Oak Leaf Special Fire Issue

Volume cxxxviii Issue 1

October 27, 2017

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the oak leaf

FIRESTORM ‘Like hell was chasing you’

2017 comprehensive coverage of the most devastating wildfire in California history

2 The fire

October 27, 2017

In less than 8 Hours

The fire 3

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A county was left devastated Brandon McCapes News Editor

The Diablo winds blow warm air to the coast, but this time they brought something more diabolical: the worst wildfires in California history.

The fires that claimed lives, destroyed homes and displaced tens of thousands of Sonoma County residents held a community hostage in fear and vigilance for more than a week and likely changed it forever.

“This is my 40th national deployment,” said Joseph Apicelli, 60, a 12-year American Red Cross veteran volunteer.

“I’ve seen snowstorms, ice storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, flooding and to me, this is one of the biggest disasters I’ve ever seen.”

At least 650 Santa Rosa Junior College students and 60 SRJC employees reported they had lost their homes and approximately a quarter were evacuated, according to a survey the SRJC Research Office conducted that received a 60 percent response rate.

“It’s catastrophic,” said SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong.

As those whose homes were spared begin to repopulate their neighborhoods, the wildfires that killed at least 42, burned more than 100,000 acres and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures were 91 percent contained Tuesday night.

It took thousands of firefighters converging from several western states and from as far away as Australia two weeks to finally control.

“This is truly one of the greatest if not the greatest tragedy California has ever faced,” Gov. Jerry Brown said. “The devastation is just unbelievable. It’s a horror

that no one could have imagined.”

The first night: the Tubbs Fire At approximately 8:30 p.m. Oct. 8, the Tubbs Fire began on its namesake road near Calistoga. Diablo winds up to 70 mph propelled the forest fire towards Mark West Springs and Riebli roads in Santa Rosa, destroying homes in rural areas on its way.

Mass evacuations began across the county and throughout northern Santa Rosa as the Tubbs Fire tore through whole neighborhoods. By 2 a.m., it had reached Fountaingrove and Larkfield/ Wikiup, then moved into Mark West Estates and the Journey’s End mobile home park.

Within an hour, it had jumped across Highway 101 and destroyed 1500 homes in the Coffey Park neighborhood. The fire reached as far south as Steele Lane, coming within one mile of SRJC. Due to the fire’s size and speed, first responders were initially unable to fight the flames and focused on saving lives over property.

“The wind was blowing so hard there was no way to stop it,” said Healdsburg Fire Engineer Ruben Mandujano. “I was lucky to be with a captain who experienced the Valley Fire two years ago. Going through that and seeing this is what prompted us to start knocking on doors.”

Local agencies worked through the night to evacuate areas within the fire’s grasp and by sunrise Oct. 9, the fire had destroyed 3,000 homes and many more nonresidential structures, while manda-

tory and advisory evacuations had been issued for most of Sonoma County.

The shelter at Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa filled up and evacuees from Sutter and Kaiser Hospitals were rerouted to the Veteran’s Memorial Center and the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

Brown declared a state of emergency and first responders poured in from all over the state as 359,000 PG&E customers lost power. CAL Fire officials said at least 5,000 fire personnel converged on the county by Tuesday as 200 law enforcement officers from North Bay communities helped to facilitate evacuations, maintain road barricades and preserve order.

Seventy-seven cell-sites in Sonoma and Napa Counties went down, with some completely destroyed. Senator Mike McGuire said only 35 had been restored by Oct. 10.

Although structures continued to burn around Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, the majority of the damage the Tubbs Fire caused in populated areas ended on Oct. 9. Firefighters were able to extinguish fires still burning in Rincon Valley, although houses were lost and much of the area remained under mandatory evacuation for most of the week.

Of the three main fire complexes raging in Sonoma County, firefighters contained the Tubbs Fire first. Even though it continued northeast forcing the mandatory evacuation of the entire town of Calistoga on Oct. 12, firefighters had gained 50 percent containment by Oct. 14. CAL Fire reported containment increased to 94 percent on Oct. 24.

Article cont. pg. 4

4 The fire

October 27, 2017

Fire in the city: what happened and where

Continues from page 3....

Annadel ablaze: the Nuns Fire The Tubbs Fire moved northwest, having done most of the damage on Oct. 9.

While the Pocket Fire threatened Geyserville, the Nuns Fire, which started in Napa County, spread north to Annadel State Park and began to threaten southeastern Sonoma County.

By Monday night, much of Kenwood, Glen Ellen and Sonoma were under mandatory evacuation due to the Nuns Fire.

