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California
Wildfires Force Evacuations |
Posted:
10.30.07
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Sophomore Michelle Boccia talks to NewsHour Extra about evacuating
her home in Rancho Peñasquitos, part of northeastern San Diego,
because of wildfires spreading through the area. About 1,800 homes
were destroyed by the fires over the week of Oct. 21, 2007.
Listen to Michelle tell her story: RealAudio|MP3
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Transcript: On Sunday night I found out that there was
a fire in Ramona. I didn't really think much about it, I just
thought "Oh, it's going to stay there, it's fine and it won't
come near us." And then on Sunday night I found out that
we didn't have school.
 On
Monday morning at six o'clock my mom woke me and my sister up
and said, "Get some clothes, get your favorite stuff, because
we have to evacuate."
So I was kind of nervous, but I figured that we would be fine.
I guess [the fire] did come later up to Forest Ranch, which isn't
that far from our house.
I grabbed my cell phone out of my jeans to make sure I had some
form of communication in case we got lost.
I grabbed essentials, clothing for two days. I was not prepared,
later on I figured out, in the days to come. Just grabbed some
clothes, my favorite things that I couldn't replace from when
I was a baby and stuff.
We were grabbing pictures that we could find last minute…water,
food. Just making sure that everyone was out of the house, including
my dog and her food and water, for a couple days.
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Leaving home |
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I lived in Mira Mesa for the Cedar Fire in 2003. I had to evacuate
there too because we could see the flames from across the freeway
so it was kind of common sense. In the Cedar Fire no one was really
packing it was just common sense. This time it was mandatory so
everyone was already pretty much out of there. Our whole block
was packing up so I really knew it was serious at that time.
We were just driving around and then we ended up going to my
aunt's house and staying there for a couple hours. We went down
to downtown and had lunch and later on that night we ended up
staying at the Marriott near my step-dad's work.
I did at some point think, "Maybe it can get closer to our
house," and this time around I understood what damage it
could do and the fire could move fast. Especially up here where
the fires were everywhere. They were sparking up all of a sudden
and it could move so fast. So I did have that kind of nervousness
in me.
I was watching the news the entire week and obviously I wasn't
at my house. It seemed to me they exaggerated a lot in some cases.
When we got back to our house it wasn't that bad. You could still
smell the smoke and there is ash different places around the house.
But I think the media kind of exaggerates it, especially in the
national news to some extent.
People around here were pretty calm about it, from my point of
view, from where I was seeing it. But probably the people who
lost their homes aren't so calm about it.
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Dealing with
the aftermath |
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The smoke in the air is not good to breath and going to school
and trying to concentrate in that type of air quality, I don't
think that is good. The ash in some places is really bad, not
necessarily here but I'm sure that other parts of the county are
worse. It's not as clear as it usually is, it's still kind of
smoky, the smell is going away. There is still a lot of debris
on the ground and it's kind of gross, but we are starting to clean
it up.
Qualcomm stadium was doing really well as an evacuation center.
I think they handled it really well, probably better than last
time. It probably has to do with the experience of the last fire
too, they were more prepared this time.
They had massages in the stadium and plenty of food. They even
had to tell people to stop bringing donations because they just
had too much.
Even if you go to some other state, everybody has their natural
disasters. This just happens to be ours. You just have to accept
it and take care of it once it happens.
San Diego has seemed to take care of this fire better than the
Cedar one and that makes me feel better about living here.
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--Michelle
Boccia is a 15-year-old sophomore from Rancho Peñasquitos, Calif.,
interested in art and painting.
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