A week ago my dad came to Windsor for a quick visit. I had asked him to help me get some glasses for the computer, and instead of mailing back the glasses, he decided to bring them to me. We didn’t do anything special—just hung out, ordered some Chinese food from Yinking, and then had breakfast the next morning at Omelette Express as he was leaving town to head back up to Magalia.
Thursday morning I got a text that he was evacuating. Paradise was on fire, and everyone was trying desperately to get down the hill.
For several hours we got sporadic texts: he was stuck in gridlock, moving one-tenth of a mile in 20 minutes, cars as far as you could see before him and behind him. He sent pictures, the air heavy with smoke, the sky black as midnight, even though it was only mid-morning. There were flames on both sides of the car, and he said he could hear explosions as propane tanks went off around him.
At one point, he was told to leave his vehicle and start walking—which he did, taking little more than his dog, Svana, and his medications–and a half mile later, he was told to go back to his car. He drove through someone’s yard, and emergency vehicles pushed abandoned cars off the road and into ditches to make room for people to escape. Buildings were on fire everywhere, the wind was whipping embers and pine needles against the windows with audible slaps, and the only thought anyone had was to go, go, go.
Five and half harrowing hours later he reached my sister’s house in Chico, having traveled 14 miles.
In the meantime, a bank of smoke was drifting our way, covering the blue sky and tinting the sun that horrible orange that brings to mind October and all those feelings. We could smell the smoke, and we anxiously searched Nixle alerts and the internet and every resource we could find to figure out where the fire was, but it was hundreds of miles away.
In a few hours the fire had traveled down the mountain and reached Durham, just south of Chico, and near my sister’s house. (Thankfully, Teri and her husband are in Mexico, so they are safe. Worried, but safe.) The evacuation zone was now a few rural blocks from where he was, but he loaded the car up again and drove west to I-5, and then up to Red Bluff, where he ate his first meal of the day in a Denny’s. He and the dog slept in the car that night.
The next morning, Friday, my dad and Svana went up to Redding, to my brother’s house, where he regrouped by trying to absorb the news and by tracking down one of the important medications he had somehow left behind—an inhaler, which he thankfully was able to replace after a few hours of running around and phone calls.)
Saturday morning Dad decided he needed to be closer to what was going on, to try to get more information. He went back to my sister’s house in Chico—which was thankfully now out of the evacuation threat–and his friends Leigh and Ron joined him. Like most of their community, they watched briefings and tried to glean for news of any kind about their town, neighbors and homes.
Sadly, by Sunday morning he had confirmation that his home was indeed, gone. A screen shot taken from someone’s video shows blackened trees and the burned-out hunk of his truck, and nothing else.
It’s heartbreaking, but I’m so incredibly thankful that he’s safe. His dog is safe. And my dad, ever the former hippie, ever “be here now,” had this to say in a family text thread:
“There have not been many events in my life that have had the impact of this. It is as if you become a ship with no rudder. All ties are severed and I am adrift. Sad/glad emotions don’t register and hence have no impact. Numb. In the end family is all you ever have and all that matters. My love to all my family! Namaste!”
Juliana LeRoy wears many hats, including wife, mother, paraeducator and writer. She can be spotted around Windsor gathering material, or reached at [email protected].
