(Photo: Fire victims pick donated household items at the distribution center on West Rancho Bernardo Drive. Alison St John/KPBS .)
More than 2,000 people have visited the Recovery Center in Rancho Bernardo to start the process of putting their lives back together after the fires. KPBS reporter Alison St John visited the center and has this report.
The landscape along parts of West Rancho Bernardo Drive is a moonscape of burned trees and blackened ground cover. But the park is still green, an oasis of grass. In the middle is the recovery center, and right across the street, the distribution center: a parking lot full of “stuff” donated for fire victims.
Flo is a volunteer. She acts as one of the personal shoppers assigned to each fire victim who comes looking for supplies.
Flo: You know your basic, basic things is what they’re looking for: soap, Visine Huggies for babies diapers, and formula and cleaning supplies. And cleaning supplie rags for cleaning up and food, any of those things.. they go so fast!
The parking lot is full of people pushing shopping carts. Some are filled with childrens’ toys, others with bedding. Larry and Becky Hall are loading up with bottled water and cleaning supplies. Their house is up on the ridge in Westwood, one of very few that did not burn down on Aguacate Way.
Larry Hall: Ash, smoke and soot all over the house,
Becky Hall: Ashes like that thick -- anywhere from a quarter of an inch to more thick in the house. One of the reasons we have so much ash is because he stayed behind and he was in and out all the doors fighting the fire from the back yard.
Larry Hall helped a neighbor save his house and that in turn protected his own from the flames. But he and Becky have had to remove all the curtains and all their clothes to be cleaned -- everything inside the house is blackened and contaminated by the fire.
Standing over in a tent at the back of the lot is coordinator Rick Dunn. He says many homes that are still standing were made uninhabitable by the fire
Dunn: So you have a lot more people that were displaced than just the amount of homes that were damaged. So it’s affected a lot of people and people are scrambling to find places to live.
Dunn says some have moved into completely empty rentals with nothing. He’s still looking for donations and for volunteers to be with the fire victims as they go around collecting what they need, and to lend an ear to their stories.
Dunn: Yea, a lot of listening, trying to be a sensitive ear to people. People have been through a lot .. it’s amazing when you talk to people how many people got out just minutes before the fire and didn’t get to take anything with them, and it was in the middle of the night, it wasn’t in the middle of the day when people were awake. It’s traumatic to lose everything you have.
Many of those who have lost their homes have already checked in with an insurance agent and been assigned an adjuster. But a veritable village of mobile trailers are parked across the road from where Dunn is working -- each with a team of insurance agents ready to answer questions. And about three dozen relief agencies are set up inside the Recreation Center to work with fire victims.
The first step for most people is to demolish the burned out remains of their houses so they can start to rebuild. The fire victims this reporter spoke to had not heard that the city and the county are negotiating for a single contractor to demolish and clear properties destroyed across the region .
Karen Reimus, who lost her own home in the Cedar Fires four years ago, is now an expert on insurance claims. She says people need to know soon whether the county’s plan for a consolidated demolition contract is going to happen.
Reimus: People just want to know one way or the other. Is there going to be a program or is there not going to be a program. Because they want to plan. If there’s not going to be a program they want to go start investigating private debris removal contractors and setting that up they just want to know what the plan is so that they can move forward.
City officials say they will announce information about the demolition and clean up contract later today.
Thursday night, the mayor and city councilman Brian Meinshein will hold a forum in Rancho Bernardo to help residents who have lost everything decide on their next step toward recovery. Alison St John, KPBS News.
