If you can help Nesrie’s family, I’m collecting donations for them (with Nesrie’s blessing, of course).
So we just came back from mom’s place. This is my first time driving and walking in the area. It’s just… the smell is like charcoal in the air, constantly. I mean above and beyond smoke it’s just this burned stuff. One of the orchards looks crispy. I can’t remember who owns that anymore because many of them changed hands so many times. One of those freeway signs for food and stuff is burned but still standing, legible. The man that was missing and thought possibly dead was actually there, told us he escaped with his dog and that was it.
The sheriff and one police officer was there to chase away looters… not really anything to loot. I was glad mom was with me to take these pictures because they might’ve thought I didn’t belong. A lot of folks like that often assume that although I am working on 3 decades now being here, and that limitation is… I’m just not that old yet.
Anyway, I think driving in hit me harder than looking at the ruins.
Two family members fought for years over that little red truck. Just one of those family things that seems stupid now because, well you can’t even tell it was red.
My sister and I spent years gathering money to buy mom a china set and then we spent 3-4 years after that getting those unique pieces, the dessert tray, the gravy boat. It wasn’t like it is now, back then even in the 90s or so people still had china huts and liked china, so it was just trying to give mom something nice. There is a WW2 set in there that was brought back from WW2 / Japan by a member serving. When grandma passed it came to here. No evidence of the antique sewing machine that was another grandma’s.
Just random stuff is identifiable,
That’s an old propane take one of the neighbors used.
I got mom an umbrella stand from JCPenney.
I don’t even know why I remember that purchase precisely except is was incredibly heavy to carry around.
I have no idea why this didn’t just melt:
I got her that computer from Staples because she was struggling with the one she had. I told her the next one will be a laptop. It won’t take up much room in her room.
I don’t know why her adjuster told her to take pictures. I seriously doubt they’re going to take my word for it, but it was just a task to do.
FEMA has their fliers up at the site, basically saying they won’t cover anything insurance does. This insurance company is… it’s been a week, nothing. And the thing that gets me is my mom has a place to stay; we’re making the lists, calling the companies, ordering the SSN cards and birth certificates, got the address changes… hell just charging her flip phone. Her neighbors… some of them, they don’t have insurance, their computers are gone and they’re too poor to have smartphones to do all this. They’re over there looking for cats in cars for the ones that were able to even leave with that.
This whole process infuriates me. And we’re… lucky, at least that’s what mom says as she’s sitting at my desk changing her stuff.
We’re lucky we have her, still. I absolutely agree, but a part of me wants to grab that phone from her and tell these companies hey, do something right now. She needs help, right now. My mom won’t let me buy anything big for her until she feels like he insurance companies will pay her back, and I’m like… who cares. Let’s get the damn mattress. My guest one kind of sucks, and it wasn’t meant for someone who is over 40.
Oh yeah, the fire is 60% contained. I don’t know about the other one, and we’re now expecting wind before rain which is … not good.
I don’t know about the specific science aspects of it, but the weather here is just getting worse and worse, and I don’t think we’ve had so many fires that you can drive for hours on I-5 and just pass several of them or, in this case, it burned on both sides of I-5.
Those pictures with your text have me in tears.
Yeah, I’m just so sorry, Nesrie. Our system is so rough, and even for us “lucky” enough to have a safety net of some sort, this is incredibly big to go through. Losing all those artifacts that hold all those memories. Gah. Now I’m in tears too.
Mom doesn’t think she deserves much. She literally told me that she took what she had for granted, kept saying she didn’t like it and then it was taken away, and she deserved it. She thinks donations is just taking from other people who are sleeping in their cars and not their daughter’s bedroom.
I assured her that many people don’t appreciate what they have until it is gone. It’s pretty much part of the human condition, not her failing alone. The losses other’s experienced does not minimize hers, and that having love and support does not mean she can’t have more love and support from others.
