Your thoughts on the fires… an open thread

What are your observations from around OC? Looking for anyone? Checking in on the status of different neighborhoods? Where are you finding the best OC-specific coverage on the internet?
How can the rest of us help? Can this be prevented in the future?

H/T to Rebel Girl over at Dissent the Blog for this Joan Didion quote that describes the eerie situation:

The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angeles by the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal California of the subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves. October is the bad month for the wind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up spontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.

—from “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream”

2 Comments

  1. I’ve found the google maps to be very helpful so I can just see where the fires are and the evacuation areas. I’m in Aliso Viejo and a good eight miles away from the fire, but I have friends from work who had to evacuate and they were so calm about it. No one lost their homes thankfully.

    I have an Aunt in Chula Vista, she was one of the few in the area who did not have to evacuate but she knows she is welcome here (with her cats, her husband is out of town). And I have friends who have family in San Diego. I haven’t spoken to one person who didn’t have a friend or family member affected by this.

    I do wish there was more easily accessible information on how I can help out. I do not have the funds to donate money, but I can make the time.

  2. I work in Irvine, near the El Toro Y, more or less directly in the path of the smoke. Things were kind of tense (and visually… interesting) the first few days, but since yesterday it’s just been like a day with really bad smog. Two co-workers who live out in Silverado, both OK last I heard. I’ve been posting thoughts and photos on my blog since Sunday.

    For news, I’ve mainly been following the Register’s site and OCFA.

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