Monday, June 20, 2011

Roller coaster!

This past week has been such a crazy roller coaster ride. The whole town is in disarray. Just to update things. After Thursday on Friday when we didn't think it could get worse, it had gotten worse. That morning Jordan and I were playing with Chase, my family's dog, and having a stress free day. We went to our neighbor's house to make Corey's fathers day card. We were hand painting and using her criquet, awesome machine! Then we went to my other friend's house for lunch that she made us. So yummy! I have great friends. We left her place a little after 1p.m. The fire had picked up on the mountain just like any afternoon, so it wasn't something new. After we got home and I put Jordan down I looked outside at the mountain one last time and I laid down myself because I was so exhausted. Right when I laid down Corey sent me a text saying there is a fire on buffalo and 7th and we live up the street from there. So I called him and asked him if I should worry about anything or if it would affect us, he said no. So I fell asleep. I was probably asleep for about twenty minutes when my neighbor was pounding on my front door and window screaming get up, get out of the house, the fire is here. I woke up startled in a daze. I ran to open the door and the first thing I saw from my driveway was a wall of fire and my neighbors running back and forth from the inside of their cars and homes. It was total chaos. Ten minutes later a border patrol agent drove down my road and announced on his intercom this is a mandatory evacuation you need to leave now. My neighbors pretty much packed my car while I was throwing things together. I still don't know what happened barely. But I drove myself, Jordan and Chase to my friend's house balling my eyes out. I knew the firefighters would take care of the neighborhood and not let it burn but I was just furious of the situation and exhausted from the horrible emotions of the whole week. So yeah I was balling. Jordan was saying it's ok mommy, mommy it's alright, you're ok! P.S. this is a very short version, but we were able to come back home in a short period of time, I don't remember the time frame, but it was short. My house was way too smokey for Jordan to sleep in though so we stayed at a friend's house that night and returned home Saturday morning. To look at this at a positive perspective I now know what to do when something like this were to ever show it's ugly face again. They are telling us to stay packed or be very prepared because we might be evacuated again just for population control. I'll update some organizing, grab to go tips later. Everyone is probably more prepared than me but I still want to document it. Anyway what caused fire number 2 was a tiny spark from a machine that was getting rid of grass so that fire wouldn't catch it when it came closer from the mountain. It went up very fast and someone caught it then started backburning it so it became a controlled fire. Then I can't remember what happened Saturday. But Sunday the winds were insane and it hit hard again. Church for everyone was only an hour and we had to be out before the afternoon hit. It jumped the highway again and this time burned down restuarants near my parent's neighborhood and more homes. Can we say wow! I think everyone has hit their breaking point by now.
In good news my parent's house and their neighborhood is still standing and they should have the fires out soon, hopefully. They declared this fire the number one fire to put out in the country. That was good news because it brought in tons more help.
Thanks again to all the firefighters and law enforcement doing an awesome job!

3 comments:

Jana and Brett said...

And the National Guard!!! :0) Kristen I'm so sorry that happened to you. Love ya sis!

The Frasers said...

Wow! I hope everything is still going ok for you guys! I assume you are still in Sierra Vista? We're going to be there from July 1-8th, visiting my Aunt and Uncle, maybe we can see you guys!?

Kachelle said...

it's chilling that the fire has gotten that bad! i'm so glad you have such good neighbors that were watching out for you and willing to help!