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 News from Around the Americas | November 2007 
For Fire Victims, a Time of Thanks and Concern
 William M. Welch - USA Today
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| This photograph shows the remains of a neighborhood at Valley Oaks Park in Fallbrook, Calif. in the aftermath of the wildfires that swept across Southern California last month. (Alan Benson/USA Today)
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Fallbrook, Calif. — Lisa Horner lost her mobile home and everything in it to the Southern California wildfires last month. Yet even as she sifts through the rubble of her life, she thinks about how much she has to be thankful for this Thanksgiving — and how determined she is to recapture some version of what she had.
"Being alive. Being around. Being here," Horner says during one of her daily trips to the charred Valley Oaks mobile home park where she vows to return, once her insurance company cuts her a check for another trailer. "I'm just glad I got out alive."
A month after the fires that destroyed more than 2,000 homes and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate at least temporarily, some in Southern California aren't as optimistic or certain about the future. Across the region there is a determination to rebuild, but the pace of recovery — physical and emotional — has been uneven.
From the humble trailer parks here and along the border with Mexico to the suburban cul-de-sacs in the San Diego area, it's clear that many residents will mark Thanksgiving while coming to grips with their losses and feelings of vulnerability.
"We're still undecided about whether we want to go back," says Suzanne Shelton, another Valley Oaks resident who is having difficulty shaking the terror of running from a fire that burned up the trailer where she and her husband, Victor, doted over their 8-month-old daughter, Grace.
"It wasn't much, but it is what we had," says Shelton, a respiratory therapist whose husband installs garage doors. "To see it go so quickly and so thoroughly."
The Sheltons moved in with Suzanne's parents in Fallbrook. There's little privacy, and she says she often thinks about what they lost, such as the photos of another child who died just after birth.
"The pictures of my son, I'll never see again," she says.
Those displaced by the fires "are getting past the devastation. But we do see a lot of sadness," says Lily Bunker, 25, a recent college graduate from San Diego who has been working 12-hour days as a volunteer at a church-run kitchen and shelter for fire victims.
Bunker is part of a massive relief effort that is still going strong — and attracting an unusual mix of volunteers and benefactors. Help has come from all over: Volunteers from as far away as Florida have shown up to work for various charity groups, religious organizations, the Red Cross and others that have helped run shelters and kitchens. In some cases, relief workers assisted in the cleanup or just listened to victims vent.
"We are trying to address not just their physical needs but their emotional needs," says Michael Duarte of Sunnyvale, Calif., who was part of a Samaritan's Purse crew helping sift through the rubble of homes.
Among those providing help: Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based military contractor whose private security forces have been the focus of much controversy in Iraq, including questions over whether its guards have fatally shot Iraqis without cause. In the San Diego area, Blackwater has waged a public relations battle with environmental groups who oppose its plans to open a training base in the hilly desert along the Mexican border east of the city.
To help victims of the fires, Blackwater sent in trailers with showers and laundry facilities and at least six large air-conditioned barracks-style tents.
Government agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration, have provided grants and loans to help people recover, repair or relocate. Their representatives remain visible at community centers.
Local governments are trying to help victims quickly get permits required for rebuilding. San Diego County reviews and issues building permits at no cost to fire victims, waiving normal fees and speeding their way through the process.
San Diego County crisis counselors remain on duty for those who need it, and county officials expect to try to meet residents' mental health needs stemming from the fire for months to come.
"We are seeing increases in reports of depression, of potential suicide," says Michalene Hiltsley, a social worker with the San Diego County Mental Health Services who has worked in isolated, rural areas east of the city and along the border. "There's a huge need."
'It doesn't feel so safe anymore'
In San Diego, the wide suburban streets of the Rancho Bernardo community reflect how some residents are aggressively moving on, while others aren't doing so yet.
Several house lots in Rancho Bernardo are being cleared of rubble from the wildfires. Some are ready for new foundations to be poured.
