Date posted: October 27, 2007 - Saturday
Title: Reflections on the week past
Current mood: hopeful
I know a thousand other people will be writing about the fires and I claim no special insight, but there are some things I wanted to say anyway.
Echoes of a former life …
My background is in journalism, or at least that was the aim of my college career and where I spent a few years working before I got sidetracked. So the coverage of the fires on television stirred that spark in me as well. I didn't exactly want to stand in some burned out neighborhood and report on the latest acreage that was ravaged, but the immediacy of the events cause me to wonder why that has withered and perhaps died within me.
Maybe a little ignorance can be a good thing …
The week before all this happened newspaper stories and television news were heralding the approaching anniversary of the disastrous Cedar Fires of 2003. Once this newest conflagration started I wondered if the stories were such a good thing. I know those historic pieces are one of the mainstays of journalism, but I wondered once these fires started if the stories have inspired some warped idiot. Were these new fires not only a convergence of terrible weather and bad conditions but sparked by the warped mind of someone.
They haven't detailed the causes of the several fires in San Diego County, but I wondered if any of them was the result of human action. It has been determined one of the fires in Orange County was the result of an arsonists’ work, but I hope none of the San Diego fires was.
Pride out of disaster …
I watched the evacuations of thousands of people into shelters and was amazed. Maybe it was the "lessons of Katrina" or maybe it was just the way people are in this area, but the organization of the evacuation centers and the manner in which the people were treated and cared for was spectacular. While people may have had troubles and privation in other disasters there were so many donations to Qualcomm Stadium and the evacuees there officials actually had to say, "don't send any more."
State and Federal officials were, I think, stunned by how well things were running at the stadium. And late in the week FEMA personnel actually asked people involved in the effort to record everything they had done to use as a blueprint for other communities which may suffer disasters.
A community can take pride in its' sports teams, in its weather or in many other things, but the pride I was feeling was the people I live with every day had met disaster with so much generosity, compassion and stamina for their neighbors.
The worst of men …
There was surprisingly little crime associated with this disaster. Through the first several days of the fires police only arrested two men for looting. Thousands of homes evacuated hundreds of thousands of people displaced and only two were caught for taking advantage of the misery of others.
In the middle of the week workers at Qualcomm noticed something suspicious. There were a couple of men who loaded up on donated supplies and left the stadium. Then they returned and loaded up again. This made the workers wonder what was going on.
When the men returned a third time with two trucks and a car, loaded them all and departed, the workers notified police something might be wrong. Police interviewed a boy who had come with the man and he admitted they were taking the free supplies from the stadium and selling them.
The men were Hispanic and illegal entrants to this country. I can understand people crossing the border to gain a better life and support their family. I can understand someone doing something illegal if they were starving and without hope. What I cannot understand, and cannot abide, is stealing from people who have nothing to enrich yourself.
The supplies were generously donated to help those who had lost their homes and those who had had to flee for their lives. How can anyone just take what is meant for others just to line their own pockets?
I condemn no ethnic group for the actions of the few, but these men as individuals deserve nothing but my contempt. I wish upon them a literary fate. I hope there is some level of Dante's Hell that holds special tortures for such people; those who would take from those who have nothing.
Family together …
My relatives were very lucky in this week.
Last time the wildfires ravaged the county my brother lost his house. It sits on a hillside near Lakeside and when the fires were done nothing remained but ash, twisted metal and the remains of some cars. My brother lost a Chevelle Super Sport in the fire. I lost a Ford Sunliner convertible which had been stored in the hopes I would have the resources to restore it one day. All I have left is a small piece of melted windshield glass. My brother has nothing.
It took years to rebuild his home. He lived in a trailer on the property. Another housed his children. He struggled through trials with insurance companies, contractors and government bureaucracy to rebuild his home.
A few months ago there was a house warming for the new residence. He had been in the rebuilt residence a while, but it was time to celebrate the rebirth.
But the fires came again and my brother and his wife had to repack their essentials to be ready to