She cried because she lost the pictures on the walls even though we saved the old ones. I haven’t told her yet, but I am fairly certain her daughters have digital versions of many of those pictures, and we can get them again.
It seems like the mobile park’s manager intends to open again once he can rebuild the lots, one at a time. It will at least give anyone who can a chance to live there again and still find affordable housing in an area that’s pretty spendy. He’s also prorating rent so most of them should get checks for that a heck of a lot faster than any insurance company is willing to do.
Almeda fire was declared 100% contained an hour ago. That basically means the resources to deal with it are shifting back to the local resources. Large parts of Talent and Phoenix are still not open to the public although there are some escorts taking people to get things and pets from still standing homes. We’ve got a number of active crime scenes around due to missing people and some other reasons.
About 600 homes, 100 businesses, 3200 acres right down the middle of civilization. 3 official deaths so far, that uhh, last number is expected to rise. Social Media is full of missing people but also found too.
Cause of it remains under investigation but it definitely started in Ashland and spread generally North.
Stabilized incident or not, this one hurt us. And I would’ve said that even without the direct losses my family experienced.
And because this is QT3, there I thought I would mention they’ve been having problems with drones. They keep saying if you fly we can’t. Like if they spot a drone they can’t send the plane and copters up.
They were so, so far off with estimates. I don’t even know how they got that number if it was that far off.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has updated stats on structures destroyed in the Almeda fires. The department previously reported that 600 residences were destroyed, that number has now increased to 2357 residential structures destroyed.
600, or 2357. Simple error.
It gets “better.”
Yeah so the emergency broadcast system was never used here. I got it a few times in Linn county at the hotel but nothing here. I mean wth. Now cubes the blame game and the extent of the incompetence. News doesn’t get a pass though. They were awful too.
So so caught up in my own… stuff, that I didn’t realize there was a hurricane going across the East Coast.
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.2588727,-83.5351339,6.75z/data=!4m3!15m2!1m1!1s%2Fg%2F11lb603kcg
That’s not the hurricane path I am used to seeing. And from what I am reading, this path changed and it’s slow.
So far it seems like the average path is through the Northern Gulf states these days. It is weird to me. Not that I mind being given a miss here, but I certainly don’t wish it upon anyone. There are more coming so we’re not out of the woods by far.
It is apparently moving VERY slowly, so now that it is over land I would expect it to dissipate a lot before going very far.
I used to live about 20 miles west of Tallahassee. I thought for a while that house I was in was dead-center, but I guess it ended up a bit further west.
Expecting about 6" of rain here, and the workload that comes with it for me.
I know it’s silly to whine about this with all the problems that people are having because of weather/fires, but this smoke really needs to go away. 7 days now of not going outside and all my widows closed up. In Seattle it’s not supposed to clear up until Saturday, but I was reading that there is a lot smoke just swirling over the Pacific, so it will come back again eventually even if the fires are controlled.
Normally, yes. But this is 2020. Barbara Walters is probably rolling in her grave.
We’re expecting rain soon but… thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are problematic. It would be really great if they were wrong about that.
Also, about the smoke. It’s awful, whether you’re threatened by fire or not it is a horrible experience.
Yeah, we are on day 11 here of not being able to go outside and… it sucks. We were under 300ppm briefly on Monday before climbing back to the 400s. Today we finally got down to 192, which is the lowest I’ve seen.
Looking at thunderstorms starting roughly 8pm from here to Salem. Which, as @Nesrie said, is a mixed bag right now. I really hope the rain helps clean out some of the air though, and the thunder risk is greatly overstated.
Last night while making dinner I burned the garlic bread (due to fussy kids) and the resultant smoke from the oven gave me a headache. Problem was I couldn’t even open the door to clear out the kitchen air, since that would make things worse!
Smoke is still a health risk; you can rant away, as far as I’m concerned.
Sorry to hear that, Craig, that sucks. Hoping the rain outweighs the lightning strikes tonight.