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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday November 2, 2003 Volume V Number 44 |
On Sunday morning, we stood on the asphalt parking lot of the church property and watched the flames sweep through the valley. It was a stunning sight.
Hot desert winds come from the east at this time of year. We call them the Santa Ana’s. Generally, our breeze comes from the ocean – from the west. The Santa Ana Winds, named after the canyon that now connects the Inland Empire (Corona) and Orange County (Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda), bring the dry heat of the high desert, and sweep Southern California clear of its familiar haze. You can see forever, visibility unlimited, when those Santa Ana’s blow. Prepare for dry heat. Dry skin. Bad hair days. Stunning vistas. Deep blue skies. No clouds. Brilliant colors. Distant mountain ranges. Islands way off the coast, mountains silhouetted on the horizon. Things you knew were there, but you haven’t seen for a long time.
Prepare too, for fire.
We were there at the church, just after six in the morning, with standard issue coffee, hot in my insulated sterling travel mug, standing with several refugees who just hours before in the middle of the night, abandoned their homes and property in mortal fear of the blaze. We were all bewildered, and in retrospect, we were all in various states of classic psychological denial. Those clear California skies now filled with smoke; heavy, thick, choking smoke, the smell of it evokes the awful and sickening fear of loss. From a distance, ash rained down like thick white dust. But closer to the flames, the residue is much more ominous, terrifying. It is a literal rain of fire. Hot, glowing embers, like airborne, lit matches, hungry, in search of fuel, something to devour. And in the open dry fields of southern California, there is plenty of that.
Looking back, I must confess to a certain feeling of guilt. (You’ll try and talk me out of it, but it’s real nonetheless.) Maybe that’s what drove the obsession that followed during the week. Unaware, I slept through several phone calls that came to our house at two and three and four in the morning. Annoyed with the telephone ring in the bedroom, some time ago I convinced Carolyn that we should turn off the ringer on the bedroom, and let the kitchen phone announce incoming calls from well down the hall. We slept soundly that night, and never heard the ring or the messages left on our machine.
While I slept innocently that night, my friends were battling flames, and assisting evacuees, and protecting property. They fought with hoses and buckets. They choked on the smoke. They drove their vehicles over unpaved surfaces, dodging the flames on either side. They led horses to safety. They huddled in tears as stunned evacuees in the dark, as unscheduled guests in the homes of neighbors well away from the danger. And I wasn’t there.
It took some time for the breathtaking enormity of the monster fire to sink in. It swept through our little town out on the edge of civilization like a thief in the night. Even from our perch at the edge of the church parking lot, we were only beginning to understand the sheer size of it all. We saw a line of fire trucks, lights flashing, form a line along a country road through the groves, perpendicular to the fire, and directly in its path. We figured the professionals had things under control, they would surely stop the fire’s advance, and that we amateurs would do best to stay away and let them do the heavy lifting. I took a swig of coffee from my designer mug, and told Gerry I ought to head home and get a shower so I could come back in time for Worship scheduled for an hour or so later. Gerry nodded. As I pulled away, I fully expected to return to the church, and take my place with the worship team, and fill up the sanctuary with our friends for our regular Sunday morning gathering. We would sing praise.
But I was wrong on all counts.
By the time I got home, I knew. The television brought devastating images of fire out of control. The roads were closing fast. The smoke stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, and we looked once again at the open fields on the way home, realizing that the dry chaparral and the juniper trees and the brush and the parched over-growth would only need a spark, and a consuming fire would explode, and advance uninhibited, unstoppable, without an end in sight. It was a fearful thought.
And an unfolding reality.
The cell phones remained operational, so I called Gerry on mine from the house. He answered. “We’ve been evacuated,” he told me. “Everyone’s left the church,” he paused, “… except me.” He told me he drove away as instructed, but looking back, he watched the flames progress up the hill and toward the sanctuary, so he parked his car at the school and headed back up the hill on foot. Once there, he located a hose. “Ken, do you know where the valve is?” I didn’t know. So we disconnected long enough for Gerry to call our facilities man, John, who gave him the answer. Soon Gerry stretched the hose to the most vulnerable corners of the building, getting things as wet as possible as the fire approached.
As I explained last week, our church buildings, completely surrounded by fire, thanks to Gerry and some timely help from firefighters, and God’s good grace, survived.
But not so for everyone.
* * * * * *
One couple, near the genesis of what is now called the “Paradise Fire” (for Paradise Mountain, just above Rincon) were the first in Valley Center to lose their home.
John and Brenda are close friends. After a full thirty-six hours of not knowing, the destruction of their home was confirmed. Pastor Bill took them on the long drive through the valley and back to the turn off, and up the hill to their property. Their home was unrecognizable, a pile of smoldering ash. Pipes from the plumbing stood where there were walls. Kitchen appliances, some of them brand new, misshapen from the intense heat. Everything, incinerated. In the ash, they found a single memento, Brenda kept it for the twenty-one years they’ve been married. A ceramic bride and groom. Placed on the top of their wedding cake on their wedding day. Now cracked. Discolored some. But whole.
