On The Verge

For the second time in four years, many of us in Southern California spent last week dodging a fire storm. I know that the fires aren’t exactly news at this point. But I thought I’d share some observations and feelings from a hectic, seemingly-lost week. The fires introduced a helpless feeling to which I’m unaccustomed and my trusted technology-centric environment offered little help. But my family was fortunate as we, our pets, and our home are fine. And as bad as the week was, and it was horrendous for those that lost homes and even family members, it was no Katrina as some politicians and mainstream media were quick to claim.

A week ago Sunday my son and I finished a round of golf just after Noon and headed home crossing what would be the most devastating area of the Witch Creek fire along Interstate 15 in Rancho Bernardo. As we drove south toward Poway, we entered an extremely thick blanket of smoke that was like a dense fog. The radio, however, was reporting the fires to be 40-50 miles away. The fact that the Santa Ana winds had blown the smoke so far so fast was a warning for what would come.

In our connected world we expect to be able to get real-time information today from TV and the Internet. We’ve watched multiple wars on TV. But that Sunday the winds were so strong that technology was grounded with helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft that couldn’t fly. Firefighters in fact were hampered for three days by lack of air drops of water and fire retardant. I wanted an accurate picture of where the fire was burning and heading. The media was relying on reports from the ground, but largely providing inaccurate and conflicting information.

I’ll never again sleep with a Santa Ana pushing a fire. The Witch wire had pushed West of where I live by the time I awoke Monday morning. We knew where some homes were burning a few miles from our house, but we still couldn’t discern just how close the fire might be in encroaching on the eastern and north eastern edges of Poway where we live.

There were some tech triumphs. Presumably the Reverse 911 system that allows fire officials to quickly send large batched of evacuation notices worked well. You can read about that success in the article “Fires reveal limitations of technology” published in the San Diego Union Tribune. A few of the Poway families that lost homes in the High Valley area, however, have publicly claimed they got no evacuation call.

The cellular system also held up relatively well. The authorities were asking the public to limit usage of mobile phones to make sure the networks were available for rescue workers. We tried to comply although our handsets were our link to friends and family and we were receiving quite a few calls. We did experience more dropped calls than normal. As it turns out there should have been no warning about using mobile phones. As the article “Emergency personnel can bypass busy circuits” explains, all of the major carriers in San Diego have installed a system called the Wireless Priority Service that gives priority to calls from phones registered for the service by public agencies. Apparently, however, most of the key agencies including the police and fire departments here hadn’t registered for the service.

The text messaging support provided my son with a heeded lifeline to his friends. Several live in areas where homes burned. But through text messages he knew where each friend was staying temporarily and when they evacuated.

We evacuated for two nights. Even though I doubted we’d be threatened on Sunday night, I had put my battery charger on the RV that we should have sold long ago. We were glad to have the RV when we left home Monday. Our hardship was living for two days with three dogs and a cat in a confined space – and relatively speaking that was no hardship.

Poway lost around 100 homes. Nearby Rancho Bernardo was hit much harder. Our school district relayed a message that more than 400 students lost homes.

Clearly the families that lost home and the few that lost family members are devastated. I still feel the need to express my feelings about the Katrina comparisons I mentioned earlier. It was quite frustrating watching the local media and politicians brag about how great a job San Diego and San Diegans did in a Katrina-scale catastrophe.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m proud of the efforts of the firefighters, of the many citizens that volunteered at shelters, and at the amazing amount of goods and money that have been contributed to the rescue efforts. But comparing our recent catastrophe to Katrina is disingenuous and a disservice to the victims of Katrina and the New Orleans region.

The number of people temporarily evacuated by the fires may rival the number displaced by Katrina, but thankfully most, like us, were home in a couple of days. And again I hate it for those families that weren’t so lucky. Still I found it unsettling that reports from the evacuee shelter at Qualcomm stadium constantly mentioned Katrina and implied a far more effective rescue effort than what we witnessed at the Superdome two years ago.

The two situations just aren’t comparable. Those stuck in Katrina’s wake couldn’t get out and rescuers couldn’t get in. Those that took shelter at Qualcomm had a Costco across the parking lot, dozens of open restaurants within walking distance, and an operating San Diego Trolley light rail system stopping at the stadium. By the end of last week, most of the key infrastructure in San Diego County was operational.