Sorry, I know you follow me for Good Omens stuff, but I’m freaking out.
San Diego doesn’t get hurricanes, but one, (a category 4???) is coming for us.
I’m a born and raised San Diegan and I can’t believe I’m typing this at all. But here we are, facing Hurricane Hilary and collectively holding our breath, wondering if we’ll be okay. Wondering what we’ll look like in a few hours.
I’m a worrier. I worry. I worry for our loud wonderful parrots who wake me up every day, and for our marine wildlife who I love with all my heart. I fear for our homeless community, who have already dealt with enough this year just existing, and who are too often children. I worry for the people who believe they’ll be okay, will make a bad decision or two, and prove themselves wrong.
It all makes me think of 2003.
For a week that October, it felt like the world was ending. The Cedar Fire, which was the biggest fire in California history (might still be) burned for a week. I was little.
We had never had snow days (the only snow we get out here comes in cone form), but suddenly white ash was falling like snow and school was canceled. This was the first revelation to me that we were really In It.
I remember sitting at the sliding glass door with my big sister, small feet pressed against the glass, as we watched the sky turn black from smoke and ash. I remember how you could only tell it was daytime because you could still see the sun behind the smoke. It was this ominous, dull red orb, like a dying ember, like Sauron’s eye, like God had abandoned us but stuck around to watch til the credits rolled. Even inside, we held wet washcloths over our noses and mouths so we wouldn’t inhale the ash that snuck into the house through cracks we didn’t know we had.
I remember my dad, crying and clutching the phone, as he begged my grandma to follow evacuation orders to leave their house. Grandpa didn’t want to go, so he stood on the roof with a garden hose, watching a wall of fire two blocks away as it ate trees and homes. He stood up there, spraying the roof like it would make any difference, while Grandma broke down and screamed for him to escape while they still could. Dad kept saying “leave him, Mom, leave him!”
I’ll be honest: that fucked me up.
Scripps Ranch, their part of town, has eucalyptus trees. They’re oily. They blow up when they catch fire. He only agreed to leave when he watched one explode a few houses away. My loyal, loving grandma didn’t leave him behind.
That taught me something strange about love that I haven’t been able to untangle since. I love my grandfather, but I never have forgiven him for what he put her through that day. What he prioritized under the black skies and white ash and red sun when people were dying. I wonder if he thinks he won, that he beat the fire, because their house didn’t burn in the end. I wonder if he thinks of himself as David and the fire Goliath, not realizing that his David was so small, Goliath hadn’t ever known he existed.
I hope so much that we don’t get more Davids this time around.
That people don’t hear about 19ft waves and grab their boards. Don’t drive their cars through the same place it always floods in Mission Valley, the same place people always end up drowning. Don’t try to save a house and lose a life instead.
That fire season was our worst, but fire response has improved so much since. Everyone said it was so bad because we hadn’t been prepared; now we do backburns, controlled burns, we’re better about campfire education. We’re safer now. We listen to evacuation orders. We have bug out bags and back up plans and binders where we keep our important documents. Aside from the occasional low-grade panic when I smell fire in the air that may be a barbecue, may not, I’m not really even afraid of wildfires now, only sad for the places impacted by them, like Hawaii and Canada. I find myself wondering what their sun looks like.
When I think back, I also remember how everyone came together to help. Firefighters from across the country and around the world came to help fight. Came to help us. It chokes me up as I write- especially when I think about the active fire maps and remember we only have so many firefighters.
I hope we don’t need backup this time. But I’m scared anyway.
Because we don’t have hurricane practice. This is new. The rain this year was new. The October-June winter was new. I’m scared this is is like 2003 and we’ve got a massive deadly natural event and no idea how to fight it. We didn’t build for this.
I hope this is just a dramatic response to what winds up being nothing. I was in Ireland during Hurricane Ophelia, and that was a bit of wild weather, but most people shrugged it off. I’m crossing fingers and everything else I can for an Ophelia situation.
To any San Diegans reading: don’t shoot the Hurricane.
But if it’s worse, then I just want to say I love my city. I love the way we held each other up in 2003 and 2007 and 2020-22. I hope we never have to again, but I’m grateful I have all of you if we do.
I just sandbagged around the house, covered the windows with blankets, filled the freezer with ice. Everything’s charging, my flashlights have batteries, and my bathtub is clean and full of water. I’m not religious, but I still said a little prayer for the fish in my pond and brought in the patio umbrella. I couldn’t catch the black cat that hangs out in my yard so I said a little prayer for her, too.
I hope I reblog this on Monday to tell you I’m a silly and melodramatic idiot, but today I’m scared. Climate change is real and something must be done. I’m sick of fires and floods and this self-fulfilling prophecy that the end is nigh.
We still have options. We have addresses (figuratively speaking). We know how to build the guillotines (figuratively speaking). We outnumber those who would have our streets flood and our homes burn for personal profit- and we can permanently separate them from it (figuratively speaking). And I am tired of speaking in codes about who our enemies are now that the planet is fighting back. I’m sick of having to say I’m figuratively speaking.
Chairwoman Dianne Jacob Welcomes State Rejection of SDG&E Proposal to Bill Taxpayers for 2007 Fires
CHAIRWOMAN DIANNE JACOB San Diego County Board of Supervisors STATEMENT – 11/30/17 County Supervisor Dianne Jacob reacts to the state’s rejection today of a SDG&E bid to bill ratepayers for $379 million in costs tied to the region’s 2007 firestorms: “State regulators did the right thing by holding SDG&E financially accountable for some of the worst fires in California history. SDG&E’s bid to…
A San Diego Police officer is hospitalized after being shot. Yesterday afternoon at 3:30 the SDPD officer attempted to arrest a wanted felon in a storm drain just off of the 2800 block of…
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VIDEO: Hunter Caused Huge Wildfire Near Yosemite
The U.S. Forest Service said a gigantic wildfire in and around Yosemite National Park was caused by an illegal fire set by a hunter. No arrests have been made and the hunter’s name was being withheld pending further investigation. The agency said there is no indication the hunter was involved with illegal marijuana cultivation, which a local fire chief had speculated as the possible cause of the blaze.
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