With the Poomacha fire nearing total containment, the focus of local efforts has turned to recovery.
The Red Cross Saturday opened a shelter on the grounds of Bell Gardens as the shelter at the high school closed. An estimated 17 people are staying there.
Paradise Community Services, which helped many families after the 2003 fires, will open a Local Disaster Recovery /Resource Center at the new VC Chamber of Commerce office starting this Saturday, Nov. 10.
Paradise has many resources available on its Web site:www.paradisecommunity.org/
A shelter has also opened at the Pauma Valley Community Center on Hwy 76.
It has been organized by Derek Myers, the paster of the Four Square Church. His congregation is running it with the help of the Escondido four square church.
Myers has taken a leave of absence from his job to serve the community.
Many local organizations are raising money for the fire survivors. Check out our “Aid & Comfort” article in this paper and on our Web site: www.valleycenter.com/
A relief effort began Saturday on the La Jolla reservation led by the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation.
Additional assistance, including applications for the Disaster Food Stamp Program, is available at the Fallbrook Assistance Center on 431 Heald St off of Fallbrook St, between Stage Coach Lane and Main Avenue.
SDG&E is making a maximum effort to restore service along Hwy 76 and on Palomar Mountain.
It is installing power poles along the Boucher Lookout road and along State Park Road.
They started the Monday yesterday with archeologist, arborist and maintenance people. The pole work may start as early as Thursday.
The County of San Diego Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $30 million Fire Cleanup Program to assist property owners in the unincorporated areas with the removal of structural fire debris.
The California State Office of Emergency Services has committed to funding $23 million of those debris removal costs, while the Board committed $7 million to fully fund the program. The County received $5 million toward the State’s commitment on Monday in order to implement the cleanup process. The program is provided at no cost to property owners.
The first phase of the County’s comprehensive debris removal program, with the removal of identifiable household hazardous waste from residential sites, begins this week. Common hazardous waste items include aerosol cans, batteries, paints and solvents, fertilizer, fluorescent lights and household cleaners.
The general debris removal phase of the cleanup program will begin later this month with a goal to have all debris removed before the end of the year. Property owners whose homes or businesses were damaged or destroyed in this year’s wildfires will be mailed a Right of Entry (ROE) form and additional information about the County’s Fire Cleanup Program. Those wishing to participate should complete the ROE and return it to the County. The ROE form is also available online at www.sdcountyrecovery.com .
A hotline number has been established for any property owners who want information about the program at 1-877-308-8111.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) have created a task force to help Southern California’s tribal jurisdictions recover from wildfire damages.
The Tribal Task Force is already at work rounding up generators to replace lost power at key facilities in La Jolla and Mesa Grande.
Portions of these communities are expected to be off the power grid for more than a week.
Pauma Valley and Santa Ysabel tribes also are affected by the wildfires. Food, water and other supplies may be provided, as well as housing and infrastructure assistance.
FEMA is joined on the task force by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service and a number of other agencies that have ongoing relationships with the tribes.
Once an applicant has received the maximum amount available through FEMA, cash grants up to $10,000 may be available to help individuals who have suffered disaster losses. This grant is administered by the California Department of Social Services as a supplemental program to FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program.
Residents who lost money because they missed work due to the fire have until Nov. 26 to file for aid from FEMA.
Applications to be compensated for lost workdays should be made at 800-300-5616 or apply online at www.edd.ca.gov/fleclaim.htm/
Four farmers sitting on the water board of a district which sells 85% of its water to farmers might know a thing or two about the future of ag in this area.
Their assessment: The future is bleak.
Four of the five VC water board directors are growers: Chuck Stone, Bob Polito, Randy Haskell and Gary Broomell.
Monday they were asked their opinions about the future of ag by Vickie Driver of the San Diego County Water Authority. She manages the ag landscape and xeriscape program for the authority.
“Our big question here is will ag survive?” she asked. “You guys have taken blow after blow after blow… We have had drought, labor problems, two serious fires, and encroaching urbanization, blight. What is the prospect for ag? Many have said that it will survive, but that it will just change.”
Polito, whose family grows specialty crops just off Betsworth, was the first to answer.
“First of all I’d have to say that any crops that require a large amount of water are headed for extinction. We’ve seen the projection of costs for the next 10-15 years and it’s not something where you are going to make it. That’s what I see.”
Broomell, a citrus grower added, “Citrus can’t make it on the current situation and price of water.”
Stone, who grows flowers, commented, “We are in a time of such uncertainty that it’s very difficult to say. Floral and greenhouse crops are the largest contributors to ag in this county, accounting for seventy percent. The Rice Canyon fire destroyed 200-300 acres of wax flowers, a pretty lucrative crop.”
Many ag customers have made the somewhat Faustian bargain of taking lower water prices in exchange for the possibility that water might be cut drastically, as it will be beginning this January.
Stone noted that the flower industry is one where you don't need to take the ag discount to stay in business.
“My problem is labor and the uncertainties there. I have a half dozen others items that bother me in addition to the water. We are on the cusp of making lifestyle decisions about whether we are going to make it. It’ll never be as good as it was.”
Stone added that certainty, even the certainty of bad news, will help growers plan for the future.
“You can’t do a five year plan without knowing. The whole thing we need to come to grips as to whether ag and the lifestyle we have here is going to continue,” he said.
Haskell, an avocado grower, said that the fruit need about 4 acre feet of water per acre a year.
“I see growers trying to get through it for the next year or two. But with thirty percent cuts of water to our trees, that limits what we can do this year. But how long is this thing going to go on? If this continues the commercial farmer won’t be able to survive. If this goes on 5-6 years you will see commercial avos go by the wayside.”
Citrus, he said, uses about half of the amount per acre of avocados.
