Some notes on the CZU Lightening Complex Fire from Aug 25
Our house is (was?) on State Highway 236, just two miles north of Boulder Creek, in a valley in the middle of a redwood forest. We evacuated Tuesday night (Aug. 18) with about two hours warning, and that warning was part of a chaos of failed notification systems. We found out about the fire from neighbors via the Next Door social media site, since the county’s vaunted Code Red emergency notification system remained inexplicably mute. My wife Ann and I were both exhausted from a series of other stresses and so that evening wasn’t the best time…well there is no good time for an emergency. Those stresses included several days of sustained 100 to 106 degree heat in our non-air-conditioned cabin, and having awoken two nights previous to a power outage at 2:49 am, caused by a freak, very intense thunderstorm. We had to move water-damageable stuff from our deck, while lightning pummeled nearby ridges — the source of the multiple fires that slowly joined to create a larger set of conflagrations just north and east of us two days later.
It is impossible to collect the most essential items to take away, fully aware one might never be able to come back home. We stuffed our diminutive car with what we could. All our friends were locals who were also evacuating. So we headed south, having been told vaguely about evacuee centers in Santa Cruz or Watsonville. We traveled over to Scotts Valley to check on the Hilton, where we’ve stayed multiple times past. The concierge said they were full and indicated that no hotels in the whole region had vacancies, except for the Chaminade, where the cheapest room topped a grand per night. Unsure of the actual severity of the fires, we decided to head back home and perhaps take our chances. A block or so past the turn onto 236 in Boulder Creek an officer waved us over and asked if we were just going to grab a few more items, hinting that was the only option. He was uneasy about any civilians traveling up that road. We said yes, still thinking we might stay anyway. But the smoke was becoming ever so smothering, getting denser as we drove up the hill. Once home, we called a few friends, and grabbed more items. It was around 10 pm with the air outside a stifling 104. I looked out our west facing window up at the mountain ridge and saw a terrifying red glow silhouetting the top ridge of trees all the way north to south. We knew it was time to leave.
On the way back into Boulder Creek, Annie thought we should ask the street guarding officer where a pair of evacuees might stay, given the filled hotels. And so, Tuesday night, as the kind officer suggested, we spent a fitful night parked in a church parking lot in the nearby town of Felton. The caravan of folks leaving the area was huge. Perhaps the fragmented communication of evacuation orders helped stagger those leaving so at least the main artery of Highway 9 moved fluidly enough for escape. The parking lot had other obvious refugees from the fires. I didn’t know I could sleep sitting up.
Ironically, we had initiated a reverse mortgage on our house just a few months ago and were supposed to finalize and sign the forms there at home — on what turned out to be the day after our evacuation. Needless to say, our agent and the notary did not show. Not knowing what else to do, I went to my work at Scarborough Lumber the following Wednesday morning, while Ann stayed in the cool of our lunch room, doing her own writing projects. After work we went to our agent’s office in Aptos for the signing. To our grateful surprise, our agent graciously offered to put us up in her newly purchased house in Watsonville for a day. We later booked a week in a somewhat seedy hotel in Santa Cruz from where I write this on Saturday morning. There are so many people fleeing the fires, we were lucky to get this room. We met several evacuated neighbors in this very hotel, including John who stood in the parking lot swaying and shaking to contain his emotion as he shared a video from his phone of his house burning down.
Accurate info about our own home is still difficult to come by. Combing through web sources for written reports or videos grants mere fragments and too much speculation. Looking over the National Fire Situational Awareness maps is not conclusive. And it will be at least a month before we are allowed back in the area. We know the hardworking fire fighters did a back-burn below the ridge across our street, a creek runs behind our house and that our property is properly distanced from the worst fuel sources.
Home insurance has paid for our hotel stay for a couple of weeks and the reverse mortgage money gives us a bit of financial leeway. We can only hope the house still lives and a couple of lifetimes worth of possessions remain.
There will be so much sadness and loss all around. And I feel for the terrorized and destroyed creatures in the wild
