Back in the saddle again

We got back to the homestead on Thursday afternoon and had a long conversation with our next door neighbors, Francois and Marie and two of their three children, Pierre and Alex. We had just enough time to assess the damage, fortunately light, and make a start at cleaning. Our neighborhood is still without power and will be until the earliest midnight tonight and the latest a couple of weeks from now. At sunset we collect our gear and head off to our new home, the Radisson hotel.

Yesterday we made a great start on getting an upper hand on the clean-up. I handled the exterior, wearing one of those stylish face masks, and Lynn attacked the indoors. What's left will remain the purview of a restoration company. Looks like we will need to have the attic cleaned and the insulation replaced. We also have our Christmas decorations stored up there so maybe everything will look like it came down the chimney (or chimbley) with Santa.

After lunch we walked the neighborhood and covered about two thirds. The fire came a lot closer than we knew, destroying a house less than a block away, probably about 100-125 yards. We have found several partially burned pieces of paper in our yard, a check, a time card, a budget from a landscaping business owned by a woman whose house also burned.

Television crews were still roaming the neighborhood and the presence of the first responders and their back-ups was more than apparent. Every few minutes we had a San Diego policeman or two drive by the house. The National Guard, complete with M-16s, have troops walking the neighborhood or cruising by in Hummers. San Diego Gas & Electric has hundreds of personnel, supplemented by contractors and teams from Pacific Gas & Electric, on the ground trying to get power to our neighborhood.

We talked with perfect strangers yesterday. People we had never met before. Everyone seems keen on sharing their story.

As to the neighborhood...tragic. While the media has demonstrated this point countless times, there seems to be a randomness in the destruction of certain homes. Lynn and I were able to walk out on a dirt path at the corner of an especially hard-hit cul de sac and look down the valley and observed the fire's path. Some homes survived because of a barrier of red apple ground cover or large rocks and a plant free barrier. Others, away from the canyon, were victims of the embers.

One of the strangest sights was a two-story home, destroyed by the fire, and one of the collapsed walls leaning against the home of the next-door neighbor, who sustained no damage at all!

At one home nearly twenty teenagers, friends of the family who had lost their home, were helping sift through the ashes to find mementos. At another, a troop of boy scouts were helping their friend.

Everywhere people are sharing information and offering assistance.

One house we saw was destroyed not by the fire, but by heavy smoke damage. The interior was blackened.

We are lucky. Our damage, at this point, seems confined to the kitchen, where the ice-maker and frozen food melted and warped the wood floor, our fence and gates (wind damaged) and some outdoor cushions, covered with ash and still smelling like it even after a proper cleaning.

The cats are fine and have adopted their former routine. Bustopher likes to roam outside and then some back in, his legs and paws covered with soot. Macavity makes his ninja forays and then comes in to find some new place to hide and plan his next nefarious caper.

We're off to breakfast and then donning our grubbies back to the clean-up.