On Oct. 10, some firefighters had been working for more than 24 hours without food or rest and despite their efforts the fire was zero percent contained.

“You have people working on your behalf who themselves have lost their homes, whose families have been displaced and who’ve gone hours and hours without sleep. They’re working overtime doing everything they can possibly do to get through this,” Rep. Mike Thompson said.

The Nuns Fire was the largest of the three fires, and by Oct. 24, it had burned one-and-a-half times the acreage as the Tubbs Fire and three times that of the Pocket Fire. Due to its expansive range, any change in winds could have put more residential areas in the fire’s destructive path.

“If the weather stays as it is right now, we’re good. If the wind picks up, we’re screwed,” said Art Gleck, a CAL Fire firefighter while he worked on Lawndale Road near Oakmont on Oct. 10. “We don’t even have containment. It’s jumping around so fast it’s not even funny.”

Smoke from the fires caused residents to don N-95 masks all over the Bay Area.

The Bay Area Air Quality District activated an air quality alert for the region Oct. 10, calling the pollution unprecedented. A NASA satellite image showed that wildfire smoke traveled all the way to San Diego.

The Nuns Fire continued its descent through Annadel and across Bennett Valley Road, prompting the evacuation of county lands, as well as the Annadel

Heights neighborhood and the area around the Bennett Valley Golf Course in Santa Rosa.

Firefighters conducted their first controlled burns in Annadel State Park on Oct. 11, sending huge columns of white smoke into the air.

“It was like a mushroom cloud,” said Bennett Valley resident Luca De Lorenzis, 23. “The fire moved faster than any I’ve seen.”

CAL Fire public information officers said firefighters used controlled burns to contain fires and protect residences by burning fuel sources while the winds were favorable. Although Sonoma County residents stayed vigilant in light of “red flag” warnings for higher winds through Oct. 16, the projected winds didn’t materialize and firefighters continued to gradually gain control.

arcing power-lines on the night of Oct. 8.

Power-lines are not an unusual cause of forest fires in high wind conditions.

On Oct. 23, CAL Fire extended its projection for total containment from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27 due to higher temperatures and windy conditions.

Twenty-one people remain missing in Sonoma County. Authorities are using DNA analysis to identify five unidentified remains of the 23 confirmed fatalities in Sonoma County.

Law enforcement’s goal this week is to facilitate re-entry of residents to burned areas and repopulate persons whose homes are still habitable.

As evacuees returned to their homes, Bay Area law enforcement agencies began to leave the county though the National Guard remains.

“We’re really working on recovery,” Giordano said. “We’re really working on Approaching containment putting the community back together.

On Oct. 14, officials evacuated parts It’s going to be a long process.” of eastern Santa Rosa as the Oakmont and Nuns Fires jumped across Highway Setting the stage for a disaster 12 toward Mt. Hood. At this point, fireIncreased rainfall in early 2017 ended fighters reached 15 percent containment a years-long drought and brought a paron the Nuns Fire and 10 percent on the ticularly verdant spring; the resurgent related Oakmont Fire. plant-life and the unusually hot lateCAL Fire reported 85 percent total summer created an abundance of dry containment on Oct. 20 and projected foliage and provided fuel for the worst complete containment of all fires by wildfire disaster the state has ever seen.

Oct. 24.

An as-yet-unknown ignition source The week of Oct. 14, authorities be- combined with hurricane-strength gan lifting nearly all evacuated areas winds and the proximity of Sonoma still standing in Sonoma County as law County residential communities to forenforcement began to allow restricted ested areas created the perfect formula access to the more devastated neighbor- for catastrophe, according to Windsor hoods such as Coffey Park and Foun- Fire Prevention Officer Cindy Foreman. taingrove.

“The wild-urban-interface are these Officials estimate the fires destroyed 5 beautiful neighborhoods we build in percent of housing in Santa Rosa, a city these beautiful areas of our county that already beset by a housing-supply crisis. sit right in heavy timber, heavy forest, Sonoma County Sheriff-Coroner Rob- heavy grasslands with difficult access,” ert Giordano debunked reports that a Foreman said. “Beautiful views—but it homeless Sonoma man of Hispanic ori- comes at a cost.” gin caused the fires and an investigation Cover photo by Brandon McCapes into the cause of the fire continues.

Some officials speculated that PG&E Page 2 photo by Ali Benzerara power-lines may have started the fires, Page 3 photo by Dakota McGranahan and Mandujano confirmed reports of

Rumor has it Brandon McCapes News Editor In the first week of the North Bay fires, breakdowns in communications systems and errors with Nixle and SoCo reports, coupled with closed roads and an atmosphere of fear, fueled rumors that spread faster than wildfire.