“I think farmers are fighters enough that for a few years they can get buy, but if this goes on five or ten years I don’t see it,” said Haskell.
Several VC and CalFire firefighters went into Gina’s Salon last week to get the engine number of four brother firefighters injured in the Harris Fire cut into their hair as a morale booster and to honor their fellows.
The Valley Center Cemetery District will holds its annual Veterans Day observance Nov. 12, 11 a.m. at the cemetery—and the public is invited.
Lt. Cmr (Ret.) Randy Harmon of the U.S. Navy will be the keynote speaker.
Also speaking will be the Rev. Gunnar Hanson of Valley Baptist Church. Pastor Hanson is a former Navy Seal.
Jan Erler will sing a selection of patriotic songs.
The colors will be presented by a troop of local Boy Scouts.
Refreshments will be served.
Pete Jauregui and John Culver with the Marines from Camp Pendleton who delivered and set up two 20 man tents and 40 cots for their families. They lost seven separate homes out on their ranch in Guejito.
Brian Willey of 1st Centennial Bank in Escondido set this up along with groceries and supplies and donations from various civic groups in Escondido.
The spirit of the phoenix is strong in man. It is in his nature to endure floods, war, pestilence and fire and as soon as they are past, to immediately start work to put it all together again.
But that spirit may be strongest in the artist. Ants and bees too immediately start to rebuild after their cities are destroyed. It takes a human artist, and all people have a little of the artist in them, to dream of new creations amidst the ashes.
On Saturday Chris Marsalek, who everyone knows as “Chris the Woodcutter,” was surveying the wreckage of his life’s work. His long, unkempt grayish beard that would make him look like a Biblical prophet if it weren’t for the puckish good humor that shines in his face—and his signature Dickies coveralls were covered in an ashy patina. A stained mask was pulled up over his forehead. He had been sifting through the ashes all day.
“The fire telescoped forty years of my life into a moment,” he said, pointing to where dozens of his sculptures, most of them done from wood that germinated, grew strong and wide near this place, were reduced to their component ashes in a catastrophic moment of wildfire.
It had been more than a week since the fire rampaged through here, and just a few days since the authorities allowed people back to their homes.
Marsalek’s situation is not unique. More than 140 homes burned down in the Poomacha fire that started not too far from his house, on the La Jolla Indian Reservation.
But what is unique is his perspective. Marsalek is already planning to turn the charred trees that surround the shell of his house, where only the shape of the fireplace and chimney are recognizable, into new works of art.
He put his arms around the limbs of a tree burned a bone yard white and indicated where the arms and head of the sculpture will be when he has done with his artist’s tools, the most direct of which is his chainsaw.
A friend, one of a dozen who showed up that day to help him sift through his burned house, marveled, “How can you see all that in that tree?”
But that’s the nature of art. Michelangelo said that sculpting consists of removing all of the stone that isn’t the sculpture.
A nice new red sedan drove up the dirt road in the neighborhood off South Grade that includes several homes that burned, included Marsalek’s. The car was strangely out of place, probably because it was clean. That looks odd in this ash-strewn landscape.
A man and a woman in their 50s got out, wearing blue t-shirts that identify them as belonging to FEMA.
“Do you need some food or water?” the man asked Marsalek, and handed him some of the made for civilian MREs (meals ready to eat) that are self-heating.
“They are actually pretty good,” said the man.
“I could really use the water,” said Marsalek.
They left him a case of water bottles. “You need to drink lots of fluids when you’re doing this kind of work,” said the woman.
They stayed a few minutes to make sure that he was taking advantage of all of the relief services that FEMA has to offer. Marsalek explained that he already started to fill out the paperwork, but that it was extensive, so he decided he would finish it another day.
“It is daunting,” admitted the man.
“No one who has not gone through this themselves will ever understand what you are going through,” said the woman, giving him a hug.
“This area is incredible,” said the man. “I have never seen so many people willing to volunteer to help their neighbors. So many people ready to offer a hand.”
Marsalek grinned and explained that he has already been offered work crews by a local church in addition to his friends that just showed up without being asked to help him dig out what pieces he could salvage.
One of them is a metal sculpture of a fish that survived in two pieces. “I’ve found all sorts of treasures,” he said.
Soon he will set to work to create some new ones.
The spirit of the phoenix is strong in man, but it is its strongest in the creator.
Valley Center/Pauma Music Boosters is hosting an afternoon concert of patriotic music honoring our nation's veterans Monday, Nov. 12, 3:30 p.m. at the Maxine Theater. Doors open at 2:30.
This annual event is traditionally a fund-raiser for the music programs, however this year it will be a FREE concert for everyone.
It honor our veterans in recognition for their contributions to our country. You do not have to be a veteran to attend. All are welcome.
The concert will feature an afternoon of patriotic songs guaranteed to make you feel proud to be an American. Selections will include: America The Beautiful, The Navy Hymn, the National Anthem, God Bless America, Marches of the Armed Forces (featuring the anthem of each branch of the military with special recognition to the veterans in attendance from each branch).
The program will showcase Valley Center’s music programs in the schools. Currently more than 900 children are enrolled in at least one music program.
Scheduled performers include: Valley Center Middle School Thunderhawk Jazz Band, Valley Center High School Marching Band and Jazz Band, Valley Center Orchestra, Valley Center Middle School and High School Choirs.
Donations of time, money and instruments to the Boosters are always welcome.
Checks are payable to the Valley Center Music Boosters, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. These monies are used to buy and maintain instruments, uniforms, transportation to competitions, sheet music and the like. Organizers anticipate a full house for this special FREE event!
For questions, call Sandy Smith at (760) 310-2478 or Diane Conaway at 749-2888.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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