Finally managed to get online from where we're staying. News at the moment
is pretty good for those of us living in White Rock - no damage, and
currently no threat from the fire. It did get within either a half mile or
5 miles or 3 miles or 3/4 of a mile on Friday night (depending on which
news report we were listening to) but the winds were being nice at the time
so nothing came of it. This has turned out to be just a stressful
inconvenience for us, unlike those in LA (especially the ones losing
homes!) Los Alamos townsite is going to be off limits for some time, due
to down poewr lines and problems with gas lines - they can't turn things on
for the undamaged homes until they've cleaned up the problems. The fire
has split up into several parts, and is still burning (they say it will be
several weeks before they hope to have it out). And forecasts are for high
winds again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not sure if they'll be in the 60 MPH
range that caused the fire to be totally unstoppable back on Wednesday, but
it may mean we'll be stuck here till later in the week, and the news for
White Rock could go bad. And we've got three acres of pinon trees in our
yard which would probably doom the house. On the positive side, it's all
insured and even if it weren't, the Park Service (or big brother Fed) is
going to have to make good on ALL damage anyway.
Great news in all of this is that there have been no serious injuries to
anyone.
We spent about 2 hours packing on Wednesday night/Thursday morning when we
got the unexpected order to evacuate White Rock. Up to that point they had
several of the larger shelters set up for people from Los Alamos in White
Rock. Logically we assumed that meant that WR was not in danger. At 1:15
Thursday morning the only result of a press conference was that they were
evacuating White Rock. What would you pack if you just had a couple of
hours to do it? We mostly picked stuff that would be difficult to replace
(photos, paperwork, Volks) and ended up with the truck, MR2 on the trailer,
and MX-6 all packed completely except for the drivers' seats in the truck
and MX-6. Hopefully the Honda won't feel like it's been betrayed and quit
being so reliable :-) The fish will just have to live for a while; we've
got about 400 gallons of tanks, but they're fine for a week or so without
food or other attention, and I expect to have a chance to spend at least
some time at the house in the near future. Our huskies came with us; they
aren't too thrilled with living in the chicked coop, but we keep trying to
convince them it's better than being left behind for the fire....
Anyway, we're OK as is everyone in the area. Last reports had over 40,000
acres burned, though the only really big jump was on Wednesday when it went
from 3700 to about 20,000. 191 structures burned in town, with quite a few
being either duplexes or quads, so some 260 people had their homes
completely destroyed - once a house was obviously going to burn, the
firefighters gave up and tried to save the ones around it, so those which
burned are just a foundation. Tough situation for those people, especially
since they aren't going to be closer to their homes than a bus tour through
town for a while.
Thanks for all the notes of concern and support. I do wish we'd been able
to get them sooner, back when we were more stressed. At this point, if the
house burns, we'll just make plans to build one that fits us better (let's
see - 3 car garage with an attached bathroom; what else does it really need?)
PS. Just got news that White Rock has been re-opened. We'll head back
tomorrow. Too late to feel like packing everything back up and driving 100
miles just to have to unpack. The news is great, though!
Paul and Meredith Brown
MR2: "Not the easiest car in the world to work on"
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