Alongside many of these addresses are lots strewn with charred appliances, blackened husks of cars, postings from government and insurance inspectors and fliers from contractors offering their services. The lots appear to have been untouched since the day in October when fierce winds blew through before dawn, pushing walls of flames over ridges and down valleys.
Rancho Bernardo resident Jim Costello and his wife, Michal, say they were lucky to find their home still standing while those next door and behind it were incinerated.
But their losses go deeper than they first appeared. Heat from the fire blew out windows in their home, and firefighters knocked down a door to douse flying embers inside, leaving heavy soot, smoke and ash behind.
The Costellos spent most of the past month in a hotel, paid for by their insurance company, while the house was cleaned and repairs begun. When they were allowed back in last week, they got more bad news.
Repairs to the windows were halted when workers found asbestos in the 33-year-old home's ceiling. They will have to move out again while it is removed and a new ceiling installed.
The emotional adjustment has taken a while, Jim Costello says. The worst part is the loss of a sense of security in their home of 20 years and their comfortable neighborhood, where there was little visible hint of the danger posed by distant wildlands.
"We have always felt so safe here ... just a nice, safe, comfortable place to live," says Costello, 58. "It doesn't feel so safe anymore. And that just doesn't feel good."
But, he concludes, that's the way life is.
"There is no place that is completely safe in our world," he says. "Never was, never will be. So, you need to get over it and do your best to deal with it."
Contrast in recovery
A month after the fires, the contrasts between how wealthy and lower-income residents have been able to recover have been evident.
More than 50 homes were lost in and around Rancho Santa Fe, one of the nation's wealthiest communities just north of San Diego in an area of lush greenery unusual for arid Southern California.
Jack Baca, senior pastor at Village Community Presbyterian Church, says some burned-out residents quickly found temporary rental housing while others relocated to second homes and beach condos, or borrowed friends' second homes. Five families in his church lost their homes, Baca says, adding that because its members have the means to get on with their lives, the church has been helping victims in less affluent parts of the county.
"There's more financial need there," he says, "and more financial resources here."
Baca's church is part of a relief effort that wins praise from many fire victims. Across fire-scorched areas, the Red Cross delivers meals, and different church-related groups provide shelter and support, including Catholic, Mormon and evangelical organizations. Some residents simply stepped in on their own.
Out of school and without a job, Lily Bunker of San Diego decided to find a way to help.
She showed up at a church-run shelter that immediately put her fluency in Spanish to use, helping fire victims who do not speak English. The shelter was set up by the Church of Christ; Bunker is staying in a Winnebago arranged by the shelter's manager, so she can stay on the site.
"We go where the need is," says Mark Cremeans, who drove from Ohio to set up the church's tent city in a rodeo arena at the Barrett Junction community.
He found an unusual partner — Blackwater USA, whose shower and laundry trailers seem to have been a public relations success.
"Blackwater got me washed and cleaned," laughs Bob Davies, 52, who lost his mobile home in the fires. "I haven't seen the environmentalists out here."
Only a few people are still staying in Blackwater's tents at night, but others come by during the day for a hot meal, to do laundry or pick up donated clothes and toys from the church group.
Edward "Father Bud" Kaicher's St. Peter's Catholic Church has been helping Fallbrook and Valley Oaks families hit by the fire. Many lower-income laborers who didn't lose their homes lost a week's pay because of the evacuations, he says, and the church distributed $20,000 during the first week after the fire to more than 50 families.
Kaicher also helped burned-out residents relocate, including his 88-year-old father, who has moved into a small apartment at the church rectory.
"He lost everything," Kaicher says, but this holiday weekend, "I can say pretty clearly I am thankful for him being still alive."
Then there are the survivors whose stories of thanks could hardly have been imagined.
