When I woke up yesterday it looked much like the morning before, as if they had somehow miraculously stopped the fire over night. As I watched the news I knew things were only getting worse, not better. Evacuees were not allowed to visit their homes for a quick pick up yesterday like in the previous days because it was too dangerous.
The kids and I went on with our normal routine, and when we got home from swimming lessons we watched some huge C130's dumping retardant onto the flames. These planes were HUGE and they were flying non-stop for several hours.
At about 2:00 we were put on pre-evacuation orders. Shawn decided not to mess around and came straight home. I'm SO happy he made that decision. I headed up the street to get Lucy and could see the mountains with the smoke behind them. By the time Lucy and I started walking back home, we could no longer see the mountains that are so close to us. That's when a feeling of uneasiness crept in. It was the first time since we first saw the fire that the smoke was so thick, so close, that we lost visual of our mountain.
At 4:00 they held a news briefing to let everyone know what was going on. The mayor and fire chiefs were on a hill that overlooked the fire in the background. At the beginning of the news brief they were reassuring us that we were still just under pre-evac orders, not mandatory. About 15-20 minutes into the briefing we watched the flames jump up the mountain behind them and come roaring down the mountain toward the Springs. The mayor jumped in and announced that we were now under mandatory evacuation and needed to get out as soon as possible.
At this point I ran up the stairs to gather a few last minute things and that is when I saw this
This picture was taken from our front yard, and they were moving down fast. The wind gusts were between 30-65 mph, and that is why it moved so quickly. You can see the big tree in this picture moving in the wind.
This was a scary sight. Lucy was a mess. She did not want to be more than 10 feet from Shawn or myself the entire time. We tried to sit her in the car and she panicked big time when we went back into the house without her. Jack and Alivia were still napping so we were able to gathering things with a little less chaos. Once we loaded our car, we checked on a few neighbors and ward members and then headed out. As we left the neighborhood the whole mountain was burning along the ridge, and coming down. We are hoping that the ugly scare of a mine on the mountain there will divert the fire just enough to miss our neighborhood, but honestly, it doesn't look good.
We met up with some good friends from the ward at their hotel where they have been staying since they were evacuated on Saturday. Once we were there we regrouped and found a place to stay. I'm watching some kids for the summer, and their mom offered to let us stay in her boss's mansion that she is house sitting while he is out of town. Obviously she checked with him and he as asked us to please not go anywhere else. This home is absolutely beautiful, and its making this crazy, surreal experience a little more bearable. I'll try to post a picture or two of the home, because it is so beautiful, it's over 100 years old and has so much character. Honestly, when I close my eyes and picture a dream home, this is it, so it is a good thing to keep my mind off of the fact that my house is likely burning right now.
Once we got to this home, we watched the news non stop until 2:30 in the morning. We've seen pictures of homes on our ward on fire. There has been so much loss. We have good friend who is a member of the FBI and he lives up the street from us. He got in contact with a cop that was patrolling our neighborhood last night and confirmed that homes on the north end of our little neighborhood are burning, but he couldn't confirm that it had been down to our actual street yet. That's all we know. He is going to try to hitch a ride up to our neighborhood with some of the patrolling officers. He will let us know how our house is and try to get us pictures.
On that note, here is one last picture of our ward. the home facing away from us that is not burning is a member of our ward. This is just under a mile south of our home as a crow flies.
Here a a few short video clips Shawn took as we were leaving and as we were trying to drive out. It's hard to believe that we just went through this. We'll keep you posted on any updates both here on the blog and on Facebook so you can follow our status. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. We have all our children, and we have our memories, and if we are lucky, we will still have our home at the end of all of this.
