October 24, 2007

• Before I tell of the events of the last day or so, I should let everyone know that we went home last night.  Everything is fine, just lots of ash everywhere!

  
  

  Shortly before I wrote my 3 am update on Tuesday morning, we had been outside assessing the situation.  Most of my neighbors in our cul-de-sac were also outside, and we were all discussing what to do.  It was kind of nice, and it made me enjoy living in our neighborhood even more.

  
  

  Of course I couldn't sleep, even though we had plenty of helpful, caring, neighbors who would have made sure we got out in time.  We had the TV on, and we were watching the news closely.  Finally around 5 am it was announced that there were mandatory evacuations for Sunnyside/East Bonita area.  We consider ourselves to be Eastern Bonita, so we decided it was time to leave.  As we were throwing the last of our things into our cars, Guinness tried to grab his bed!  It was as if he knew we where leaving.  He didn't grab his food dish, because that was already in my car with his bag of food.

  
  

  We left around 5:30 am, and got to my dad's house just before 6 am.  They have three bedrooms, but the other rooms were already occupied, so we got comfortable on the sofas.  Between Guinness being unsure of what was going on, and the kids waking up, we didn't get much sleep.  Turns out my dad and his girlfriend had a total of 3 "refugee families!"  So, they had 5 extra adults, 4 kids, and 2 dogs!  We had brought food with us when we left, so we helped provide breakfast.  Around 10ish or so Brian and I both finally fell asleep on the sofas.  I got about 2 more hours of sleep, Brian got 4.

  
  

  We watched the news throughout the day.  We learned that the fire had basically turned on itself due to the winds, and the air attack was very aggressive as well.  By late afternoon all evacuation orders for the Chula Vista/Bonita/Sunnyside areas were lifted.  We stayed with my dad for a bit longer and had dinner with him.  By the time we got home you could have pushed us over with a feather, we were so tired!  It was still too early for us to go to bed, and there was nothing but news on the TV, so we went to Blockbuster and got "Transformers."  Dumb movie.  We don't know why it got all the hype it got.

  
  

  Guinness was sacked out as soon as we got home.  When we finally did go to bed we were both dead to the world!  Even my bladder let me sleep longer!  Guinness didn't move once he went to bed as well, no pacing around the house at night!

  
  

  I will be off from work for the remainder of the week, as schools are closed.  The Witch fire is still causing lots of problems in North County, so even if things clear up here, it wouldn't be a good idea for me to go up there.  The Harris fire (the one that was threatening us) is still causing problems for East County.   We now have military air support in fighting this fire, so hopefully it will be more under control soon.  The latest news is they are hoping to have the fire fully contained and out by Nov. 4th!

  
  

  Thanks everyone for your positive words and thoughts.  Just keep up those positive thoughts that the winds will help the fire fighters.

  • 5:06 pm
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