10 replies to this topic

[wheeliebear75]

Well the rain and cold are finally gone because of Sana-Ana. On the other hand that same Santa Ana now brings really strong very dry winds. We(the city of San Diego)are using Qualccom Stadium and some schools as evacuation centers. On the news there have been some reports of the elderly and disabled having to sleep on mattresses which is better than the ground. My reason for doing this post is that if there are those of you who may have some equipment collecting dust(old lift, standing frame, etc.) someone may have lost theirs too the fires; and this isn't something that the shelters are going to think about. The shelters are concerned with keeping everyone fed, having enough drinking water, blankets, and Rx type of medications. With thousands being displaced some things just have to "get put on the back burner". I'm not sure if I was stuck there at an evacuation center I'd have the guts to say "oh is there any stool softeners around? I'll get all backed up if I don't take them.". We have an RV so if the fire comes too close to us we can fold up my wheelchair toss it, us,our animals, and a few possessions in it & go.............but most others aren't as lucky. Please pray any/or keep fingers crossed that this will all be over soon(the FD estimates 1wk+ for full containment).

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/index.html

Here is the link for anyone interested(well for San Diego anyhow......LA county is having the same problem but not as bad as San Diego).

[KarenFerguson]

I've been watching the fires on CNN for the past few days. My husband has family in the LA area and we have friends in San Diego (we also used to live in Oceanside). I can't believe what's happening! I mean, we've had fires but nothing this severe. Hubby & I would love to help. Maybe send disabled "care-packages" or something to the disabled in the shelters. I really don't know how to go about this ... hmmm.

Anyway, my fingers are crossed for you and your family.

[wheeliebear75]

Thank you. We live less than 1mile from the San Luis Ray river and so that's making us VERY nervous! Luckily the bulk of the Camp Penalten Marine Base is between us & the Rice Canyon fire.......the lucky part is that because of the artillery the FD won't let the fire come too close to the main part of the base..........they'll pull tankers to do water drops to prevent it from going up(if those weapons were to catch fire it would make a crater where the base used to be). Our windows rattle every time they do their "war games".LOL I know when we've talked about bowels on here...........and many of us have a hard time talking about that kind of stuff even with our close friends and family. I've actually thought about calling up somebody and saying that they may need to have some stool softeners available for those of us in NEED. If someone who is a higher injury they could may have their autonomic disreflexia act up.......causing the shelter to have to deal with blood pressure problems. Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm. I think I need to look into this for those who have been effected already.

[Beachmom]

I live 40 minutes away from Malibu, and about an hour and a half from San Diego, and the air quality here is TERRIBLE!!! I would like to help people, especially SCI evacuees, and I think the care package thing is a good idea. The problem is, how do we get it to those specific people???? Any ideas??

[wheeliebear75]

I'm not sure how. I've been hunting around..........but I'm not very good at find out stuff on the net. I hear LA county should be contained by Thursday or so. Go figure for once LA has better air quality than San Diego........now how often does this ever happen? If anyone does have any ideas as to who to contact I'd love some ideas. I have tried Qualcomm on-line(one of the major evacuation centers) but only saw NFL stuff the normal junk, I know that a few businesses are donating things to the evacuees but don't know what they'd think about some private person saying some people are going to need some additional things.......or even who I'd talk too. It's a little hard to breathe even in the house.......but I also have asthma.........everyone else in the family is fine inside. At 12:00 there was so much smoke filling the sky that we had to have lights on in order to see properly inside of the house........like you would in the evening. In 2003 we had a wildfire go through the county........this one seems way worse thus far.

[Kev-O]

I have family that lives in LA right by Griffith Observatory I know the fires a while back made them have to leave there house. Are these fires near there????? We sent them an Email but never heard from them.

[wheeliebear75]

Kev-O, on Oct 24 2007, 05:24 AM, said:

I have family that lives in LA right by Griffith Observatory I know the fires a while back made them have to leave there house. Are these fires near there????? We sent them an Email but never heard from them.

Hey Kev-O if their area was given a mandatory evacuation it should be listed. Type in a search under LA or San Diego wild fire evacuations. Also there is a "211.com" that is designed to keep the 911 from getting too overloaded. For anyone in the LA or SD area we can dial "211" from the home phone and get information.

[Kev-O]

wheeliebear75, on Oct 24 2007, 07:19 AM, said:

Kev-O, on Oct 24 2007, 05:24 AM, said:

I have family that lives in LA right by Griffith Observatory I know the fires a while back made them have to leave there house. Are these fires near there????? We sent them an Email but never heard from them.

Hey Kev-O if their area was given a mandatory evacuation it should be listed. Type in a search under LA or San Diego wild fire evacuations. Also there is a "211.com" that is designed to keep the 911 from getting too overloaded. For anyone in the LA or SD area we can dial "211" from the home phone and get information.

Alright thanks

[dom]

i have a brother that lives in manhattan beach,is this place affected?

[wheeliebear75]

I'm afraid you would have to google it or look on a fire map most of the major news stations have websites for each major city so just type in "nbclosangeles or cbssandiego" that kind of thing and you should be able to find out a list of damaged homes as well as a list of evacuated areas. And if your folks are elderly then that is an additional concern and if you haven't been able to contact them you can contact the red cross of LA and they can search evacuation centers for your parents' names. Hope they're OK. We are so far........just tons of ash and lots of brown outs and several blackouts. I found out from my mother who works for a company that does assisted care..........anyway she said that each of the shelters can make requests and that there are coordinators that have gotten corporate help like medical supply places. My Mother was working at the time all this started happening and the lady she was working with needed adult diapers and my Mom could only grab enough for the day not 36+ hrs.........so she told a person in charge of procuring supplies and they got some supplies donated form a Wall-Greens and for a CVS. Also a list of all elderly and disabled persons evacuated was sent out and then those people were moved from the shelters into other assisted care facilities in the case of those who were part of a larger company, those who did not have family who could come and get them were placed in hospitals in safer parts of the county...........the disabled and elderly were only in the shelters for about 24-48hrs. As soon as people who had special needs arrived at the shelter across the board the people were made as comfortable as possible. Many people were given more than just the one blanket and pillow that everyone else was.............the shelters did see to it as best they could that 1st night that they were fed and medically OK for the night..........then 1st thing the next morning numbers of disabled and elderly were tallied and a plan to find alternative shelters for them was put on a very high priority given the situation. Mom said she was rather impressed and the shelter went out of their way to get something that her client could eat and a bowl to feed it to her(her client is quad from CP). So I guess everything is not all as bad as it was being made to sound by the news reporting the disabled man at Qualcomm. Santa Ana may make it 90 degrees F in the day then drop down to around 60 at night.........but the disabled weren't outside in the cold night air like everyone else. The news didn't mention that at Qualcomm they put many senior and disabled in the Presidential level...........where all the big wigs come to watch football, so that they could be on actual furniture instead of cots and some futon type beds were brought in(still better than the ground or a cot........not everyone had a cot........some evacuees got sleeping bags or something to sleep on). Those shelters that are considered "outdoor" shelters like the Fair grounds had their disabled and elderly taken out that night........as there wasn't really any good way of keeping them warm vs. the ones that were in buildings. The fires are finally subsiding a little bit in the main part of San Diego but not up here in North County.............sorry guys I'm not up to date on LA's fire situation aside from it's better than ours is by quite a bit.

[wheeliebear75]

We had a little shower so the fires are better contained now. Hopefully no more homes will be lost. Lots of people have been allowed to go back into their neighborhoods. Thanks for all prayers..........maybe it helped get us that rain. The weather hadn't been expecting anything in the way of precipitation for weeks.