2003 Story Set
| Date: November 11, 2003 First, there is the trauma. To be sitting 500 miles North of my beloved Scripps Ranch home, which is situated on Avenida Magnifica, working on submitting a story (which remains unsubmitted), and to hear on the news that Scripps Ranch, Avenida Magnifica burned overnight, will cause a certain level of hysteria. I spent a few hours flipping channels for coverage and wincing, because I recognized streets and houses. I emailed and called the new Property Management people. They didn't have any information. But they did have a web site they knew about. Within hours, Scripps Ranch Civic Organization had a list of destroyed homes on-line. 327 structures. Mine was not listed. My neighbors a few houses down were. Calls to the house got a working answering machine. That's a good sign according to property management. Property Management claimed they had not yet lost a house. Helpless and hysterical, all this following the news of my son's immanent crisis, by 10AM I poured a glass of my favorite Ruby Porto from Portugal and climbed into the Softtub spa where I remained for at least two jet cycles. I had a job interview the next day. The fires were not out for a week. I could not get there. Because I have asthma and he has his crisis, we cannot drive into smoke. The light rain helped. A few days later, the destroyed home list (www.scrippsranch.org) had been finished and had tagged each address with a photo. GREAT WORK! I had looked at dozens of those photos. My hysteria was receding. My tenant had been allowed to return and had reported on the damage. Fences. I called State Farm and checked on my coverage. Fences are covered. Sort of. My original agent had died of breast cancer a few years back. I have been shuttled about. None of these guys know the house. Not since 1995 had the amount of coverage been checked. It is a "replacement" policy - but they never had me upgrade it. It is as $83/sq ft. 3,000 sq ft house. Whoops. Current rebuild here in Fremont is $150/sq ft. So I need to raise that! I will get an estimate. I called for contractors. San Diego Fence. A block wall guy. A tree removal guy. Start there. And I got ready to drive down the next weekend. San Diego Fence was in on Friday (before I got there) and checked out fire damage and general run-down from old age conditions. Egad. When I saw the fences ------. There is fire damage on the board one - 16'. And on the picket fence - burned also about 16'. Maybe more. I did not measure. And the chain link in the back. Melted the black-clad covering and crispy-fried the metal. SO ---- from the fire there are board fence sections (2), picket fence section (across the back) and the whole chain link (all 95 feet of it). Black-clad tricks the eyes and lets you have a view. We have a view. Of smoke, ash, black stumps, burned houses. Even railroad ties that held a raised garden burned. Slowly. They were in flames when the neighbor snuck back in on the Monday (while I was in the softtub). He and his son put it out with a garden hose. It takes a high bit of heat to burn a railroad tie! I will keep them, The tree guy came and said - $1865 - and I loose all but two trees in the back along the top of the bank. This includes Eucalyptus, almond tree, honeysuckle, bottle brush, acacia, liquid ambers, roses, and a bunch of other stuff. There is no trace of the ice plant. Needed replanting anyway but ghastly! The roots are gone. The ashes are several inches deep. You sink in. You kick up ash. Black and gray. Nuclear winter. Some trees are just plain dead. Others have a little life. If the trunk in burned around and it is cracking - the tall Eucalyptus are deemed as killer trees - they can topple. Grown from a sprout of 3' height, these are nearly 20 years old and do great shade. Summers hit 114 here. We are of the desert here. I will take some time to replant this place when I move back. For now, haul the dangerous and dead trees out. Trim, up the rest of the yard from overgrowth. Overgrowth leaves dead stuff that can burn easily. Not allowed near the house. And the fences, fix, repair, replace what is old and broken, what is burned. Different quotes. A block wall guy came - said a retaining wall at the foot of the back too expensive - suggested a 3-block high one 5' forward of the existing chain link (my property runs out forward of the current chain link) and put the new chain link on it. This is 95 feet, plus to 5' wings. Bury one block. The block wall will stop any future ground fire. Replant the ice plant. And the bottlebrush. These are low-fuel plants. They help slow down or stop a fire. But first, replace all the melted sprinkler heads. Rainbirds that look droopy and pathetic. Those are the ones that struck me. The others are low to the ground. I did not check on the buried PVC pipes. Guess we don't have to take brush out of the wild area behind the house - the hill that the country had not done brush abatement on for some time. The part my older son said a satellite photo shows was overgrown in April. Nothing but black spine - bent over and frozen in the hot Santa Anna wind pattern. They look like hairs. On a gray and desolate hill. And below that, my neighbors are picking up the pieces. I just got back to Fremont. Another Jack Head (Jack in the Box antenna head) has bit the dust! And I was not the fastest car on the freeway! We saw contractors moving down. We saw a Hot-Shots fire jumper team going North. The estimate for replacement builds are coming in at $125-150/sq ft in Scripps Ranch. So I asked State Farm to boost that up. Even though there will be no fire hazard there for about 10 years. State Farm has a moratorium. They aren't sure the fires are out. (The city is.) They don't know if the house burned. (Ahem. Go to the web. Take a damned look!) OK - I can wait a bit. But not long! I need a local agent down there. Obviously. |
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