EastGirlsWest

The sky as seen from our yard this morning, looking east. We live off the I-8, near SDSU and not far from Qualcomm Stadium. Both the Harris Fire and the Witch Fire are burning east of us, to the north and to the south, respectively.

I’m starting to see some large pieces of ash fall from the sky and float into our backyard.

I started watching some of the national coverage, and it’s bizarre to see the mundane stops in our weekly routine as the backdrop to major disaster. I find myself occasionally forgetting that we are IN the place I’m watching on television. But then I see Katie at Qualcomm, and there’s IKEA in the background, and I think, “oh, I need to go there next week to pick up some coffee cups for Tay’s new apartment.”

And speaking of surreal:
The local CBS station has a reporter, in full fire gear, in front of a burned home. The have the homeowner on the phone, talking to the reporter as he sifts through the rubble, holding up unscathed, framed photos he’s found. She tells him that she called in because she saw him reporting earlier, and could see her home going up in flames in the background. He continues to search for her non-charred belongings while she thanks him.

…Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams show up to report live from the city you live in.

Another devastating day here. Feeling so useless and helpless, and the cabin fever is starting to kick in. The Husband is remarkably focused and forward moving in these situations, I’m more prone to being distracted, anxious and sad. And that’s watching and listening to coverage from my intact home. I really, really can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was coping with displacement at Qualcomm Stadium, like tens of thousands of San Diegans are. To be that disconnected from the comfort of routine and home, for an uncertain length of time, is scary.

On a positive note, I’ve been damn impressed with the media coverage here. I’ll admit to more than my share of eye-rolling when I moved here: about the quality of the local paper, the cheesiness of local network news (plastic surgery in abundance), and the lack of additional options. But I’m ready to take at least some of it back, because let me tell you, this town knows it’s way around an emergency! The coverage has been consistent, relevant, appropriate, and helpful - with remarkably high production values, both on-air and online. This is the kind of situation where you can see effective media coverage making a difference.

Of course KPBS leads the pack with a fantastic website and wall-to-wall radio reporting from all over the county. Bonus points for quickly getting back on the air after fire-related transmitter damage knocked them off. Double bonus for using Twitter for updates. The UT has done great work online, with graphics and blog posts in addition to their comprehensive stories. I’ve spent a lot of time watching the local CBS affiliate, where one dedicated reporter covered the destruction of his own home, flames raging behind him as it fell. And Voice of San Diego and the CityBeat team have each jumped in, utilizing their own strengths to cover a slice of this huge event.

And now the national news teams are here. Katie Couric is less than two miles from my home, and no offense to her, but I don’t feel good about it.

I hate to put up two depressing posts in a row, but the fact is we’re sitting at home today, watching multiple fires storm mercilessly across San Diego county. I can’t complain about the low-grade burn of smoke in my lungs when I’m sitting in my safe, intact home, watching destruction just miles away from the comfort of my couch. My fingers are crossed for everyone we know who has a home in the path of the flames, and I’ve bitten my fingernails watching the stories of those who have already seen their homes disintegrate.

Seems this is part of life in the west. I always thought about earthquakes when I moved here, but not the fires. My life experience with weather disasters has been limited to snowstorms and hurricanes. Single digit humidity combined with gray skies and air that hurts to breathe is not something that ever entered my mind when I moved here.

The Husband just saw the address of his childhood home crawl across the lower third of our TV screen, part of a list of residences that burned. I never thought I’d ever wish so hard for the wind to subside.

Tay picks me up at work. We drive to the smoothie place, and she runs over a pigeon when we get into the parking lot. The pigeon does not die, but in the rear view mirror we can see it pointlessly flapping its wings, scampering across the pavement, going nowhere fast.

She cries in the car. There are tears while we order and wait for our smoothies.

We drive to Tay’s new apartment, which is quiet and mostly empty, still waiting for her to inhabit. Our only effort to spruce up is to quietly hang a temporary shower curtain - just a liner, really - while we drink our smoothies.

We leave Tay’s apartment. On the way back to my office, a monster pickup truck rolls through a stop sign at an intersection. We are headed directly towards the pickup, at a normal rate of speed since we don’t have a stop sign. I scream. Tay slams on the brakes, and the car skids and squeals and uses every bit of restraint it can muster to come to a stop about .5 inches from the pickup. We are terrified, holding our breath, not blinking. The pickup driver doesn’t flinch. Or stop. He turns his head, looks right through us, and keeps driving.

Two blocks further she drops me off. Lunch hour is over.