By DAVID ROSS
You might call it the “can do” center. Or the one stop shop where a fire survivor can get all of the information on rebuilding a home, a family, a life.
It’s called the Local Assistance Center, and while the Paradise Fire was still smoldering it pitched its tents and parked its trailers in the County’s road yard, where, until recently, the Mexican fruit fly quarantine center was located.
These days, it seems, Valley Center needs a dedicated place for its disasters of Biblical proportions.
Tom Bumgardner, a volunteer helping the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce to disburse relief funds for fire survivors, estimates that only a third or half of those whose property was damaged or destroyed are showing up at the center to take advantage of the services that are there for them in one place.
Bumgardner points out that the longer people wait to sign up for help, the harder it will be to get it, and the more places they will have to go.
Right now the LAC center has it all. All you must do is show up, give them a little information, and get yourself into the system.
Centrally Located Services
The first people you meet when you arrive will be from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), SBA (Small Business Administration). They are located in the first building.
They will help determine who else you need to see.
In the second building are representatives from Employment Development Dept., Internal Revenue Service, State Franchise Tax Board, California Dept. of Insurance, County Housing and Community Development, Aging & Independence Services, California Supplemental Grant Program, Office of Vital Records, Social Security Administration, Legal Aid, Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce, American Red Cross, Health and Human Services Agency Food Assistance, Crisis Counseling, Office of Senator Barbara Boxer.
In Building 3 are representatives of county Planning and Land Use (building, permitting and zoning), Dept. of Environmental Health, County Assessor (property tax relief), State Board of Equalization, San Diego Gas & Electric, County Agriculture, County Animal Services, SBC (telephone services), State Contractors License Board.
In Building 4 licensed child care is provided for visitors.
Rick Poggemayer, site manager, helped establish the center as the fires still burned. He’ll shortly it over to co-site managers, Mike Kelleher and Randall Krogman.
They oversee a staff of about 60.
As of Friday, said Poggemeyer, the center had processed 236 people. Most were people whose houses had burned. However, 90 are migrant workers.
Poggemeyer emphasized that no one checks anyone’s residency status. If you are an illegal alien, no one will care.
“The INS is not here and not allowed here,” Poggemeyer said. Interpreters are available who speak Spanish.
Although most survivors will be dealing with FEMA and SBA, applying for loans or even outright grants, in the case of lost personal property, some are showing up because they need food.
They can get emergency help from the Health & Human Services Dept., which can issue temporary food stamp.
“We encourage people to talk to the workers at every table. You might not know you need the service until you ask,” said Poggemeyer. “Just come on down. We can’t provide a lot of help on the phone but we can in person.”
Some people have questions about whether they can rebuild on their property. In most cases they can, unless the building was illegal to begin with. Building fees are being waived for fire victims.
Property tax and income tax relief is also available.
People also ask about fraud, insurance, even legal issues. They can also talk to representatives of the phone company or SDG&E if they are still without utilities.
Note: Most people in VC have water, electricity and phones. The last to be returned, for some, is cable TV.
Although some LACs in other communities have had long lines, that’s not a problem at Valley Center’s, said Poggemeyer.
The initial FEMA interview takes, on an average, 10-15 minutes, unless it’s complicated, said John, one of the FEMA workers.
Once data is entered the FEMA case workers can determine whether individuals can get grants or low interest loans to help replace what they have lost. Eligibility depends on income.
Both insured and uninsured homeowners and businesses owners can qualify for help.
On the day I visited the LAC, Tom Bumgardner and Stacy Welch were helping to disburse checks from the Valley Center Relief Fund, which is being administered by the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce.
Bumgardner, a VC Chamber member who is volunteering his time, said he’d handed out 40 or more checks for $170 that day. As funds continue to pour in, supplemental checks will be issued, he said.
They and other volunteers are working under Bob Leonard of the Fallbrook Chamber, who has handled similar cases after last year’s Gavelin fire in Fallbrook.
“We’re privileged to be doing this,” said Bumgardner.
