California mefites, please phone home!

October 29, 2003 11:51 AM

California mefites, please phone home! Watching the news on the hell in California and having been left in suspense by a recent thread on the topic, I am concerned about many of our MeFi members....y6y6y6, batgirlHG, rschram & many others. If you live in southern CA, and if you can, please check in and let us know how you are faring!
posted by madamjujujive to MetaFilter-Related at 11:51 AM (27 comments total)

I'm fine. Everyone I know is fine. Just got a little smokey. Hope everyone else was as lucky.

(Full disclosure: San Diego native)
posted by LionIndex at 12:12 PM on October 29, 2003

New to San Diego and this whole fire business. Seems like the flames came very very close to our apt - but we're fine, and the fire that destroyed Scripps Ranch (our neighbor area) has moved on to new destruction in Julian.

y6 and I are having quiet little squabbles over whether its safe to open the windows and let the air in. It does indeed look clearer out today - yesterday the sky was dark yellow, and streetlights came on at 3:30pm. Compared to that the weather here is lovely.
posted by batgrlHG at 12:21 PM on October 29, 2003

Fine here in Santa Barbara, just smoky skies. My roommate's family, though, is right in the thick of it in Lake Arrowhead. Please think nice thoughts for them. Thanks for your concern madamjujujive, that was kind and thoughtful of you.
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:55 PM on October 29, 2003

Fire. I too hope everyone is well.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:04 PM on October 29, 2003

Jeez!! Monju, you been to hell & back. Best wishes from the UK to all in California.
posted by dash_slot- at 1:23 PM on October 29, 2003

As horrible as all that is, it certainly looks interesting, if you divorce yourself from all the people losing their homes. There's something remarkable about a great wall of fire and smoke descending on a suburban sprawl like that. Thanks for the pictures.

It's been a bad year for fires. Up here in British Columbia we had wildfires burning throughout most of the interior of B.C. for the better part of four or five weeks (multiple lightning storms with only two or three days of rain over four months).

Take care, all you.
posted by The God Complex at 1:26 PM on October 29, 2003

[dash_slot- : Those aren't my pictures, thankfully. I'm nestled here in lovely Houston, where things are much too humid to catch fire.]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:29 PM on October 29, 2003

My brother's house was spared, but only by two blocks. The ranch where his wife trains horses was destroyed. Someone broke into his car, apparently taking advantage of the chaos. When he called the police, they said they weren't dealing with things like that right now, understandably. Work shut down because of smoke. Ash everywhere. 4-year old son sent up to the Bay Area to escape the smoke and general chaos. Fucked *up*.
posted by scarabic at 1:59 PM on October 29, 2003

Here in the LA basin, the air quality has been terrible, but that's about it.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 2:06 PM on October 29, 2003

Houston?

Jeez!! Monju, you have been to hell & back.
posted by yhbc at 2:11 PM on October 29, 2003

Well, not back, exactly...
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:16 PM on October 29, 2003

In Dallas, just saw Airforce One heading west...
posted by thomcatspike at 3:03 PM on October 29, 2003

I'm moving to Los Angeles from relatively safe New York on Sunday afternoon... *sob*
posted by Asparagirl at 3:21 PM on October 29, 2003

Sorry, he was landing here, whoops. Um WTF, go put a real fire out. Better there than Dallas, aspargirl.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:24 PM on October 29, 2003

L.A. here -- all's fine with me and my family and most of my friends and their families. I still have a friend out in the Inland Empire who hasn't checked in with me since I heard her neighborhood got the evacuation orders the other day, though, so my fingers (and toes and eyes) are nervously crossed for her.

Scarabic, I'm sorry to hear about the ranch and the car break-in.
posted by scody at 3:26 PM on October 29, 2003

Well we're in the UK, and if anyone wants to post us some fire me and Mrs twine will quite happily huddle round it. Thank you.
posted by twine42 at 3:28 PM on October 29, 2003

And yes, thanks for your concern, MadamJ! Very kind of you.
posted by scody at 3:28 PM on October 29, 2003

"I was chased by a stratospheric curtain of fire and smoke that blocked out the sun and reduced every piece of organic material in its path into black ashes, from one end of the state to the other."

"Well, during the east coast black out, my ice cream melted and I had to walk home from work."

"..."
posted by Hildago at 5:18 PM on October 29, 2003

the air has finally cleared up here in san diego. the sky returned to its normal blue color as opposed to the orange it had been all week.
posted by joedan at 5:59 PM on October 29, 2003

I'm pretty close to San Bernadino, about half an hour. I think that's close. It's been pretty good so far. I'm tired of the ash and the smell, but it's not as bad here as it was in the wind path. I'm glad it seems to be stopping, to say the least. Though the red sun was rather pretty.
posted by stoneegg21 at 1:14 AM on October 30, 2003

I'm nestled here in lovely Houston, where things are much too humid to catch fire.

No, but once in a while it does flood (see summer 2001).

Houston?

Jeez!! Monju, you have been to hell & back.

Geez, it's not THAT bad. I like Houston fine; I doubt it's anyone's ideal of a place to live, but there are many places worse; I don't get why people hate Houston so much.
posted by nath at 1:52 AM on October 30, 2003

I don't get why people hate Houston so much

Well, it's the only place I've ever lived where the bugs are so big that I've actually heard a cockroach eating another bug...

Also, Houston is crisscrossed with bayous, and during the aforementioned--and also rather frequent--flooding you mention, it's always so much fun to see water moccasins cruising down the waterways...'specially when the bayous spill over their banks and down your street...

When I moved to Cali, my family freaked out because they were certain I'd be killed in an earthquake. I haven't even felt one for nearly 10 years. Hmph.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:12 AM on October 30, 2003

Ya'll should move to NJ.

*ducks*
posted by adampsyche at 4:26 AM on October 30, 2003

NPR had a piece on the evacuated pets this morning. Man, the logistics involved in that are incredible--cats, dogs, peacocks, pot bellied pigs, llamas, horses...
posted by y2karl at 6:10 AM on October 30, 2003

... and that was just from Neverland.
(ba-dump!)
posted by yhbc at 7:31 AM on October 30, 2003

"and if anyone wants to post us some fire"

That's it! The solution! Brilliant! And a potential money making scheme for those of us near the fire...
*tries to figure out how to pack fire in a non flammable box*
Actually I think I could get you something along the lines of a box of ashes...

What I'm recovering from is moving from Louisiana - from an area about 2 hrs from Houston - where we just lived through hurricane evacuations not long ago and had yearly floods. And now - wildfires! Wheee! I thought for sure I should be worried about earthquakes...

Houston and the surrounding area are hated because, during some months, you can take a knife and cut a chunk out of the air - suitable for boxing up and mailing - due to the thickness of the humidity.
posted by batgrlHG at 12:36 PM on October 31, 2003

*sniff* nobody asked if *I* was OK.

But I'm a heckuva lot better than I was being in Long Beach back during the '92 LA riots (let's see, there were also floods, mudslides, and fires that year, in addition to the usual little earthquakes).
posted by namespan at 7:47 PM on October 31, 2003