Well, at least they are mostly contained. After spending a little time away so the kids could play, the fires have run their course and San Diego is now in a rebuild mode.
One very nice thing that came out of this was the character of San Diego. The city really came together and helped each other. It was nice to have a silver lining in all of the catastrophe.
On the way to El Centro, we stopped at the local fire station to drop off some cookies that the girls had decorated. The guys at the station were a bit deleriuos but very happy to see the girls and the cookies. They looked like they had been working very hard. Almost all of their resources were deployed and they were working hard shifts. One of the guys told us a story where they managed to save a whole neighborhood in either Ramona or Julian. They worked with one or two people who stayed behind and were able to save the whole place. It got him a little emotional to tell the story. Luckily it was one of many good stories. We wish there were more, but it could have been worse.
I got one sort of funny antidote from a co-worker who came very close to loosing his house:
“One funny thing happened. My mom was evacuated and staying at my brothers house. They tried to get to moms house earlier and the police said they still could not get in. My brother told the police ‘You don’t understand, you have to let us in,my mom, she’s driving me crazy. She is eating all my food and drinking all my beer you gota open up’.The police started laughing and said ‘Sorry, we can’t let you in just yet.'”