SO we left off with the wee hours of October 21st. The night before, the thick smoke from the fire in Ramona – a small town 15-20 miles from us -started rolling in. It was an eerie feeling, but everyone – friends, media, law enforcement – were telling us it was OK and that there was no way, at least not any time soon, that the fire would head our way. Well, Eric was part facinated and part concerned about the fires, so he stayed up ALL night Sunday night watching the fire coverage as it creeped closer and closer to our area. Finally they reported it was across the valley from us, but we still hadn’t been ordered to evacuate. Eric called the hotline and asked about our zip code and they told us to stay put until we received our reverse 911 call alerting us to the fact that it was time to go. Well, the night before I had packed an overnight bag for all of us -a change of clothes, important medicine, laptops with our pictures, etc. Never in a million years would I have thought we would not return to our home! I would have stuffed the van all night to the gills! But I am getting ahead of myself… Around 4AM Eric had had enough and went to throw the few things I had gathered into the van and I had a feeling it was time to go so I went and got Emily, put her in her wheelchair and at that moment Eric ran back into the house and said ‘we are leaving – NOW!’ One of us grabbed Daniel from his crib and the other grabbed Emily and we raced to the car that he left running in front of our building. I never could have been prepared for what I experienced at that moment. Sheer panic – True fear for my life and that of my children. THe hills surrounding our apartment complex were up in flames – and I am talking WALLS of fire – something out of a movie – and the wind was so fierce it was blowing dense smoke and burning embers though the parking lot. It was too think to breathe as we raced to get the kids buckeld into their car seats and head out. We were in a community of houses, condos and the one apartment complex. Typically we had three gates available to come and go out of, but this morning there was only one. One gate was not working – perhaps because of electricity issues, the other gate had a burning tree across it! All of the people in the complex had to slowly file out of ONE gate! I seriously did not know if we would get out of the complex alive. I was terrified and I NEVER want to experience anything like that again. Being surrounded by fire and not knowing if you will burn alive in your car with your husband and your kids? No one needs to experience that in life – trust me. This probably sounds over dramatic, but Eric would agree with me and he is very level headed! =)
We obviously made it out alive, but it was a slow, fire filled drive to the red cross shelter. I could tell so many stories from our fire saga, but I will do that another time.
Now we were homeless (the apartment – amazingly – did not burn down, but the smoke and ash damage was so bad we were forced to move. Nearly everything in the garage was a total loss and our belongings went to be cleaned. It took over 2 months to get our clothing, bedding, and linens back from the fire restoration company because they were so overwhelmed with clients. Eric had just started back to work only to have work shut down for the week because of the fires and now we had to find a new place to live. Emily and I were both having trouble breathing because of the smoke we had inhaled that morning and the air quality was so bad we just couldn’t quit the coughing, so the kids and I flew to Portland to stay with my family while Eric worked and searched for another place to live. He finally located, with the help of a realtor, a condo that would, for the most part, meet our needs – especially that of Emily’s. After a month in the beautiful Northwest and 2 rounds of meds in order to combat the Pnuemonia Emily and I came down with, we flew back down to smogy – i mean, sunny – San Diego. What a tough fall!!