Pray for my hometown, people. It is currently beset by yet another giant, raging, terrifying wildfire that covered the same amount of ground in a single night as it took the last giant, raging fire to cover in a week. And that last fire--back in 2000--left 400+ families homeless. Thank the good Lord that nobody died. Forgive the terrible grammar, but those are the facts, kids, and now it seems to be happening all over again, starting with city-wide evacuations and ending who knows where. This is the town in which both I and my husband grew up, and in which my parents, one sister, my father-in-law and his family all live, and the town to which my other sister and her husband are (...were...?) planning on moving. Our roots run deep: I still call it "home" whenever we talk about visiting. The world community and media seems more concerned about the fire reaching radioactive waste--hey! now's the classiest time to take pot shots at the lab! at the (supposedly) unprepared firefighters! at nuclear research! at whatever about Los Alamos you don't like!--and I know how important it is to prevent that, but all I can think about is the fact that people may lose their homes, animals, livelihoods again. It might even be scarier for me, here, helpless, than for my family, there, watching and waiting to see when it might be their turn to leave town. Oddly enough, they don't seem terribly worried, but I guess that's because they've done this before. (It's truly no wonder the first wave of evacuations was so "orderly".)
This may be the most inappropriate time for a fire-related joke, and so you're all lucky that I can't access from Switzerland the NBC website to pull up old SNL videos...otherwise, I'd quote for you one of the gems from an episode in 2009, wherein Darrell Hammond-as-the-Governator was talking about trying to sell some of California's wildfires to the highest bidder in order to right the state's economy. When all I can do is worry and watch the news updates obsessively, at least there's still stupid humor to fall back on. Seems to me that Los Alamos (well, and the greater Southwest, at this point) would be set if they could just sell off some of these fires...and maybe the strong winds...and also the prolonged drought... Inappropriate, maybe, but it's fairly poignant for me.
Please keep my weird, isolated, but utterly beloved hometown, my family, and our friends there, in your thoughts.
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ReplyDeleteOur dear friend from high school wrote this on her Facebook status as the town was being evacuated:
ReplyDeleteDear CNN: Don't worry. All nuclear and radioactive materials in Los Alamos are totally protected from the fire. I know we personally packed our family set of plutonium canisters between pictures and birth certificates, and stored the isotopes in the trunk of the car. We left the open barrel of toxic waste on the porch, but the three-headed birds gotta eat.
I saw today that Graduation Flats got cooked (and all our Christmas tree hunting grounds), as well as Caballo Peak, where Dad & I were gonna go take a hike this weekend. :( But as best as I can tell, East Fork and the Ski Hill lodge are still ok!
Hope to talk to y'all soon. We should all be around somewhere this weekend. Text me when y'all are gonna call! ;) Love you guys a bunch!
I was talking with Emma Stafford this morning after church. She said they had gone for a drive to the origin of the fire (Los Conchas campground--where they go fishing a lot). It was more green by the roadside on the drive up than she expected. Yea!!! Above town, there is still green, but the mountains behind seem scorched. I wonder what the ski hill looks like. They saved the lodge and some trees, but this winter will tell if the fire affected attendance. Only a few wisps from smoldering trees or backburns are left above town. Still some smoke now and then. Come monsoons!!! Thanks for all the prayers!!!
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