It’s a another day in sunny (a positive point), windy (a problem), and fiery (a reality) Southern California. And as Californians — particularly San Diegans — arose in their homes and some 500,00 of them stressfully arose in their shelters or temporary lodgings, the news was not good.
The winds are still going strong. There are wind advisories.
And the end of the windy and fiery tunnel is not visible yet as the fires continue to rage — and a half a million Californians have so far been asked to evacuate their homes:
The growing firestorm in Southern California has forced a many as half a million people to evacuate their homes.
Entire communities are ghost towns. More than 700 homes have been burned so far and there has been one confirmed fatality, according to The Associated Press.
One firefighter called the raging fires a “nuclear winter”; another called it “Armageddon.”
The chief culprit is the Santa Ana winds, often called the “Devil winds,” which form by air circulating over Utah and Nevada. The air heats up as it comes down from mountains and then swoops into Southern California.
That hot, dry air whips across canyons that act as wind tunnels, ratcheting the wind up to 100 mph. Add that to one of the driest years on record in California and the wind can turn a tiny spark into a deadly firestorm.
The sad terrible news on this Tuesday is: the fires are continuing to spread:
Evacuees by the thousands joined 300,000 others seeking refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums Tuesday as fierce winds pushed wildfires into new areas of Southern California.
At least 14 wildfires have destroyed about 1,000 homes and scorched about 425 square miles from north of Los Angeles to southeast of San Diego since the weekend.
While three major fires rage in Los Angeles County, the largest disruption of life and property came to the south, where San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts said Tuesday about 1,000 homes have been destroyed.
More than 300,000 people fled their homes in San Diego County, where five of 23 emergency shelters reached capacity Monday evening. Others took shelter with friends or relatives.
In an e-mail to CNN, Jonathan Gallen, a doctor in Poway, described how the fires quickly closed in on his neighborhood Monday.
“My pool was completely black with soot. Like the ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon’ was about to walk out of there,” Gallen wrote. “The soot was falling so heavily that it blocked out the sun. There was a smoke cloud above our home that seemed to stretch for miles. This was bad.”
How much of an emergency is it? Most public schools are closed in San Diego. So are courts. Residents check frequently to see about the latest news on TV — with stations offering extensive coverage. Roger Hedgecock, the former mayor and local talk show host who often fills in for Rush Limbaugh, spent hours on the radio in a broadcast run live on several radio stations here taking calls from people of all walks of life who wanted to help and giving specific on the air answers to worried residents who had questions. (Another talk show host had a different kind of response to the crisis).
But there is a sinking feeling here: this is not the end of this crisis. The crisis is still developing, as the Los Angeles Times notes:
The gale-force winds turned hillside canyons into giant blowtorches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Although the worst damage was around San Diego and Lake Arrowhead, dangerous fires also threatened Malibu, parts of Orange and Ventura counties, and the Agua Dulce area near Santa Clarita. New evacuations came overnight in Orange and San Diego counties, as the menacing winds refused to abate.
Late Monday night, new blazes threatened homes near Stevenson Ranch and in Soledad Canyon in northern Los Angeles County. The Soledad Canyon fire burned multiple mobile homes and evacuations were underway, fire officials said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling it “a tragic time for California,” declared a state of emergency in seven counties and redeployed California National Guard members from the border to support firefighters. President George W. Bush today declared an emergency, which authorizes federal agencies to coordinate relief.
Schwarzenegger stressed how much California officials have learned since the devastating wildfires of October 2003, which raged over much of the same terrain. But as the day wore on, it became clear that any hard-earned knowledge was no match for natural forces overrunning the ability of firefighters to control them.
“The issue this time is not preparedness,” said San Diego City Council President Scott Peters. “It’s that the event is so overwhelming.”
An AP story is not optimistic, either:
Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed Southern California to at least 300,000.
By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned more than 700 homes and set 245,957 acres —384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts.
The blazes bedeviled firefighters as walls of flame whipped from mountain passes to the edges of the state’s celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.
Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston Terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.
If not, Tomkinson added, “the Lord’ll take care of us.â€
As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.
As dawn broke, authorities issued a new round of mandatory evacuations to residents in parts of San Diego County. About 3,800 homes were told to evacuate in Wildcat Canyon and Multh Valley, and another 1,800 in North Jamul and Indian Springs.
NBC News Correspondent George Lewis offers THIS account of what it’s like for residents fleeing the fires.
The fear: that this account will not represent the last of the first-hand accounts of residents fleeing their homes. There may be even more to come.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.