Halloween Witch Creek Fire

The just concluded Bruin Open last weekend was my last tournament, at least for a while. I didn't win any medal in the women doubles category. However, thanks to my superman mix doubles partner, Dennis, we managed to get a 2nd place in C mixed doubles. I practically just had to serve and net and he did the rest of the running around. And that was a lot of running around! Haha....
Anyways....Chris had an interesting outing this time partnering Saroja. He was slow to start but picked up his form the second day. Although they almost won the consolation final, they can pat themself on the back for the good fight. Most of their games went to rubber sets.
All in all, it was an interesting week last week. It started off with a big bang! Fire storm raging across San Diego on Monday morning when most people were still in their slumber. I woke up at 5 in the morning and because we did not have a television set, I checked the internet and listen to the radio for the latest news on the fire. The night before, my gut feeling told me that we had to evacuate in the morning, judging from the wind direction and also the speed at which it was blowing at over 50mph. It already started burning up in Ramona which is northeast from our area. I was looking outside to see if any of my neighbours are evacuating. I saw some packing up their stuff and loading into the car but I was still not convinced that we had to evacuate until at 6am, the mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders came on the radio and ordered an evacuation for area north of I56 and west of I15. I told Chris to start packing and he was still kind of blur.
As we were leaving in our car, we noticed that most of our neighbors have already left as there were very few cars left in the parking lot. It seems that earlier, a police car announced over the loudspeaker to evacuate. Those living alongside the main road could hear the announcement but for us, who are living in the center of the compound did not hear it. Moreover, we did not have a house phone and therefore, did not receive a reverse-911 call. For those who do not have a land line, you can register your cell phone for "Reverse-911" notification system here http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/oes/ready/.
Before we drove off, we dropped by our neighbor, Kwan che's house to see if she needed a ride. Her husband was there and they had a car. However, they were not leaving yet. They said that the fire is still quite a ways and they didn't find the urge to leave yet. Well.....we left them our cell number to call us if anything and we left, wondering if this will be the last time we see our apartment. I must admit that I did not pack with the mentality that I will not be able to see my house again but sometimes, life is very unpredictable and we never know what can happen. The fire did braze through our neighborhood, barely missing our house. Thanks to the change in wind direction heading west that the fire missed our place.
I had a one week off from work due to the fire and it was nice to be able to spend it with my family. We stayed at our friend's place for a few nights before returning to our home. The support from volunteers and fire relief center was tremendous and overwhelming. It is nice to see that in times of tragedy, people live up to the occasion and put others above themselves.