part because of the clouds, in part of not having my glasses on). Heard thunder so loud it shook the house. Awesome.

This morning it wasn't raining too hard, at home, but when I got to Northridge it was raining a lot harder. I got to school ok, but apparently there were a couple bad accidents on a few freeways which caused my teacher and a few students to be really late. So on and off during the period it was pouring vs drizzling. At one point me and another girl went to the Exchange (a little store) to get some coffee, of course when it was pouring, and we got soaked, drenched, I don't think I get much wetter in the shower. But it was cool. On our way back to class it was still pouring, and then some hail. At one point I went to my car to get something; when I first wanted to, it started pouring, so I decided not to, but when I finally did get out, it wasn't raining, and there was actually a rainbow, so that was cool.

I heard the freeway, especially the 5, was horrible, so I decided to take city streets (Sherman Way to be specific). I'm going down, the rain is varying from light to heavy, I see some flashes of lighting and a few seconds later, thunder. Then at one point, I see this bright flash of lighting and immediately a LOUD crash of thunder, so loud that car alarms went off. It was so cool!

I have a few more adventures on the way home, involving a guy asking if I spoke English (do I look like i speak anything else?), then asking if I had a couple bucks (which I didn't). Stop at GameDude to get a new controller for my PS1, haven't tested it yet, though. I need to get gas but I lost my keys somewhere, and my gas cap requires a key (I don't have the brains to take off one of the two keys and leave it in my car). Hm. Not like it matters now... I stop at Pep Boys to get a new car cover, because Mom called and said that rodents had chewed holes in my "old" one.

I get home, talk to Mom, check out a cute little toad she found, take some stuff out of my car and we put the new cover on. I have a midterm tomorrow in my geography class, so I try to study that, but decide to search for my keys. While looking for my keys, I decide to clean my room and try to organize it a bit because it's driving me nuts. (can you tell I lost my Strattera at the same time?). Listening to the radio, and to the rain, when I hear a change in the rain. I got outside, and see that it's hailing! Decent size (over 1/4" diameter), but didn't last very long. I look to the street, see that a fair amount of water is in the street, over halfway across, but clear.

So I go back inside, I don't go very far before I hear a change outside. I run back out to see a bunch of branches going down the street, and then a lot of brown. Smooth brown water going down the street, over the curb. I look to my right and see my car floating around the corner. I'm standing on the landing above the street and feel one of my sandals floating off, so I grab it and my other one, turn around and see Cinnamon behind me. I don't want her to jump in and get swept off, so I chase her back inside, throw my sandals in, and manage to find Mom's digital camera. Go back out, and just start taking pictures like crazy. I think I got a total of 70 pictures. When the water slows down, I actually go out and wander in it, wander up to take pictures of the fire hydrant that's no longer there, talk to the worker next door who's truck floated down the street also. But it landed on the curb across from Mark's house, with the back tires on the curb in the oleanders. So we're just looking at the mud, he's worried about his car, as I sort of am of mine.

I just wander down the street, barefoot, in mud mid-shin deep in places. It hurt, but I supposed that was expected. I didn't really care. I wandered down around the corner to find my car in the streetin front of this driveway next to Cozy's house. It has a bunch of branches under it, which is probably what stopped it. I walk around it, staring at it, taking pictures, amazed, and kind of happy (come on, you know I don't like my car). So I trudge back home, decide I should try to call Mom and Dad and such. There's a message from our neighbor saying my car floated down the street, not like I didn't know that already. I call Mom and leave a message telling what happened, call Dad. I let him know what happened, that my car floated down and such, but he's most concerned about my car, since what are we supposed to do with it? I can't remember what all I said, but something like where I was trying to sound sincerly sarcastically sad (does that make sense?), but I couldn't do it. I was smiling on my end and started laughing so it didn't work. But as I'm talking to Dad, I see another surge coming down, so he tells me where the video camera is and how to work it. I grab it and a towel (my jeans had a foot of mud on them), run to video some from the window, and back outside to video some from there.

From then on out, I eventually put my jeans back on and wander around taping more video with commentary, and go up the street to see not much of anything. ...

I just found my keys. And my Strattera. There's this box on a shelf of this little bookcase near my computer, and it was in my box. Why there, I don't know. I never put my keys there.

Anyway, get several calls from friends and nieghbors asking how we're doing, what we know of it. This was probably a land/mudslide caused flood as opposed to the debris basin overflowing. Dad calls at some point and tells me to turn on the TVs and keep an eye on the news. I guess what happens the rest of the day is pretty much a repeat of wandering around and checking out the mud and watching news. The police or city or whatnot only allowed residents to walk up home, so Dad walked home. Mom was at class, and eventually went to Janet's. But I wasn't able to reach her because her phone was dead and for some reason Janet's main line isn't working either.

So this all means I haven't had time or presence of mind to study for my midterm, and there's no way I'll be able to go to school easily or on time for it. I emailed my teacher, and I really hope he gets it. I don't know what I'm going to do about work tomorrow, but Mom went in earlier to get coffee, and apparently Elvis asked how I was (assuming he knew about the mudslide), but Mom didn't know, so thought I was fine. Which I suppose I am, just stuck. And she mentioned that Burbank has the cakebatter ice cream, which he didn't know. That's funny because his brother is the manager there. So presumably we're going to get it soon. But this week is my evaluation, so that's going to be interesting.

Boy, I'm so dirty. Not surprising, I suppose, given that I wandered around in the mud, and went through three pairs of pants today. But with the fire hydrant being out (we think the worker's truck hit it), we had no water, but Dad managed to plug up the hole with a log and we have some water pressure! So, at least enough for the sink, don't know about the shower or toilet, though. But I actually want to take a bath, which is probably even more out of the picture. *sigh* can't win.

So, fire, flood, what next for the Vedugo Mountains? I think it's time for an earthquake or a volcano or something. Just to top it off.

And yes, this has happened before, but it's been about 25 years since we got floods annually, and the last time we had cars wash away was in 1978.