Wildfires in Ramona

[pinzwheeling]

First of all, I'd like to thank the folks who have called or emailed us offering assistance.

This is a very scary time for all of us. The entire town of Ramona and surrounding areas have been evacuated. There's a strong possibility that Jim may have lost his house as it sits right in the path of the fire. As I type this, Jim and his family stuck in traffic trying to evacuate; they've been trying to get out of Ramona and down to my house in San Diego for over 3 hours. (this is normally a 35 minute drive)

As far as we know, the shop is still standing. No reports of the fire in the main part of town where we are located have been reported yet. Of course, we probably won't know anything till later in the week when we can get back into Ramona. (I'm going to try to go back tomorrow, but I doubt I'll be able to get there)

Please direct your thoughts and prayers to Jim and his family; this generous, kind man has had enough hardship in the past few years to last a lifetime.

I will update this post with any news when I have it. Once again, thank you for your kind thoughts and offers of assistance.

Best regards,
Michael

[andy]

I worked from "can see to can't see" yesterday and only saw the haeadlines very late. I had no idea my online friends and acquaintences were affected. Best wishes and hopes for safety and security to all of you.

Andy

[krick3tt]

Michael,
Sorry to hear about the destruction you all are having. I really enjoyed the time at your shop before I left for Washington.
I hope that you do not suffer any bad effects from all this. I don't get news of things in SoCal here and your post is as much as I have seen.
I wish you all good days and restfull nights.

Cheers,
Morris

[Erik712m]

Jim & Michael, I hope all is well When you return to your home.

[pinzwheeling]

No real updates so far. For those of you (Morris) that are familiar with San Diego, the following areas are under mandatory evacuation:

Ramona, San Marcos in certain areas, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penesquitos, parts of Escondido, parts of Poway.

In all of these areas, there is already existing fires. In the southern part of the county, Alpine, Jamul, Descanso and parts of Chula Vista are under evacuation.

This is a no BS catastrophy. Jim and I are relatively safe; we're only about a mile from the coast. If we have to evacuate, we'll be camping on the beach.

It's unlikey that we'll be able to get to Ramona before tomorrow at the earliest.

[andy]

I'm real sorry for you and Jim to be reading this. It is good to hear you all and your families are relatively safe. I do sincerely hope that neither of you suffers any sort of a financial loss and have to go through that sort of hassel. Best wishes for a speedy return to your residences and busineses.

Andy

[loyalp]

Good luck guys!

We are evacuated out of Silverado Canyon. Could have stuck around, but being more in the way of our firefighters is not my idea of helping the folks that are going to try to save my home.

Luckily, a good friend in Laguna was able to take us (wife, 2 dogs) in.

Take care.

[Denis]

I wish all of you from those wildfire areas to get OK and wish you don’t loose too much.

I’m keeping an eye on it thru the news here in Quebec Canada and it looks pretty bad alright.

So Jim and Michael good luck.

Denis

[EuroPinz]

Interior and exterior politic is a concept not too well known by your government.
$ 42 bn requested for war - but providing help to its own citizen that are loosing their houses, belongings, earnings and means of livelyhood seems to be of a lesser importance.
Looks more like a "remake of New Orleans" but in a different area with a different natural catastrophy. Again, we are talking of too little help and too late.
How come a government can send US troops across half the world to fight a war and not be able to help it's own people in it's own country. It's hard to believe and difficult to watch.
I feel so bad for all of you and GOD bless anybody that is threatened by these wildfires - hopefully the loss will only be of value and not of lives.

Best Regards,

Jacques

[pinzwheeling]

Interior and exterior politic is a concept not too well known by your government.
$ 42 bn requested for war - but providing help to its own citizen that are loosing their houses, belongings, earnings and means of livelyhood seems to be of a lesser importance.
Looks more like a "remake of New Orleans" but in a different area with a different natural catastrophy. Again, we are talking of too little help and too late.
How come a government can send US troops across half the world to fight a war and not be able to help it's own people in it's own country. It's hard to believe and difficult to watch.
I feel so bad for all of you and GOD bless anybody that is threatened by these wildfires - hopefully the loss will only be of value and not of lives.

