I would go much further to say what a POS interview.
PSS all but genuflected to those idiotic politicos.
I am only able to right this because my Alzheimer’s patient mother called me from her nursing home in Sebastopol at 1:15am, a call during which she told me that the Tubb’s Road Fire located in Napa County was closing in on our home in Santa Rosa. I told her it will be alright and to go back to sleep. Then I noticed that the wind was quite loud outside our bedroom window and it was very warm in the house. I went to the kitchen and looked out into the back yard and hot embers were flying over the house and landing. Moments later our 35 foot maple tree snapped in half, one half fell and crushed the shed the other knocked down the fence. We had minutes to evacuate. I woke my wife and daughter told them to pack a bag of clothes and that we had less than 5 minutes to leave.
When I took my backpack out to the car it was difficult to walk into the wind and I was struck by hot embers. The wind was reported to be 70-80 mph. I looked up and down the street and every home was on fire. Two fire trucks showed up right across from our home blocking the exit of one of our cars. As I turned back toward the house I noticed that our roof was on fire. First I said when going through the front door was, “We are out of time grab what you have we need to go now!”
We were caught in a traffic jam. People were abandoning their cars in favor of running down the streets. I remembered a back way out of the neighborhood and we escaped.
That was October 9, 2017.
I had finished moving my mother’s belongings from her storage and apartment by September 23, 2017 into our garage and had been sorting through and organizing all of her belongings. Her things as well as major pieces of our family history were lost that night. One of many things, memories that were lost.
Turns out the fire was moving at rate of a football field length a minute. The fire started 22 miles away around 10pm on October 8, 2017. The fire companies assembled on 8 lane wide 101 as their main fire break but as fire approached it flew right over them and they had to abandon their positions which led them to our fire hydrant a half mile from 101 where they again had to retreat.
Several things of note:
1) Santa Rosa at the time had no early warning system. No sirens. No City wide emergency text or telephone call system. No tv station or radio warning system.
2) One year prior the City, it is the Sonoma County seat as well, voted against all of systems mentioned above even a though a Proposition, which would have provided money and had been overwhelming voted on and approved. Instead $10 million dollars was directed to rebuilding Court House Square, a hardscape hell that disrupted traffic and forced businesses to relocate and or leave town.
Seven years on.
1) the Insurance company stiffed us by only paying 75% of their appraised value of our home, which 15% lower than the market value.
2) the class action lawsuit against PGE for their negligence was successfully and created a Fire Fund.
3) the Fire Fund was not large enough and will only payout 66% of the moneys to be rewarded, which turns out to be more like 48% after lawyers and extraneous fees.
4) It took us 3 weeks to find a residence, rental where the monthly prices were jacked up by a factor of 2X the rate prior to the fire. We had to pay the first two months out of pocket.
5) Our visit to to our Insurance Office in order to get a copy of our policy took 2 weeks, with the promise of a claims adjuster meeting that took 4 weeks.
6) FEMA letters and proof of ownership is another story all together.
7) Military arrived and started letting us back into our neighborhood and to keep our looters.
7) My wife and I spent 12 days sifting through the ruble, we wore overalls and masks in the heat and found next to nothing. The hot water heater had exploded and splayed three house walls outward.
I, my wife and daughter would not be here if not for that phone call from my Alzheimer’s patient Mother.
My mother passed away July 25, 2019.
We sold our property when we found out that the Insurance money was not even close to the rebuild price by 45%.
The price gouging was unreal. The City could not entice large builders to engage.
Otherwise nothing to see here; unless you lived it.
.
We left Santa Rosa and moved northeast to join our other daughter and her family in Eldorado County.
The best part of our saga is that the family survived and expanded by three grandchildren. |
