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So bloody much has happened…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been three months since I’ve done any posting here. Life happens. You would think that with quarantining at home that I’d have plenty of time to post & yet it’s been horrifically busy.

I’m currently sitting in the kitchen of friends; we’ve been evacuated for the past week. Wild fires are still burning across much of Northern California. A little over a week ago we had a thunderstorm, something highly unusual for this time of year. Northern California simply does not get rain in July or August. There were multiple lightning strikes, multiple very loud claps of thunder. It was followed by short burst of rain & then, nothing.

Or so it seemed.

I should have known better. There were many many lightning strikes over the course of Sunday, the bulk of them not with an earshot. Evacuation of our area was ordered by Tuesday evening at around seven. I spent the next several hours packing up essentials to evacuate & arguing with LJ about evacuation. Sensing mid afternoon that we might have to flee, I had already packed a bag with clothing for a week, as well as all my meds & they were in the garage next to the door.

The county had sent out an emergency alert for all residents north of the Russian River & south of Stewart’s point Road to evacuate. We live right at the bend in the river so the river is actually both north and south of us, But our section is contiguous with the north side of the river, so it was absolutely clear to me that we were mandated to leave. My husband didn’t see it that way. Eventually I won out, when he realized I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. The roads in our area are narrow and tortuous. Exit from or area, especially if everyone is leaving all at once, is a cluster fuck, so the county authorities if they are concerned about the possibility of a disaster tend to issue warnings early (actually, a good thing in my book).

The second I was clear we were having to leave a checked in with friends of mine in Santa Rosa & they had room for us and all three of the dogs. Amen! Al & Dan are old friends, with two canids of their own. They’ve been personally affected by the fire storms that happened here. Their last home, recently sold, was one of two in their subdivision that survived the tubs fire three years ago. Even though their home survived, they were out of it for almost 2 months, Secondary to all the ash and debris from the fire all around them.

For reasons I find somewhat frustrating, the local authorities as well as the state have been referring to all the fires across Sonoma and Napa Counties, now extending up in to Lake county as a single blaze, because they all started simultaneously from the same lightening storm. All the published autistics have been from the one lumped together fire. The portion of it that was threatening our home was the Walbridge fire & finding out how much containment was on that was like pulling teeth. Last night we were informed we could go home, but as LJ’s car is at the mechanic’s till this afternoon we’re still in Santa Rosa. Our tenants called last night when they got home to say that all was well, that other than the plants needing water everything was fine.

My stress level is down. Now all I have to worry about is the pandemic.

And the upcoming elections.
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Let me start this post, by saying we are out of harm’s way. Northern California in general and Sonoma County in specific has been badly damaged by fires in the last few years. in October 2017, a violent wind storm caused arcing powerlines and subsequent fires across nine counties in Northern California and some six thousand homes were destroyed, 5000 in Santa Rosa alone. The scale of that distruction is probably why they’ve ordered such a broad evacuation in the face of the current fires.

If I’m correct, 200,000 people have been ordered to evacuate within Sonoma County & something in the vicinity of 2,000,000 people are currently without electrical power across the state, cut preemptively by PG&E, to prevent fires from sparking during high winds. Well, apparently they didn’t turn off all of them, because the current fire in the northeast of our county appears to have been caused by high powered transmission lines that were not cut off, while the supply lines to local customers were. 30,000 acres within Sonoma County have burned since the blaze began Wednesday night, which is roughly equivalent in size to the entire city of San Francisco.

The order to evacuate Guerneville came late yesterday afternoon; G’ville is a good 45 minute drive from where the fires were at that time. My husband was unwilling to leave & I was unwilling to go without him. We powered up the generator last night and were able to sleep (both of us use Cpap), at least as well as one can sleep while worried about oncoming fire. When I saw the reports mid afternoon today of just how far south the fire had spread (still on the north east portion of the county but rapidly encroaching on the city of Windsor), I put my foot down. We loaded the dogs into the cars, as well as medications, clothing, pet food, etc & headed for the lake house.To my surprise it took us less than two hours to get there and we had no trouble getting through evacuated areas.

Stupidly, we did not take the generator. I was hyped to get him out of there, & after wrestling two very rambunctious puppies who dislike car trips into his vehicle and not knowing if we were going to have trouble getting to the lake, I didn’t think through we would likely have no power when we got here. No power for me means no Cpap and no sleep, at least not horizontally. With all the weight I have lost in the last several years, I had hoped I’d be able to sleep facedown, but I obstructed and woke right up. At the moment I’m sitting (or rather reclining) in the very comfortable driver seat of my Prius. Head elevated like this, I should be able to sleep without my CPAP for tonight. If the fire lines hold, I’ll drive back tomorrow morning and grab the generator plus likely perishables from the refrigerator and freezer there.

I am now surprisingly calm. Despite no power, I do have phone service here, reasonable radio reception, and with my phone access to the net, all things I lacked at the river once they shut the power. Ive been able to reassure extensive friends and family who have texted call or email trying to be sure we’re both fine and out of harms way. Given weather protection for Highwinds over the next week & containment on the Kincaid fire isn’t expected until November 7, I suspect we will be here at the lake for a while.

On a personal note, the 20 pounds I lost since the end of June has become almost 25 in the last week. That’s been a conscious effort on my part. I am delighting in getting dressed in the morning. Clothing fits properly again.

Enough for now, time to attempt to sleep.

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