ONE MORE NOTE

10-25-2017

I didn’t think I would blog again, but today included a new area I had not seen before. Some of the photos I thought were in the “Really?” category. 

Other photos are self-explanatory.

An ambulance that burned up in the fire.  

A burned lot for sale 

UPS still delivering to charred remains. Really?

I have the next two days off the recuperate, and will enjoy the beach tomorrow. Also, I thought I would be going to San Francisco alone on Friday, but as it turns out, my ERV mate will be going with me, he is from Connecticut and we will go see some sights there before we both fly out an home on Saturday.

Our site/mission is officially over this Friday, and the primary feeding, sheltering, mass care will end. What will remain is Red Cross mental health workers. They get to clean up and put closure on the human side of this tragedy.

Signing off, and I’d like to say I hope you enjoyed my blogs about this, it’s hard to say “enjoy” but rather process them.

John A. Novotny

LAST DAYS

10-23-2017

Today was another interesting day. I have been on the Coffey Park route for 3 days, and today we got transferred to another route. Partially because we just need to rotate and take our turn at seeing the bigger picture of as many fire areas as we can, but because we wanted to as well. The place we went to today was an apartment complex, which is primarily housed by migrant workers, that are now out of jobs, because their bosses/employers lost houses, farms, vineyards, or whatever the case me be. It’s a secondary effect of the fires. 

We had some left over food from this feeding, and was able to take it to the homeless living under a bridge in the area. 

Some of the homeless are now due to their houses being burned down, rather than the traditional homeless we may thing of otherwise. I attached some photos of the bridge area.

On the way home today, we saw  great sunset, so thought I would end my blog with something positive.

10-24-2017

Today was my daughter Ashley’s birthday, so I made time to call her. We don’t have a lot of time to do much techy stuff, and we work 12-16 hour days. Most of my blogging is done late at night here. We were back on the Coffey Park route today. Actually, the folks in this area are starting to dwindle. Once residents come back in and sift through the ashes, and get with their insurance agent, there isn’t a big reason to come back again, unless they are helping a neighbor or friend. Tomorrow the 25^th will be our last run to this area. The cities are talking about just coming into these areas with contracted commercial cleanup crews, bulldoze and remove, then put 4” of dirt down, then the rebuilding can start. It will take years of course, and not everyone will rebuild here, so it will be a long workout situation.

I was able to visit with the California Fire fighters directly today, (front line folks) , and they said that as of today, all of the remaining fires are contained, but some are still burning, but not out of control.

In light of that, our entire operating is preparing to phase down and out too. This Friday or Saturday may be the end of the assignment/project for Red Cross in these areas. I have attached a map of the counties we were in, in this part of the state.

 I also attached a photo of my current ERV driving mate, 
and the director of our site we have been working at for 2 weeks.

For me, by Thursday (26^th), I will have put in 3 weeks without a day off. Since the operation is preparing to phase out anyway, I have been given the opportunity to have two free days at the end of my assignment, and then they will fly me home.  I plan of going to the beach on Thursday with a car load of other Red Cross workers that have the same day off. One of those workers has access to a car, so we will use that for the 16 mile trip to the beach. It is called Bodega Bay, and it is on US highway #1, that is the coast road from San Diego, to Seattle. We will be on a sliver of it, so plan to take a swim suit and get in the cold water, as its been hot here (record high today), and sight see, and eat something other than Red Cross food.  LOL

My second day (Friday) I will be by myself, and I will be taking a shuttle to the San Francisco airport (donated by a local company doing this for free for Red Cross workers). It takes about 1.75 hours to get from here to the airport. Once at the airport on Friday, I will leave my luggage at the hotel I am staying at nearby, then take the commuter train to downtown San Francisco, and ride the cable cars for a day. Then I will fly out early Saturday morning and get to Omaha by about 5:00 pm, then drive home to Columbus.

I the big picture, it was a great experience, and will probably be doing more of these in the future, maybe 1 or 2 a year. But it will be good to get home, it’s been a long journey and I am exhausted physically and mentally.

