Posts tagged “Middletown fire”
September 19, 2015 4 Comments

We Will Get Through This Together

The picture of the Middletown sign burning last weekend became one of the iconic photos that captured the seriousness of the Valley Fire and its effect on the towns of Cobb, Middletown, and Hidden Valley Lake. I shared it in my last blog (The Valley Fire and Fitting Your Life Into a Car) for that very reason.

The picture that came to represent the devastation of Middletown during the first night of the fire.

The picture that came to represent the devastation of Middletown during the first night of the fire.

It turns out that this very sign (which I had forgotten) is located directly in front of the Middletown Seventh-day Adventist church and school. Early reports indicated that the church and school were lost in the fire (maybe because people saw what happened to the sign), but now we know that quite the opposite is true. A video taken a couple of days after the fire had passed through the area shows that while everything around the church and school property (and I mean right up to the property line) was charred black, other than a pump house for the water, neither the church or school was damaged. (The video on Facebook has gone viral with over 188,000 views at the time of this writing.)

Middletown SDA School, taken before the fire. Things around it look different, but the school looks the same.

Middletown SDA School, taken before the fire. Things around it look different, but the school looks the same.

Besides “favoriting” the video, many have shared comments along the lines that God and His angels prevented the fire from coming any further, and that they are praising God for His selective protection. I don’t think these comments are exclusively from SDAs. I had a sense they are from the greater Christian community. I am starting to notice other comments that are reacting to this view with concern and even disgust. At least three people were killed in the fire and close to 600 homes have been destroyed (I am close to some of the people who lost their homes and I know them to be friends of God). Are we to assume that God didn’t send His angels to protect them?

Posters like these abound, but are they accurate?

Posters like these abound, but are they accurate?

I don’t presume to understand or to be able to explain God’s involvement in our affairs. There seem to be “rules of engagement” that affect even Him. For millennia people have tended to believe that God is responsible for everything that happens, but I don’t see it that way. (Examples of this way of thinking can be found in Luke 13:4 where people wondered if 18 people who died when a tower fell on them were worse sinners, and in John 9:2 where people wondered if a man had been born blind because of his own sins or because of his parents’ sins.) I am convinced that God aches with each of our hurts and losses and that He has a way of comforting and strengthening and fixing that is incredible. I am also convinced that it is important to keep two things in mind –

One: Our planet is struggling through the effects of sin. The rebellion that began in heaven (of all places) got a foothold on earth (thanks to our ancestors’ choices) and the results have been awful. Manmade things wear out and break, leading to hurt and death, and even nature itself seems to be falling apart.

And Two: We are a planet marked by free will and personal choice. God designed us with free will and He has gone to great lengths to preserve our choice power. This power is awesome when people use it for good and terrible when they use it selfishly. (Choice theory appears to me to be a part of God’s original design.)

My own belief is that from the minute the fire began God started working miraculously on people’s behalf. I don’t presume to know how or where that exactly happened, but that is my sense. Sin and its architect want to destroy; God wants to protect and heal.

One thing that is apparent, as people affected by the fire begin to pick up the pieces of their lives, is the incredible outpouring of support and donations by the public. May that outpouring become a deluge of services, things, and money! May our mantra be We Will Get Through This Together!

We Will Get Through This Together

PS – I am glad that the Middletown church and school were not destroyed by the fire and I hope that they become a place of even greater service and support for their community, rather than in any way smugly coming across like God protected them while not protecting others.
September 15, 2015 19 Comments

The Valley Fire and Fitting Your Life Into a Car

The Valley Fire ravaged Middletown, CA, but clear information re: the extent of the damage is still trickling out.

The Valley Fire ravaged Middletown, CA, but clear information re: the extent of the damage is still trickling out.

It felt surreal, standing in my bedroom, trying to think about what we should pack. Could this really happen? I thought. I was stuck, not really wanting to go to a lot of trouble getting things organized and packed, yet circumstances seemed to demand just that. What to take, what to leave behind, where to go if we did have to leave, these and countless other questions flooded my mind.

Pictures and important files being packed.

Pictures and important files being packed.

You may be aware of the fires that are wreaking havoc in California. One of those fires, known as the Valley Fire, started north of us in the small mountaintop community of Cobb and then exploded in multiple directions extremely quickly. Nearby communities like Middletown and Hidden Valley Lake barely had time to get out of harm’s way. Fire fighters called the intensity and speed of the fire “unprecedented.” Drought conditions, combined with hot temperatures and high winds, contributed to the disaster, which as I write three days later is still ongoing.

A car burns in front of a burning home. An estimated 13,000 people have had to evacuate because of the Valley Fire.

A car burns in front of a burning home. An estimated 13,000 people have had to evacuate because of the Valley Fire.

As of this morning (Tuesday, Sept. 15) the fire has burned over 67,000 acres, including 500 homes, and is only 15% contained.

Cobb, Middletown, and Hidden Valley Lake are all communities that are close to Angwin, where I live. We have close friends that live in each of these places. The teacher credential program at PUC, where I work as a teacher, sends student teachers to schools in these places. Clear, accurate reports of the damage the fire has caused are hard to come by, but information is trickling out that close friends are among those who have lost everything, their homes completely burned to the ground.

The fire began around 1:30 pm on Saturday, but by 6:00 pm it was already becoming clear that this wasn’t going to be your average catastrophe. Although not in the immediate vicinity of the fire, parts of Angwin were put on advisory evacuation status, with some areas of Angwin soon placed on mandatory evacuation status. My house was right on the borderline of mandatory evacuation. As Sunday turned into Monday, all we could do was stay glued to news sources and social media for clues as to the fire’s direction.

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Our little dog, Pearl, knows where to be when suitcases are being packed.

On Friday of last week, the day before the fire began, I played in a benefit golf tournament (for PUC Prep) at Hidden Valley Lake. Waiting to tee off on hole #15, an elevated tee that gives you an incredible view of the surrounding area, I remember taking it all in, including watching a glider silently flying over the valley below, and feeling relaxed and thankful. Standing on that tee box today and looking across the valley toward Cobb Mountain would be an entirely different view, a devastating view.

Me, Spencer, Evan McGraw, and Pastor Matthew Gamble, enjoying golf the day before the fire started. Spencer's house may have been harmed in the fire.

Me, Spencer, Evan McGraw, and Pastor Matthew Gamble, enjoying golf the day before the fire started. Spencer’s house may have been harmed in the fire.

Forty-eight hours after the golf, on Sunday afternoon, with the fire 0% contained and headed our way, standing in my bedroom trying to think about what to do and what to pack, I was no longer relaxed. I suppose you could call it an intense choice theory moment. How do you fit your life into a couple of cars? I was struck by the choices I faced, so struck that I was almost in denial that I needed to begin packing. Rather than being panicked, though, at what our community faced, maybe I had been influenced by Glasser’s matter-of-fact approach to life. I wrote about this matter-of-factness quite a bit in his biography, but now I faced circumstances that seemed to bring the same out in me.

The cars, if need be, waiting to be packed.

The cars, if need be, waiting to be packed.

Pack some clothes, assemble important files and papers, box up the family pictures and memorabilia, make sure you have everything the pets will need, but so much is being left behind. If we do have to leave, I wondered, actually have to put the keys in our cars’ ignitions and drive out of the driveway, where would we go? And for how long?

Our hearts go out to those who not only had to go through this preparation, but who did have to drive out of their driveways into the unknown, especially those whose houses were ultimately completely destroyed.

We are supposed to get rain tomorrow (what a blessing!), but the wind is predicted to turn back toward us as well. We will continue to stay in touch with news sources, social media, and friends.

 

 

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