Glad to hear you are all ok. This really had to be a stressful situation, not
knowing what was going to happen. Glad it appears to be over for you and that
you
can return to your home.
Gail & Sid deLeon
Adventure Racing
BP 39
Paul and Meredith Brown wrote:
> 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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