Be Prepared

I came home from the October 8th meeting of Redwood Writers. It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. It was my weekend for meetings with authors as I belong to the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association and Redwood Writers. I am on the board of both organizations which have a combined membership of over 500 writers.

 

After the meeting on Sunday, I felt like I needed some time to process all the information I gained that weekend. I love being in these groups and find that I am buzzing with excitement afterward and can take hours to unwind from this infusion of energy.

I had a busy week and had put off doing any laundry thinking I would take care of it on Saturday or Sunday. I decided I would wait until Monday to do my laundry as I had time in the afternoon or so I thought.

Sunday night was a bit unusual.  I was watching television in the living room, and we had intermittent dips in the electricity. Around 10 pm the wind became intense, whipping around the trees, plants, and furniture outside. The chairs and tables on the deck were bumping and creaking. Our pop-up tent was preparing to launch itself into the stratosphere.

My husband Garry rushed outside and closed up the tent securely. The fluctuating electricity continued to sputter, but it did not shut down until around 1 o’clock when it went out completely. I am a lover of The Wizard of Oz and the lyrics  “the house began to pitch” were piping through my brain.

 

I had stayed up late, and now I had to scurry to find our portable, battery-operated lantern. We are often affected by interruptions to our electricity. We keep flashlights and candles, electric candles, around the house for just such situations. When the power goes out, it is incredibly dark in this house.

 

I went to bed and no sooner had I gotten to sleep when around 2 AM something woke both of us up. We heard a couple of fire engines which is not unusual, and we smelled smoke.

We figured that there was a small fire somewhere and we fell back asleep.

 

We Are Not In Kansas Anymore, Dorothy

It was a very different world we woke to the next morning. As soon we opened our eyes, our noses were greeted with a thick smoke. We looked outside and the air was yellow. Not only had the power gone out but we had no phone service either and we could not connect to the Internet.

 

Garry went into our garage and found an old battery-operated boombox and turned to a new station to see if he could find out what was going on. We learned. that the Tubbs fire was burning from Napa through Santa Rosa and Sonoma Valley.

 

With no power, I got dressed and went off to exercise at Parkpoint in Sonoma.  I thought that I would be able to work out and then take a shower and dry my hair at the gym. When I arrived at Parkpoint, I knew something was really wrong as the parking lot was empty instead of being busy and full on a Monday morning. I went upstairs to the fitness studio and discovered only three other people. One of them was the instructor, my friend Sandy. Sandy lives adjacent to an open field and she too was woken up at two in the morning. She looked out her window and saw flames to the east. She knew the fire and high-velocity winds were making for a very dangerous situation.

 

That Monday morning was the last time I was able to exercise until after the fires were contained the following week. In years past when there was an emergency, people would gather at the gym as it was a safe haven in a place of refuge, and hygiene. A few years back we there was flooding around Christmas time and many of the gym members were without power and water for many days. This crisis was different. Classes were canceled because the smoke invaded the gym. The air was tainted and unsafe to breathe.

 

I went home thinking it would just be a short time before we had power and phone service. Before I left the gym, one of the staffers told me about nixle alerts and how to sign up.

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We went through the house and gathered important papers, medications and other supplies in case we had to leave in a hurry. Garry got out a portable carrier for our quartet of chickens, just in case.

 

Fortunately, Garry had some battery powered chargers so we. could power up our cell phones and tablets but we could not connect anything that first 24 hours. We later learned that the cell towers and the cabling for XFINITY had been severely damaged or destroyed by the fires. there was no estimate as to when service would be restored. This left us both feeling helpless.

I think we waited a day before we went in search of a portable generator. Friedman Brothers hardware has a store in Sonoma but it was closed because of. the fire danger. Our neighborhood was on alert and it was recommended that we evacuate but it was not mandatory. The neighborhoods closer to Glen Ellen, Kenwood, and the east side of Sonoma all were forced to evacuate. We drove to Petaluma to purchase a small generator thinking it would be sufficient to power our refrigerator and outdoor freezer as well as giving us limited computer time if we used our cell phones as a hotspot. Our cell carrier generously removed data limits for the month.

 

The noisy gasoline-powered generator provided some relief. Most of our neighbors evacuated. We were packed and ready to go if the situation changed.  We kept all the doors and windows closed except for the power cord to the generator.

 

The week of the fire was surreal.  The air continued to be dense and yellow. there was very little ash as the fire was burning at such high heat. I stayed in touch with my friend Deborah Myers every day. We called or texted each other as she had to evacuate from her home in Santa Rosa. I got calls from friends near and far to be sure that I was okay. The irony of the situation was not lost on me as many people were checking my status on Facebook.

 

My business was shut down during the entire week plus a couple of days. Our power was restored on Tuesday, October 17. A few hours later, Xfinity was operational.

It was amazing to me to have a week without the constant background noise of the internet. If not for the danger, there was an unusual sense of peace.

In response to the situation, I put together a list of resources and checklists on preparedness for disaster which I shared at BACN. the response at the meeting was incredible.I decided to share the slides with all of our BACN members.  You can download a PDF which I hope will help you know what to do in case of fire, flood, or another disaster. I hope you never have to put your emergency plan to the test.  When I saw the news footage of the fires in Southern California, I thought at first that they were rerunning footage of the wine country fires. I have family in Huntington Beach and San Diego. These new fires are moving like a hungry wolf through thousands of homes, trees, forests and getting a boost from 80 mph winds.

Be Prepared to Stay Safe

How to be Prepared 11-17-17