Just got a rather cryptic email from my husband saying our home in Ramona is "relatively unscathed", power is on so we have refrigeration, but no water, no access and lots of smoke and ash. I suspect the report came from our neighbor's friend who stayed behind and has periodically checked out our houses.

There is almost no news about Ramona, so I do appreciate this friend of a friend, despite believing he should have followed the evacuation orders.

Hey lili, we know that hubby is a bit laid-back. :)

Glad you are OK and tripping the light fantastic in Paris.

And we wish both of you the best in both Ramona and Paris.

Update from Captain Mike
 

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We evacuated at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning with just medications and a few pictures as the embers blew across our street like little glowing flies. We spent four harrowing days in Los Angeles worrying about our house, but all is well. We returned to San Diego to find the home right next to ours burned to the ground, but ours is O.K. The grass, trees, and bushes in our back yard burned, but we think the flames were put out by a firefighter using our garden hose! Once inside our home, we discovered that nothing was burned, but there is ash, soot, and smoke smell throughout the house. I contacted our insurance company and we are arranging for a cleaning and de-ordorizing ASAP. For right now, we are staying at a hotel about a mile from home. All in all, this is really a minor problem compared to the wholesale devastation in other parts of our neighborhood. There are cul-de-sacs just one or two blocks from us where every home is gone. Words cannot describe the situation this past week. It was the scariest time of my entire life, but God spared us. It is somewhere beyond unbelieveable. Thanks again to all the FT'ers who kept us in their thoughts and prayers.

I drove down to Mira Mesa yesterday afternoon on the 5 and saw all of the burn areas by Camp Pendleton and the truck scales/immgration stop; that was sobering enough. I took the 15 back and that's when I really realized how devastating things were; driving up between Rancho Bernardo, Lake Hughes, and Rainbow, you can see the burn areas on both sides of the freeway, bare hills where you know houses were, and the smell of smoke is so strong.

Around Lake Elsinore, the traffic began slowing and I soon realized why - there was a convoy of fire engines full of weary firefighters going home in the middle lane and all of the motorists were slowing to wave. I joined them with a huge ^ as I drove by.

My thoughts and prayers are with all who were impacted by this disaster.

Thank you so much for the update! We're glad you're safe & that all is 'relatively' well.

Cheers.

We left on Tuesday at 5:30 am to LA and then later to Riverside and spent a night with Mom. We did not have to leave, but were notified to pack. The road closures made us uneasy along with fires on all sides...fortunately at a distance.

It was horrible for so many and my heart goes out to them We are at the North end of Escondido and thing were just smokey All I got was a long lasting caugh.

Too many people died, were relocated or have no home to return to.

We also morn the loss of the habitat, 600 acres of rare costal sage, and a couple endangered animals at the Wild Animal Park.

On our way to LA, through Orange County, in LA, in Riverside...everything was a smokey mess and all of Southern CA can be proud of how most people handled themselves in the midst of a crisis.

Glad you are both well, ran & les, and your home okay.

The roads (Highland Valley, Bandy Canyon and Hwy 78) between Escondido and Ramona are open intermittently and the destruction and damage visible from the road is tremendous and very shocking. Almost more shocking than the actual photos of the flames.

If you drive through Poway and up the 15 the damage isn't so noticeable, but the back way is just appalling. We were also fortunate in that the fires stopped across the street from us, but driving to work I now see a 6-mile swath of blackened earth that looks like the moon. The cleanup and rebuilding will take a long time.

On the upside, we already have 6 miles of brand new barricades on the cliffside of Hwy 78 that now have steel posts rather than wood. Good job, CalTrans!