Fear And Cabin Fever In San Diego

As the fires continue to rage through parts of San Diego, some returned to their homes today. Others returned to empty plots of land scattered with ashes, and some still in the various emergency shelters. Last we heard, Mary Griffin was readying herself for evacuation. Prayers and well wishes to all those in danger's path.

I've just been pacing around with nowhere to go and nothing to do but be online and watch the news so writing this gave me something to do. I don't feel like I'm doing much personally because I myself may be evacuating sometime today.

I am so antsy to go down to one of the shelters anddo something to help, but my family wants to stay together, so I am just stuck in the house. I feel like all I can do right now is stay in touch with my friends online to provide emotional support, find out how everyone is doing, and watch the news to stay updated. I have a good friend who lost her home in Ramona, which is obviously very sad.

I know that people have been AMAZING about going down to Qualcomm Stadium, (our baseball stadium, one of the biggest shelters available), to give resources and volunteer their time in whatever way it is needed. If there's anything positive coming out of this it is to see how the community of San Diego has been wonderful about coming together to help each other.

I feel like all I can do to help readers is to tell them to NOT wait for an emergency to think about being prepared. Have at least three days of water and non-perishable food on hand, have computer files backed up, (I have a lot of typed journals on mine). Make sure that in case of an emergency you bring prescription medications and the prescriptions themselves if needed.

I think in the future if our home is OK that I am going to condense a lot of the photos in our photo albums because our car is all packed up and we don't have room for all of our pictures if we need to evacuate today.

When all of this blows over, I am going to type all of my old journals and notebooks (there are a lot of them!) on the computer. I will always keep in my room a bag with non-perishable food, water and essential hygiene items for at least 72 hours as well as a bag of an old pair of shoes and at least one change of clothes. We had plenty of notice in this case to get things together, but in the future there may be an emergency where we just have enough time to grab a couple of bags and go.

Again, please urge readers to not have the mentality, (as I did before) of, "Oh yeah, emergency preparedness, I really should get on that." Do not wait; put together a 72-hour kit now!

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If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy Humbling California Wild Fires