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New hours for the VC Local Assistance Center are M-F, 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sunday
For those who may not know where the LAC is, it is at the Valley Center Road Maintenance Station, 28565 Cole Grade Road (the entrance to the LAC is on Valley Center Road, 200 ft. east of the intersection with Cole Grade Road, on the north side of the road)
With work set to begin on Phase I of Valley Center Road widening in a week (Nov. 17) VC planners and residents Monday night pleaded with County representatives not to remove the divider that separates oncoming lanes from the finished product.
The County Dept. of Public Works brought a full complement of engineers, project managers, supervisors and community outreach people to update the planning group on the upcoming roadwork.
Groundbreaking for one of the largest road projects ever in San Diego County history is scheduled Nov. 17. This marks the beginning of the first phase of a $33 million project to widen VC Road from north of Lake Wohlford Road to Cole Grade Road adding lanes and a center median.
The widening is a week later than planned because of the Paradise fire.
The main presentations were made by Brendan McNabb, project manager, and Doug Isbell, deputy Brendan McNabb, project manager for the road project described the timeline for the project, which will increase the number of lanes from three to four.
The VC Road Improvement Project is divided into three phases. Phase I is expected to be completed in Summer 2005. This phase begins one-quarter mile north of the Lake Wohlford Road intersection and ends approximately one mile south of Banbury Drive. DPW is coordinating with the City of Escondido during this phase, as the first half mile of the project is within city limits.
Completion of the Phase I is expected by July 2005, and possibly before that.
“There may be opportunities for that to be accelerated,” said McNabb, but July is worst case.”
Phases II and III of the project are scheduled to begin construction in Fall 2004 and are expected to take about two years to complete. These phases will extend the improvements from the end of Phase I to Cole Grade Road.
It’s highly likely, said McNabb, that phases II and III will be combined.
Eric Taylor, representing the contractor, Yeager Skanska Inc., pleaded for motorists to slow down for the road workers.
“Speed is an issue. We’re going to have people behind barriers and we don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t think anyone would argue that people fly over that hill. Please reduce the speed and spread the word,” he said.
Taylor anticipates putting the traffic on the grade into a new pattern before Thanksgiving.
“We’re going to take the mountain on the west side and move it to widen the road,” said Taylor. “We’ll be moving the dirt at night. That will be ongoing in three months. The dirt will get moved in one chunk.
Keep the K-Rail
Residents and planners asked the County to reconsider its decision not to include a divider on the improved road.
Note: In the discussion Monday, people used the term K-rail as a generic term for all road dividers. The current road divider is made of concrete, and is not a K-rail, which is a metal construction.
“A lot of people have asked me about the concrete barrier staying there even when the road is widened,” planner Craig Adams commented. “It used to be that five or ten people a year died in head-on collisions on that road. It used to be called ‘Blood Alley.’ Almost everyone I mentioned it to has said that it should remain.”
Isbell said that the County’s design standards would create sight distance problems if they divider remains.
“f you build a brand new road you have to build it to current design standards, or else the county is liable.”
Isbell noted that the completed road will have a 14-18 foot wide median bound by “rumble strips,” bumps that remind an errant driver that he is drifting.
“We can’t put a K-rail down the center of the median and meet sight distance standards,” he said.
Planner Mel Schuler asked what will be done to slow down traffic at the construction zone.
Isbell replied that deliniators will do that. “You’re going to really feel channeled when you drive down that roads. The only way to pass will be to run over a whole line of deliniators.”
The County also has a contract with CHP to patrol this area when traffic control is necessary.
“We’re here to learn, we’re here to listen, we’re here to work and we have a tough project. There are no easy answers, and we are going to build a project that’s safe,” said Isbell.
Planner Jim Yerdon told the county officials, “I want to say thank you. I’ve been here for 17 years and I honestly didn’t think this would happen.”
“We didn’t either,” quipped Isbell.
Planner Mike Morasco, whose appointment to the planning group was recently approved by the Board of Supervisors, commented, “We all have friends who have died on the grade. The stats have demonstrated how effective the K-rail has been to saving life on the grade. I don’t see how there’s not a way that the K rail can’t be designed into this grade to save lives.”
