Wildfires, Technology & Feeling Helpless

My sister's house is 3 miles from the line of the wildfires today and I'm 3000 miles away in the midwest with our parents, safe away from the flames, the smoke, the danger.  But all I can feel is helplessness and concern for her, her husband, their home and the animals they have there.

Late last night, I finally spoke with my sister, who had no power and had spent the day gathering resources in the event of an evacuation.  Then she asked a favor that was as much for me as for her - to track what was going on online, so feeling like perhaps I could still help in some small way, I spent until late researching what was going on and trying to get an accurate picture of the situation.  What I learned is that even with incredible technology, we're still in the dark in these emergencies.

Last fall, we suffered one of the worst quakes we've had in the Bay Area in a long time, and as a result, from my fanatic list making, girl scout history and security experience, I pieced together 3 articles for SVMoms about why we need to be prepared, how to prepare, and what should be in our kits.  That became a part of a Red Cross Ready blogging effort and I think people really benefited from thinking about what we need to do to prepare for emergencies.

Now here we are with a big one - so far "30 structures destroyed", with 1100 firefighters trying to fight these flames and no end in sight.  With 3500 or so acres damaged, that's actually low compared to how bad it could get, and certainly more people could be affected, but it's not over yet, and we could have a few days to a week before the fire's completely out.  Time again to think about how we respond in these situations and what else we can do.  As the governor indicated, there's no longer one fire season in California - these fires can come any time.

I spent a lot of time on the KRON live chat late last night, surfing various map sites for changes, looking for articles all over the web with news, scanning Cal Fire information, listening to the radio online, and it was all useful - except nobody really had any new information.  Somehow with everything going on and all of the news feeds we have, we weren't really finding out much from the source.  People were asking how they could help and finding out about local shelters for people and animals and a little about how to get food to firefighters, but that was it.  It's been tough to tell which streets have been affected, let alone whose homes have been hit.

Then this morning I heard about how the smoke had reached our home on the Peninsula and gone as far as Oakland.  I looked at the YouTube videos of time lapse following the plumes.  It's quite a sight to behold miles away in the land of tornadoes and thunderstorms.  We fly home tomorrow and I wish we were flying into San Jose so perhaps I could see some of what's going on from the air, but we're not.  My daughter will have to stay inside like all of the kids in the South Bay and Peninsula where there's smoke, but that's a small price to pay.  I have no idea what to expect at our house, but I haven't heard that it's very bad.  That's really the last thought in my mind right now.  I just want to be back where I might be able to get in my car and go help my sister in person.

For now, we wait.  With the fires 20% contained and small ones sprouting out, wind picking up and changing, possible storms on the horizon, we really don't know what to expect.  There's no way I can express the devastation that my family would feel if the fires met up with my sister's home.  It's so much more than just a home to her.  Many of the people in her area have their whole lives there - animals, vineyards, views... if we lost our house, it would be our possessions we would miss.  We could rebuild our house and the land would probably be worth more without our house on it.  But not the people in the mountains.  Some of these people have built dream houses and created livelihoods on this land that could be completely gone.  It's difficult to fathom without being there.

All we can hope at this point is that the firefighters, their vehicles, water and supplies will be enough to take care of the sprawling menace.  Until the next one.  So for those of us lucky enough not to be affected by this disaster, we should get back into that mode where we were post-quake and finish putting our emergency kits together.  You just never know when your whole life could be consumed in a day and there's no guarantee we'll see it coming when it does, even with all the technology we have at our disposal.

Sarah Granger has lived in the Bay Area for 13 years.

Original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post.