Lisa Horner's neighbor in the Valley Oaks trailer park, Velna Schneider, 80, lost the double-wide mobile home where she has lived for 20 years to the fire. She simply walked across a driveway to another mobile home that was left standing.
The owner of that home, Eric Noemer, 76, died eight days before the fires hit. Schneider helped Noemer throughout his losing battle with cancer. On his death bed, Noemer wrote out a will leaving his mobile home to her.
The fire didn't touch Noemer's home. Firefighters told Schneider that the collapsed awning of Horner's carport next door probably protected Noemer's house from the flames.
"Everything around me is burned within 2 feet of this house," Schneider says. "It's a miracle to me. The good Lord has really, really looked out for me. ... He gave me this house and didn't let it burn."
On Oct. 21, the day the fires blew in, Paul Alotta had planned a cookout to celebrate his 67th birthday with family members at his brick home on a hillside near San Diego overlooking Tecate, Mexico.
He and girlfriend Heather Anderson say they were stranded in the home for six days with little food and water as fires surrounded them. They heard the explosions as tractor-trailer trucks parked at transfer stations near the border were overcome by the flames. One neighbor was killed as he tried to check on his home, Alotta says.
Their home survived, but the contents of a steel shipping container with Anderson's belongings, from musical equipment to her mother's antiques, was turned to ashes.
Anderson went to the assistance center at Dulzura last week to find someone to talk to about her loss. "My whole life," she says. "You can't put a price on your past."
The couple adopted a mixed-breed retriever puppy last week as a present to themselves. Alotta had to sit down, choking back tears, as he described the terror.
"I'm able to talk about it now, but sometimes I break down," he whispers. "We're glad to be here."
'Now, I got nothing'
At the end of a dirt road in rural southern San Diego County, Steve Davies still isn't sure what he'll do next.
Davies, 50, a ranch hand and newspaper carrier, lost his apartment in a rented barn along with his tools, rifle collection, thousands of rounds of ammunition and more than 150 chickens. A few horses, cats and a half-dozen dogs survived.
He sleeps on a mattress in the back of his small Toyota pickup. He had no insurance. He says the landlord doesn't plan to rebuild, and the relocation assistance he got from FEMA — $1,117 — isn't enough to find a place that can take his horses.
He was offered a federal loan rather than a grant, and he says with his tools gone and many of his customers burned out, he wouldn't be able to make the payments.
Only now has Davies begun to poke the rubble and ash that was his home — including a pool table and audio-video entertainment center where he spent his evenings inside the barn.
Also lost: his brother's pickup and trailer and a friend's 1966 Ford Mustang.
"Life was good," he says, standing with his brother, Bob. "We thought we were the luckiest guys on earth. We were stylin', living out here, plenty of elbow room, plenty of freedom."
"Now, I got nothing."
For Gerardo Gonzalez, the outlook seems brighter.
Gonzalez, who also lives in southern San Diego County, says he has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he and his family has received.
His mobile home was destroyed when the Harris Fire tore through the valley where he lived in the dry, rocky hills near the Mexican border. He fled with his wife, Rosa, and son to stay with family in Mexico until the fires passed.
A U.S. citizen for seven years, Gonzalez has received an RV-style trailer with financial help from FEMA and has moved in, even as his old trailer sits twisted and charred nearby.
With $200 promised from a charity group, he planned a shopping trip to replace his 7-year-old son's bicycle that was lost to the flames.
"We get help from everybody. Everybody," says Gonzalez, 68, who makes a living hauling items in his truck. "I'm lucky ... It was very scary. Now, we're establishing normal."
To the north in Fallbrook, Lisa Horner — who managed to save some photos, her cat and her late mother's dolls as she fled the fire — is just as determined to re-establish a life in the Valley Oaks mobile home park.
"This is not going to deter me from living in this park," she says. "We're like family here. There's no way you can get me out of here."
Gabrielli Grace, managing partner of the mobile home park, says it will be rebuilt:
"I see a future for us." |
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