Best Regards,

Jacques

Thank you for your good wishes, but I feel that you're way off base here. We've been watching the fire-fighting efforts for three days now. It's not a government effort or firefighting failure that's causing problems in Southern California. For example, thanks to the efforts of the evacuation, the San Diego fires have only cost 1 life so far! I find it incredible that evacuation over 300,000 people has been accomplished in less that 48 hours without major incident.

I agree that the New Orleans disaster was definately a collosal failure of government emergency preparedness, but like the rest of us, the government (both local and federal) learns from its mistakes, and hopefully doesn't repeat them too often.

The enemy that this disaster is facing is the 30-70MPH winds that keep feeding the fire. Fire-fighting aircraft are available and at the ready, but they can't fly due to the erractic and sometimes hurricane force winds. According to forecasts, the winds should start dying off by Wednesday.

It doesn't look like we'll be able to get back up to Ramona till at least Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, though we'll try this afternoon again.

[Wayne Roberts]

Having lived through the fire storm in Florida a few years back I can totally understand what you all are going through. That year we saw fire trucks from as far away as Oregon. They came and fought our fires as if they were tring to save their own homes. Many thanks went out then and now. God bless each and everyone who is out there laying his or her life on the line! I hope and pray that all of our group will come through this without any damage or injury. If we in Florida can help right now, it surely will be in prayer.

Good luck, stay safe, and be glad that you and your loved ones have made it out of harm's way.

Wayne

[andy]

Jacques. I think our own media and their cohorts elsewhere, make a practice of mixing fact with their own interpretations of what the facts mean. Quite often, those interpretations are slanted either for political effect or to enhance readership.

In most cases, particularily the New Orleans situation, the State government has to request assistance from the federal government before the feds can intervene. That's the law, period.

Since the smear job over Katrina, the government has taken steps to be more efficient in delivering aid if a state governor requests it.

To me our politicians have degenrated to the point where everything has to be politized and there doesn't necessarily have to be any foundation in fact for the allegations. It is disgusting what they (both sides) will say and do in an effort to gain or hold political power. Power = money and vice versa.

Have a nice day,

regards,

Andy

[todds112]

Wildland firefighters are some of the hardest working folks out there. It is exhausting work. I hope they stay safe.

Best wishes and prayers for all those affected.

[pinzwheeling]

Still can't get into Ramona. We spent the entire morning this morning trying to find a way into Ramona, but we were turned around at every entry point.

While we were trying to get in, another fire reflashed on Mt. Woodson...

Getting some interesting pictures, unfortunately, we will probably have some really interesting ones once we get back in to town.

[STPPINZ]

Interior and exterior politic is a concept not too well known by your government.
$ 42 bn requested for war - but providing help to its own citizen that are loosing their houses, belongings, earnings and means of livelyhood seems to be of a lesser importance.
Looks more like a "remake of New Orleans" but in a different area with a different natural catastrophy. Again, we are talking of too little help and too late.
How come a government can send US troops across half the world to fight a war and not be able to help it's own people in it's own country. It's hard to believe and difficult to watch.
I feel so bad for all of you and GOD bless anybody that is threatened by these wildfires - hopefully the loss will only be of value and not of lives.

Best Regards,

Jacques

I blame the government too but in a little different way than you do Jacques. I blame them for letting a whole city like New Olleans to become so dependant on welfare that multiple generation can not provide the most simple living requirements for their family in emergencies. Case in point is Texas vs New Orleans. Many parts of Texas got hit just as bad as New Orleans but Texas did not complain and just fixed the problem. Now compair the two areas, New Orleans is still a mess. When are people going to understand it is not the governments job to provide welfare for everything something bad happens.....

I can't wait for the blame to be put on global warming for these fires.....