It was as though God planted a message in the ruins. All the stuff is gone. But not the marriage. They are mom and dad now, and grandma and grandpa. From the rubble, a smiling bride and groom looked back at them, young and fresh, him in a tux and her holding a fresh bouquet, on a day way back when; back when hopes were high and happiness reigned, and two people launched a life, against the odds. And they are still together, in warm affection.
They will rebuild their house. And it will be a home.
* * * * * *
Brandon was last to leave. The boys and his wife Andy evacuated. It was later in the morning, about eight-thirty. They lived just across the street from the entrance to the Church building. Fire crews informed them of evacuation, that the fire was raging and climbing up the hill out of Hellhole (oddly named, but at the bottom of a steep canyon below their house, and below Paradise Mountain). No one could have anticipated how fast those flames traveled.
As Brandon ran from the house, he glanced over his shoulder, certain this would be the last time he would see the home where the boys were raised, where he made music and wrote poetry and prepared for the college courses where he was professor and where his wife Andy found refuge from her high stress role as high school guidance counselor. It all flashed through his mind in a cloudy instant as the heat and the smoke and the rain of fire thickened around him. The car started, he looked down the driveway which would be the logical avenue of escape, but saw the flames and smoke, and turned an alternate direction, through a gate around the back, and out to the highway. Barely in front of the advancing fire.
Brandon did not know at the time how critical that quick decision might be. He later learned that just ahead, another family attempted to escape that same route, and in the chaos and blinding smoke, a teenage driver struck a tree while fleeing her home just below Brandon’s as flames enveloped the car. Alison, her older sister and passenger, opened the door to intense heat and flames, overtaken, but running for her life. Ashleigh never made it out of the car.
Alison, as I write, after two delicate surgeries, serious burns all over her young body, is fighting for her life.
Her younger sister Ashleigh, a bright, energetic, caring and talented junior at our local high school, is a casualty of the Paradise fire.
Twelve hundred people mourned her passing at an emotional memorial service this week.
* * * * *
Debra calls him her Knight in Shining Armor. Rick and Debbie will be married this month. They are seasoned adults (forty-somethings) and have known hard times, but God in his grace brought the two together and our entire church will celebrate the union.
When Debbie’s home on the edge of a canyon on Paradise Mountain became threatened, she called her fiancé Rick at five o’clock Sunday the morning. He piled into his truck, blurry-eyed but determined. His experience as a volunteer fire-fighter equipped him with answers and phrases that got him past officials blocking the roads to Debbie’s house. When he arrived, he snapped into action.
The flames coming up the hill gathered momentum and force. When they reached the edge of the property, they extended more than thirty feet in the air.
Rick talked the firemen into giving him proper equipment. He threw on the gear – hard hat, protective coat, gloves, hooked up a four inch hose to the hydrant on the corner, and went after the flames. Together, Rick and Deb managed to rescue a row of houses, but not them all.
As Rick dowsed the flames, Debbie went after the horses. Three were in the corral, and the embers fell on their exposed backs and necks. They were aggravated, excited, and frightened. Debbie, who may weigh in at a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, calmed the agitated horses, knowing the leader of the pack, bridled him up, and ran him through the thick smoke to safety. The others followed. Rick watched the whole thing from a terrifying distance.
“See that woman over there?” Rick asked, pointing at Debbie across the way as he relayed the story. “Now there’s one tough lady,” he proclaimed with the pride and the smile of a man head-over-heels in love.
They’ve been planning their wedding for awhile. But this little opportunity for bonding was not part of the plan. They fought the flames for over five hours.
They rescued Debbie’s house. They’re going to make it a home.
I think this one’s going to last.
* * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
You’ve been watching the scenes on your television set. You’ve checked out the satellite photos showing the Southern California fires and smoke reaching way out over the Pacific Ocean. This is the Fire of the Century.
I’ve only begun to tell you my stories. (I’ve got more.)
As the fuel for the Paradise Fire began to run out, a cold snap hit. The Santa Ana’s retreated, moisture returned. Rain fell. At high elevations, snow drifted to the charred ground. It was as though the prayers of a weary world were answered.
We gathered Saturday afternoon at the wedding anniversary. Tom and Raylene went ahead with their plan. They renewed their vows after twenty years, for the first time in a church. The place was packed with friends still weary from the fire. They proclaimed to the whole crowd that after all these years, they are still in love, perhaps now more than ever. They vowed to grow old together, and to build on the good foundation of the first twenty years. And they also vowed to keep God in the center of their home – and claimed that ever since they invited Him in (they were baptized together just two years ago), their new purpose, their new friends, their new sense of meaning, well, they simply are not going to let it go.
One more time, an unscheduled event swept into our lives, and yours too, and caused us to take measure. It put all the other stuff in a new perspective.
As a leader, bring that new perspective with you into this new Monday morning.
I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain.
And sunny days I thought would never end.
And now, I’ve found friends to keep.
You have, too.
Don’t let them go.
My "obsession" for the week of crisis - along with a crew of helpers - I kept a web-site current to keep our church family informed during the eventful week. See it at www.ridgeviewchurch.org
NOTE: Links may not work this week. I'm changing my web host - sorry for the inconvenience.
For Feedback - Click Here
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2003
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
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