“We looked at all of the alternatives but in our opinion we felt that the wandering design of that K-rail would induce accidents. We struggled for a number of years on that,” said Isbell.
Adams, who previously served on the planning group as chairman, recalled that when the group initially asked for a divider, more than a decade ago, they were told no.
“So we did a campaign and put pressure on John Macdonald’s [the former supervisor] office, and that’s how it happened. Community action.”
Sandy Smith, chairman of the planning group’s road safety subcommittee, said that her committee will take up this issue at its next meeting.
Isbell added that the contractor is not allowed to shut down lanes during peak times. Those kinds of shut-downs will happen at night.
* * *
DPW has set up a telephone hotline (619-232-2640) and provides e-mail updates regularly. Access to properties in the area will be maintained during non-construction hours and, during construction hours, access will be preserved as much as possible throughout all phases of the project.
Funding for the $11 million Phase I construction comes from the TransNet program supplemented with contributions from Rincon and Pauma tribes. Yeager Skanska, Inc. is general contractor for this portion of the project.
Open Forum
During the open forum segment of the planning group meeting, two audience members spoke about fire preparedness.
Jon Landen, a former member of the fire board, called for VC to have its own paid fire department. “A few years ago the people of Valley Center voted not to have our own department. Yet when the Paradise fire started, our own CDF was mostly up in San Bernardino. So we get what we pay for.”
Kaela Laue, who lives on Woods Valley, noted that the fire burned 85% of her family’s land. She reminded residents of a fire preparedness study that was prepared by a resident Christy Bensch several years ago, Itwarned that VC’s fire assets were inadequate.
“We need to ask what the state and federal governments are willing to do to help protect us. We didn’t have and we do not have the assets and I strongly hope you’ll get behind community emergency response teams (CERT). I was awakened at 2:30 a.m. in the morning and there were no sirens and we were told by 911 that it was under control. If the death of Ashleigh Roach isn’t enough to wake us up, I don’t know what is.”
By DAVID ROSS
‘I think everybody who was on the route fighting the fire did a tremendous job, from CDf chiefs on down to the firefighters,” Supervisor Bill Horn commented in an interview conducted while the fire still raged.
We asked the supervisor to give his impressions of how the state, local and federal authorities and the media responded to what is being called the worst disaster in the state’s history.
'I’m a little disappointed with the radio and TV coverage,” mused Horn. “That is, except for the coverage provided by AM 600. Ladonna Harvey on AM 600 did a great job. That was extremely important for us because we lost power and lost phones. Really people were listening in their cars and trucks to the news.
“John Culea [Horn’s information officer] called several TV stations to put road closures and they weren’t interested. The only TV I actually saw over here was 7/39.”
Valley Center’s Paradise fire, says Horn, was overshadowed on local broadcast stations by the Cedar fire.
“That was a big fire, but let’s face it, 60,000 acres and 250 homes is a big deal. Had this been a solo fire you’d have had everyone in the world here.”
Most of the fire’s coverage was given to Mayor Dick Murphy, he said. “The county’s office of Emergency Services was overshadowed by the city’s.”
One problem that Horn observed was that the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection brought in some commanders from Northern California. They simply didn’t know the area, even when they had local input.
“I think we are going to have to examine the rules, with a fire of this size you should have a local commander,” he said.
CDF should also become more high tech, the supervisor believes.
“We need satellite communications. If not on every vehicle, at least the commanders should have it.”
Because many cellular phone towers were lost, firefighters were often without cell communication with their “troops.”
“Air support was a disaster,” declared Horn. “The system of mutual aid worked against the county of San Diego in our firefighting efforts. We should have had air support in here on Sunday, the first day of the fire.”
He also mentioned the problem that arose when the state government didn’t ask the military to release several firefighting aircraft that were available the first day of the fire.
“The problem that they can’t release their airplanes because of a private contract that requires that private contractors be used first. I think safety should override that,” he said.
The state turned down the offers of air tankers from Canada and didn’t allow military pilots to fly firefighting aircraft against the Southern California blazes.
“Navy pilots weren’t allowed to fly against our fires because CDF hadn’t checked their flight records. I thought that was a lot of bureaucratic foolishness.”
