Friends,

Thanks for your calls about our safety and well being as we begin recovery from the San Diego wildfires. Below is an update on our small part of this very big story.

Joe Sterling

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Howdy from Peutz Valley, Alpine, East San Diego CountyRita and I are AOK. The skies over Peutz Valley are clear, the birds are singing, there is no wind, and the smoke here has cleared. This is the first time I’ve had my computer up for days. Rita is down in San Diego proper with our friend Eileen Clift. She’s got the dogs and a mountain of our possessions and business equipment.Our valley has not burned, thank goodness, unlike 2003 when it was decimated. This time active fires came within a few miles of us to the north on Tuesday night. That front became the top priority of the water bombers Wednesday morning and they were able to knock it down. There is still major fire to our south but it is 10+ miles away. There is concern for this front, but we’re pretty confident that, unless there is a sudden and significant weather shift, we won’t be affected by it.

Heavy wind Sunday night took down a few of our major sycamore trees and some shingles, but otherwise we’ve suffered no property damage.

Evacuation orders for our valley have not been lifted yet, but I’ve been staying in the valley any way. After taking many carloads of possessions from the property down into San Diego proper, I have continued to prepare for attack as long as I’ve had energy and enough safety to do so. Several other neighbors have done the same.

Even the idea of approaching fire is a powerful motivator to get all kinds of things done on the shoulda woulda coulda list. In our case that included clearing more weeds and construction materials around the property, pruning trees too close to the building, running sprinkler lines along the typically upwind side of the property and other little items like that. Cutting up and dragging off an 18″ diameter x 25′ long sycamore trunk blocking the driveway was a bonus workout. I think that was Monday morning.

When the fires were burning closest to us on Tuesday night they looked like giant flaming snakes and chimeras climbing and winding up and down the east and west slopes of El Capitan reservoir. This slithering orange spectacle cast against the blackness of the smoky mountainsides drew many spectators to our narrow winding road - effectively the only way out of our valley. There were hundreds of cars streaming in and out. This is bad – it’s a problem if we need to really get people out, and we know a small percentage are potential looters scoping abandoned homes.

Wednesday night we started turning people away if they couldn’t tell us what address they were going to or who they had come to see. Last night we established a nighttime barricade at the valley entrance that was manned by neighbors on 2-hour watches. We arm them with convincing orange highway vests, a “Friends of Peutz Valley” hat, traffic cones, a stop sign, and a clipboard with valley directory. To make it extra-quasi-official one of my neighbors produced a yellow spinning/flashing light that you attach to the roof of the car and plug into the cigarette lighter socket. At night the whole get up looks very imposing. I pulled the 2:00-4:00 AM watch last night – now that there is no visible fire from our road there wasn’t much traffic, but it felt good to do something constructive - drift in and out of sleep in the idling but flashing car like any self-respecting volunteer watchman.

Sleep in general has been problematic for the last few days. One to three hour naps here and there is the best I can hope for until things really settle down. Today looks like I’ll get a chance to rest. I’m guessing that by tomorrow or Saturday we’ll move all the car loads of belongings back to the property and get reset.

Some friends have called asking about our horse, “Kid”. He is at a neighbor’s property in the valley in a reasonably safe corral with another horse.

Regarding our business, this upset in our local economy has interrupted some work we had planned, but it has surely created all kinds of needs for facilitation, planning, and change management. Our newly launched San Diego-Tijuana Region Game and the hopefully soon to be launched San Diego Regional Vision Project will have a new sense of urgency to them. Having said that, please let us know about any work opportunities you hear of for the kinds of things we can do – in or out of the San Diego area.

Warm regards to everyone,

Joe

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