Wild fire in Santa Barbara CA

[snack_pack85]

Is anyone else watching the coverage for this one? My husband works for the Sheriffs Dept in SB and has been ordered into work to possibly help evacuate more residents...there's even talk about evacuting the local jail.

I'll be driving down tomorrow from the Central Coast where we live with blankets, canned food, clothes...anything I have that can help.

I just can't believe this is happening again. We just had a huge fire out here several months ago and lots of people lost everything.

I'll post again when I get home from the evac center with pictures and an update.

Wish us luck...

 

[snack_pack85]

Yahoo is now covering it: More than 30,000 ordered to flee Calif. wildfire - Yahoo! News

 

[snack_pack85]

this is the kind of crap that really gets me about this place...no one...not one person here gives a hoot about this fire and all of the families it's displaced? the homes it's destroyed? i know this is a cooking forum and all but I have been watching the forum lately and we're all over the place. Dancing with the stars this...severed snake head that. But when it's something really important....nothing.....

I'll spare you all the update...since I am sure that it...along with all of this...will go unseen.

i am totally disappointed.

 

[roadfix]

I care, but that does not mean that I have to post my feelings here.

 

[snack_pack85]

Isn't that why we come here? A group of people with common interests gathered to....talk...about cooking, about game shows, out families and our communities?

If there was something huge going on in someone elses state, or neighborhood, I would show my support. Let them know that they have people rooting for them, etc. I have done so in the past. I came here to become part of a community and that community feeling comes and goes for me.

When I see that Onion Sandwich posts have more comments than a huge emergency like the Jessusita Fire...it just disapoints me...that's all.

*no offense to the person who posted any of the posts I've mentioned, or the people who replied their. this is just me being sensitive yet again....

 

[SierraCook]

Of course, we care. I have watched the fire on the news every night for the past week. But one thing I must say is that folks sure need to work harder about clearing a defensible space around their houses. And in California it is a law that homeowners must have a 100 feet of defensible space cleared around their homes. Here is a link to a page that explains defensible space.


Defensible Space

 

[gadzooks]

Sorry, snack pack85, but I've been helping collect food, clothing and blankets to bring up from Ojai. Haven't really had time to post much. That and making dog wheelchair and working and volunteering the several places I do. Not like nobody cares...a lot of people probably don't know. I don't watch TV, so if it wasn't local, I might not know. And that last fire, the Teahouse blaze, was caused by a bonfire left unattended by a bunch of people after a kegger in the hills. Their parents were all well-connected, and no charges were ever brought, to my knowledge. I know you care, I care and a lot of other people care, but when the SB city council and PD lets these people walk, people wonder if they care.

 

[snack_pack85]

Gadzooks, that's so good to hear that you were out doing what you could do! I can understand people out of state not being as aware (even though it was on yahoo's front page all week long) but no one else from california was talking about it either. I have a lot of respect for someone like you who was out there in the thick of it. God bless you.

 

[kitchenelf]

It's not that we don't care snack...I can assure you otherwise. No, I didn't post and I guess I should have. I have come back here often to see if there was an update though.

I pray everyone stays safe.

 

[snack_pack85]

Well, my husband was ordered in to work at three in the morning. They were positive that they were going to be evactuating the main jail and the "honor farm" for good behavior inmates was already evacuated. They pulled deputies from inside the jail to walk door to door through neighborhoods evacuating everyone.

By the time we got out there on saturday morning we couldnt even tell there had been a fire there. We saw some smoke off way in the distance on some mountains but that was it. The air quality was still really bad.

I called ahead to the evac center to see if I could help and where to go. I was told on saturday morning that we could sit through an 8 hour class with the red cross before we could get our hands dirty. It seemed like such a joke. IMO you dont need an 8 hour class to know how to help people in need. For crying out loud. All we wanted was to help feed people, offer assistance to those who were displaced by the fire. Give people rides if they needed them etc. So instead we decided to send food , blankets and clothes to those who needed it.

Next time, if our schedules will allow it, we'll try and get out there sooner. It seems they were more eager to take untrained helpers in the begining then towards the end.