When we woke up this morning, all the major news stations were broadcasting live coverage from a variety of fires from Malibu to Lake Arrowhead to Irvine. Since I usually go down to the San Diego office on Mondays, I headed out to go to work confident that the freeways were all open. As I was getting closer to San Diego county, I was listening to various radio stations and learned that homes in Rancho Bernardo were being evacuated. Rancho Bernardo is a 20 minute drive from our office in Vista. I felt like an idiot driving TOWARD all the dark billows of smoke. I got to the office and worked on a few things that needed to get done--all the while feeling that what I was working on was relatively meaningless compared to those who were evacuating their homes knowing they would return to a very different, life-changing situation. My boss didn't even come into the office. He decided to stay home and clear debris and dry brush from his yard in case flying embers were to land near his property. At one point, the wind changed and everything in our office went dark. We have a large window and a sun roof and the dark smoke all but blocked out the sun. We finally called it quits around noon as we heard reports of people in Fallbrook and Rancho Bernardo were evacuating.
The picture is a map of the San Diego area that was evacuated. Our office is off of the 78 freeway about half way between the I-5 and I-15 freeways. The areas being evacuated this morning were just north of the 56 Freeway and several miles south of the 78 freeway.
The drive to and from work was depressing, at best. It's usually a very beautiful drive to and from work as I go up and down the coast. Today, it was dark, hazy and billows of smoke were coming from almost every direction. The smell of smoke is everywhere and I have a mild headache from the poor air conditions.
In San Diego, they were using Qualcomm Stadium and the Del Mar Fairgrounds/Racetrack as emergency shelters. As I was driving home, they announced that those locations were full and would no longer be accepting "refugees". It really is bad--probably worse than the Cedar fires 4 years ago.
The factor that's making the fires sooo bad is due to the "Santa Ana Winds". Basically, this means that there are high winds (up to 70 miles per hour--hurricane-force winds) that come from the desert (yay Death Valley!) creating dry, dangerous conditions for fires. I am including a picture I took from our balcony and you can see that the palm tree in front of our place has been so battered by the strong winds that two fronds haven given up the ghost. You can see some of the haze in the distance toward Irvine. Fortunately, it's not too bad where we live. The really sad thing is that they're reporting that the fire in Irvine was set by an arson. I hope they catch him/her. It's amazing to see the news coverage of these massive fires being fueled by the dry dry brush and the fierce winds. All the people who insist on staying near their homes to somehow defend their homes are officially stupid. What on earth do they think they can do?!?!
Given the fact that I was sent home and that the air outside is giving me a headache, I decided to go home and make cheesecake. Last week, I made the "mistake" of buying cream cheese at Sam's club thinking that the large box would contain individually wrapped packages of cream cheese--but no. It was a large (48 oz) block of cream cheese. You know what they say, when life gives you cream cheese, make cheese cake! So that's what I'm doing now.
Stephen, are you sure you want to be a firefighter?? It looks hot out there--not to mention overwhelming.
1 comment:
Not only did your palm tree give up having fronds but the tree across the street seems to be taking a nap. If Andy danced do you think the fire would be scared and run away?
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