Fountaingrove Survivor

One never knows what one will encounter driving across town. Yesterday as we were taking the scenic route home from Geyserville via Calistoga, a tanker delivering oxygen to Kaiser Hospital blew up, parts of the hospital were evacuated and Highway 101 was closed in both directions for two hours while investigations were made. The truck was still there this morning when we drove past, but traffic had returned to normal after hours of congestion all over town while refugees from the freeway tried to find ways around the closure. Because of our self imposed news blackout here, we didn't learn until this morning that although it was long and circuitous, we picked virtually the only way back to our house from Geyserville that wasn't somehow impacted.

As we drove over Fountaingrove to Kathy's today, we got to the top of the hill only to discover that a section of the Fountaingrove Parkway was closed. Although things look pretty depressing from the parkway, I took some pictures from the detour which wound around through the development. I chose today's picture because it illustrates both the height of the hill upon which the entire development stands, the extent of the devastation there, and the capriciousness of the firestorm which burned down 1,500 houses but left random ones, like the pink one in the picture, virtually unscathed. A fire burned the same area in 1964, which has caused many to question the wisdom of building again up there and, although I think a lot of people have chosen not to, a few new houses are beginning to rise and the landscape is starting to recover.

We speculate that the reason for the road closure is to replace the PVC water mains which melted and released highly toxic benzene into the water supply and now have to be replaced. There was talk of replacing the entire system, but OilMan, whose expertise on pipes in general and benzene in particular is extensive, says they should be able to replace the mains and filter out the benzene without replacing everything else. All we know for sure is that road closures, large trucks and traffic are all becoming a part of life in Santa Rosa right now.