Homecoming

The San Diego wildfires began on Sunday, October 21st. Our region was under mandatory evacuation as of Monday morning. We packed up both cars, parked mine at my office parking garage, and maneuvered around in Dave's. We spent the first day at a motel in Pacific Beach, exhausted from a day of adrenaline and very little sleep (it was difficult to sleep through the howling winds on Sunday). The smoke from the fires were so strong, you could smell it all over San Diego county.

Since there wasn't much for us to do, we both opted to go to work for the rest of the week. On Tuesday, Dave spent half the day seeing patients. My office was closed, but it was a good place to use the internet and catch up with friends and family. We spent that evening at our friend Joe's place.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we lodged at our good friend Neill's apartment. He was away in Argentina, and his apartment management were very... um... unhelpful in giving us access to his apartment. They insisted that Neill find a photocopier and fax machine in some remote part of Argentina to help us out. He managed to do it and we were supremely grateful. It was comforting to stay someplace a bit more familiar.

Although our evac orders were not lifted yet, we decided to drive to our neighborhood on Wednesday evening to check if the road blocks were gone and if we could access our home.

Sweet sweet intact home
Many trees had no chance against the strong winds on Monday and Tuesday
Remnants of the hay bale fires
Surviving hay bales with the scorched hillsides in the backdrop

Unfortunately, the winds stripped many of our plants.

Our poor naked wisteria

Poor naked raspberry/blackberry bush

Poor naked grape vinesOne of many poor metal poles
We quickly watered all our plants as they were parched from the dry Santa Ana winds. We didn't stay at the home as the evac orders weren't officially lifted (but we did notice several of our neighbors moved back). Besides, the air quality was foul. I was having coughing fits all week long.

Thursday evening, Dave and I both went home to do some cleaning. We decided to stay at Neill's one more night, since it was just too ash-y inside the house for us.

On Friday, I left work early to do a good chunk of cleaning as we were moving back home!

Some views on the drive back:

Smoke cloud hanging over inland North County
Scorched hills neighboring 4S Ranch, note the burnt ground next to the road. This spot is less than a mile from our home. Saturday morning, we explored around to survey the damage.
Another view of the hills. We drove up there and saw that the fires came REALLY close to the structures. We're so grateful that everything was spared. Remants of the hay bales again. The remaining ones had been removed.

Yet another view of the hills. We were really lucky. The fire swarmed the hillsides surrounding our community, but didn't come down to the homes. Supposedly, they got as close as 20 yards to some condos near us....
Rancho Bernardo was one of the regions that got hit HARD from the fires. This was the area that made the national news. Yep, the same place that Schwarzenegger and Bush visited.When the news channels listed addresses affected, I had recognized several of the street names and realized that this part of RB was only 2-3 miles northeast of our home. We turned on one street, Duenda, to a quick drive. Saw over 10 destroyed homes on ONE street. It was heart-wrenching.

The right side of the green car was melted.
Damaged apt complex. When my friend moved to SD about a year ago, this was one of the apartment complexes that they looked at.
Charred trees along the streets
Right next to these trees is where I used to play Ultimate pick-up

National Guard presence
right next to I-15
Evidence of fires along the freeway... you can see this on both sides!