Signing off, and to all a good night.

John A. Novotny

LEMONADE STAND SURVIVES

Somehow a lemonade stand survived.  These are photos from John in California with the Red Cross. When they have leftover food for the day they take it to the homeless under a bridge.

Here's the surviving lemonade stand. Go figure.

Under the bridge

The rest of these pictures are from neighborhoods where John is working and his vehicle and work areas.

Inside the truck.

REENTRY

10-20-2017

Today was an eventful day. Our ERV was selected as one to do a collaborative
effort of feeding with the Salvation Army from Santa Rosa, CA. We leaded our
vehicle with 400 meals of pulled beef sandwiches, green beans, snacks, water
and Gatorade. We met at the Salvation Army location in Santa Rosa and went
as a convoy to a place called Coffey Park, one of the hardest hit places,
with about 1,300 homes that burned. We fed about 375 of those meals, and
about 600+ snack items too.

Just today, the police are just letting residents back into the area a sift
through their remains. They wanted to make sure it was safe from gas and
electrical lines, and also to recover the bodies of those that burned with
their houses.

Tomorrow (21st) will be a repeat, and after that, I am not sure. Once a
resident confirms their house is 100% with their insurance agent, there is
no real reason to go back until the rebuilding process starts with
contractors.

More tomorrow.

John

NAPA FIRE

Posted 10-17-2017

From Sacramento, CA we were deployed to Santa Rosa, CA, where the fires have destroyed many homes and has taken many lives in the area. The fires do not discriminate, they burn homeless abodes all the way to the multi-million dollar houses. It’s either destroyed to the ground, or not touched. So weird. One of the most touching photos was that of the tricycle. 

Houses with cars parked in the driveway or garage were common. We even saw one house that had a moving van that burned up with the house as they were trying to load out before the fire hit, but didn’t make it.

The nights of October 14-16 we stayed at a community center in Santa Rosa, much like any community hall. 120 of us volunteers slept in the same room, with lights out at 10:00 pm, and wake-up at 5:00 am, as a way to make some sort of order. Days are long, but rewarding.

Today (17^th) we were moved to Petalina, CA as the fires have moved here. We are now staying at the Coast Guard Training Facility here. We are running routes to the burned areas, and taking food to the various shelters in the area, and on an individual bases to those who remained in the area.  Many areas are closed to the owners, until it is safe to return, only to find nothing but ashes.

We are supposed to get a day a week off, but I have not seen that yet. Hopefully this weekend I can get a day to drive to the beach (about 30 miles to the west) and put my toes in the water. I got a shower tonight at the training facility, has not had one for 4 days.

Scheduled at this point to return to Nebraska on October 28^th, but that can change in an instant, so we will see.

Signing off for tonight, more as I can.

NAPA

John spent last night at the Sonoma County fairgrounds. They had FEMA and armed guards around. People seem really grateful. 

John will go to Napa tomorrow and help with meals as people are returning to their homes. 

This is where they fed people the last couple days. He says the smoke is everywhere and occasionally he sees flames. 

SANTA ROSA

I've been paying more than the usual amount of attention to the wild fires in California, such that I woke up in the night worrying that the fire could come up so fast that John would be trapped, so I had to talk myself down off the ledge for a bit and this morning asked him to be specific about where he is.  Santa Rosa is a big city 175,000 I think.  Anyway, he's been handing out food at the fairgrounds or newspaper building during the day today.

This is a TV interview with a FEMA representative.  I guess they have been around quite a bit today. John said it would be on local and state news there, but didn't know about national.

This is John by a distribution site. 

I guess it's not quite as dangerous as it seemed at 3 AM.  :)

He called tonight about 8 to tell me that (now that I know where he is) they are moving the Red Cross people to somewhere else because there are MORE fires and they need to be moved closer to them.  He didn't have much time to talk so I didn't get details.  I think it's still the Santa Rosa area.  He also directed me to an app Cal Fire that has updates about the progress of the fire fighting, etc. so I'll see if I can make sense of it. 

NN