Although Horn opposed using fees from the call box tax to buy a regional firefighting helicopter, he does want to buy more helicopters.
“I’m not opposed to using tobacco settlement money to buy that,” he said. “I think we need about four or five helicopters. They should belong to an independent agency owned by the county, not allowed to leave the county.”
He also wants to see fixed wing aircraft, similar to the Navy’s AWACS planes, that could overfly fires and aid in communication.
“In this fire we have had so much smoke that we had very little visibility. Command and control has to be an issue we address. The Sheriff’s Department did a good job, but there should be a command control. I saw CDF controlling this fire and the City of San Diego controlling their fire.”
Horn also criticized current policies governing open space management.
“What burned is in the (MSCP) Multiple Species Habitat Protection areas. We didn’t manage those areas.”
By “manage” he means allowing some brush clearance.
He uses as an example that when the Cedar fire ran into the territory that burned last year in the Pines fire, it slowed and helped firefighters get a handle on it.
Previous to the fire, some agencies didn’t allow residents to remove trees that had been killed by the bark beetle, he said.
Horn praised local residents who rose to the occasion.
“From my viewpoint, which is Escondido, Valley Center and Guejito, I’m very impressed with the community. They responded in an excellent manner. We didn’t have organized chaos. Everyone obeyed the rules. There were only a couple of arrests, and they weren’t from our area.”
Almost from the beginning Horn was touring the devastated areas, and visiting and revisiting the command center that was set up at the community center.
For a time on Sunday Horn used his Thomas Bros. guide to show out of area firefighters where to find streets.
“We spent about ten hours in the car, going page by page, updating the roadblocks,” he recalls.
That reminded him of another technical innovation he’d like to introduce to the fire services.
“We should have had a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) shot of this thing, because a lot of fire vehicles didn’t have it. We couldn’t get up in a helicopter, so we had to do it on the ground.
“The CDF guys told me were kind of herding or channeling the fire by backfires and defending the space because they didn’t have enough equipment.
“We really didn’t have that until Tuesday when we started to get convoys arriving from Northern California.
“I took my staff out to survey the area on Tuesday and there was a line of fire vehicles on Lake Wohlford Road. They were from Solana Beach, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Encinitas. I thought it was a great advertisement for the Fifth District.”
Thursday morning an SBC truck swerved to avoid a dog that ran in front of it on VC Road.
The phone repair truck skidded across the lane and overturned, blocking both lanes.
The accident occurred about 8:15 a.m., just just north of Kolb Road, about a mile and half from Harrah’s Rincon Casino.
The driver, Ronald Piazza, was traveling southbound on VC Road at 55 mph, according to George Salas of the California Highway Patrol.
A dog ran into the roadway. He braked hard, swerved to the right and overturned on his right side. Piazza, 31, from Corona, was described as an animal lover.
Injuries included lacerations to Piazza’s scalp and contusions to the back of his right leg. He was transported by ambulance to PMC. The dog required no treatment.
The road was closed for three hours because of leaking gasoline from the truck. Traffic was diverted onto Paradise Creek Road.
* * *
The same day, at 7:30 a.m. on Old Castle Road near Gordon Hills Road, a black 2003 Hyundai Sonata broadsided another car when it pulled onto the road.
The Sonata. driven by Marcia Flynn, 65, of VC, was northbound on Gordon Hills Road, about to enter Old Castle Road.
At the same time a blue 1996 Mazda Miata, driven by John Vonborstel of Fallbrook, was eastbound, taking the driver to his job at the VC Municipal Water District.
Vonborstel was approaching Gordon Hills Road, following a group of vehicles, when suddenly Mrs. Flynn entered Old Castle and broadsided his vehicle, according to the CHP.
Mrs. Flynn sustained an exposed compound fracture to her right arm and complained of back pain.
Vonborstel had complaint of pain to his chest. His passenger, Velma Blake, complained of pain to her neck, left hand, and bleeding to the bridge of her nose.
Vonborstel and Flynn were transported by ambulance. Blake was not.
The Valley Roadrunner
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