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Fire Evacuees Find Center Well Prepared

By Alison St John / Reporter,  KPBS Public Broadcasting
Published October 13, 2008 at 6:51 PM PDT
This story was published more than 16 years ago.

More than a thousand people living in Oceanside near the border of Camp Pendleton got reverse 911 calls telling them to evacuate. KPBS reporter Alison St John was at the evacuation center.

Fire Evacuees Find Center Well Prepared

(Photo: Fire evacuation center set up at El Camino Real High School. Alison St John/KPBS )

More than a thousand people living in Oceanside near the border of Camp Pendleton got reverse 911 calls telling them to evacuate. KPBS reporter Alison St John was at the evacuation center.

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Many of those who showed up at the Emergency Shelter were seniors from Pilgrim Creek, a senior housing community which backs directly onto Camp Pendleton.

Fay Johnston has lived there for close to 20 years. She has seen a few fires on Camp Pendleton, including the one last week. But this time, she says she was working on her laptop when she noticed it was getting dark. 

Johnstone: And this was like three in the afternoon and I thought oh oh and I look out and this time the smoke was much closer and it was black, really black.

Some of Johnston’s  neighbors described the first smoke that rose from the hills as looking like a black tornado that rose straight up and then veered west towards the ocean.

Police and firemen came door to door to tell residents to evacuate.

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Larry Perondi, Oceanside Superintendent of Schools, says he got a call from the Chief of Police, but after seeing the smoke, he was already preparing to open El Camino High school as an evacuation center.

Perondi: We had it up and ready to go in about an hour, maybe less, 45 minutes. We have 300 cots, medical care for our elderly, food that has been delivered and continues to be delivered 

The scene in the big gymnasium was all too reminiscent of last year. But Perondi and Oceanside’s emergency preparedness crew said at least they were ready this time.

Because of  erratic winds overnight, the evacuees were told they would have to stay till morning.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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