Evacuation

Despite the title, we are feeling more optimistic this morning even though we had an evacuation notification for our neighborhood last night, which did nothing to promote a good night's sleep. It was still voluntary, but we were told to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.

Despite predictions for more wind last night, it was blessedly calm, and we decided to go to the house, and load up the car one last time. It is a strange process to try to imagine what we want to save in case the house burns down, and hoping we will be putting it all back in a few days. Santa Rosa is like a ghost town. Streets that are normally busy at this hour were deserted.

We've all been wearing the same clothes since Monday, they smell like smoke and we wear masks outside not knowing what is in all the ashes raining down. Tim tells us that surgical masks are useless and that we should be using N95 particle masks. On the way back to Sebastopol we saw a convoy of fire trucks and Davey Tree Trucks headed toward Santa Rosa. The planes full of fire retardant finally have enough visibility to fly, and we heard lots of helicopters yesterday. Back up, including the California National Guard is arriving all the time.

I just haven't had the energy to fire up my computer, so I am using my phone and can't add a link, but when I get it together, I'll try to add some links and extras, and get back to commenting. In the meantime, I am ever so grateful for all your encouraging comments and hearts. I will do my best to get to the top of the popular pages some other way next time....