On Oct. 10, a Nixle report informed subscribers that police implemented a mandatory evacuation for Bennett Valley and some areas of the Santa Rosa neighborhood of the same name, and misinformation about the need to evacuate the entire neighborhood spread by wordof-mouth.

Shortly after the evacuation notice, bumper-tobumper traffic clogged up all major roadways out

of Southeast Santa Rosa, although firefighters confirmed no evacuation notice had been issued for the area.

Former Santa Rosa Junior College student and Kenwood resident Ariana Sanchez, 23, said, “With Bennett Valley, people were saying that there’s a mandatory evacuation.

Then I get the Nixle report that says it’s an advisory. I’m just getting a lot of hearsay.”

SRJC student and Bennett Valley resident Claire Peyton, 27, said, “Honestly, at this point I’m treating everything as rumor, except the news, and they’ve been saying the same thing,” Peyton said on Oct. 11.

“I heard that all the animals had been let loose out of Safari West. Someone even told me all of Larkfield had been lev-

eled and that’s just not true. There is stuff there; we just don’t know what.

I heard that Kenwood was gone, that Glen Ellen was burned down.”

Glen Ellen and Kenwood have sustained damage and lost homes but much of the two towns remain intact. Safari West confirmed that no animals had escaped the fences and a Nixle report debunked the rumor of a fire at Spring Lake.

Greg Karraker, president of the Board of Rancho Adobe Fire Protection District attempted to keep his Penngrove neighbors informed as misinformation caused people to think the fire posed a greater risk to the Penngrove area than it actually did. “They all involved the fire being closer than it was. It was always, ‘The sky is fall-

ing,” Karraker said.

Karraker used the social media website NextDoor to provide his community with information specific to them.

The fire exposed major flaws in Sonoma County’s emergency alert system.

Karraker thinks better and more modern communication protocols could ensure that residents get accurate information during future times of crisis.

“It’s human nature.

It’s the fog of uncertainty. You just don’t know what’s happening, and it looks bad,” Karraker said.

“The rumors underscore the need for current, visual, understandable and complete information on a mobile phone.”

Brandon McCapes/ Oak Leaf

THE STATS: Total acreage: 110,720 Tubbs Fire: 36,807 acres Pocket Fire: 17,357 acres Sonoma-Nuns Fire: 34,398 acres Napa-Nuns Fire: 19,984 acres Nor-Cal Fatalities: 42 people Total structures destroyed: 6,873 Structure damage: 486 Insurance loss: $1.04 Billion Engines: 574 Dozers: 95 Watertender: 58 Helicopters: 33 Hand Crews: 106

747 Jet Water Tanker: 1 (First in CA history)

Students who lost their home: 650 Students who dropped out: 182 Staff members who lost their home: 60 SRJC relief fund raised $400,000 and is 80 percent used.

www.theoakleafnews.com

The fire 5

Brandon McCapes/ Oak Leaf

Thick, black smoke shrouds the sky as one house rapidly burns. Entire neighborhoods were wiped out due to the wildfires and took the lives of 42 individuals.

Top, center: The fires destroyed multiple neighborhoods on Monday Oct, 9. Smoke congested the sky, creating toxic air conditions and impaired vision.

Middle: In an attempt to derail the fire, a backburn was started near juvenile hall. Burning copious amounts of foliage proved a failure, as firefighters were required to contain the flames of the Oakmont fire.

Lower left: During a backburn in Sugarloaf Regional Park, one firefighter contains the flames in an attempt to shift the direction of the fire. Although the backburn was unsuccessful, the firefighters were able to efficiently prevent the fire from devastating the nearby structures.

Lower right: The sun peeks from behind an ashy sky after one Hidden Valley neighborhood burnt to the ground. In front of one house, a lone basketball hoop is the sole survivor of the fire.

Dakota McGranahan/ Oak Leaf

A grove of trees stand smoldering after the Tubbs fire ripped through the area.

Photo essay by Dakota McGranahan, Ali Benzerara and Brandon McCapes

6 the stories

October 27, 2017

What some Sonoma County locals lovingly refer to as “God’s country” now resembles a Devil’s playground: a hellish wasteland of ash, smoke and persisting flames.

The North Bay wildfires’ scope of destruction is unprecedented. The wildfires burned more than 240,000 acres and claimed 42 lives at press time. Among the survivors, harrowing stories of evacuation emerged.

-Michael Barnes, Co-Features Editor

Art in ashes: Rachel Edelstein Web Editor Santa Rosa Junior College student Kiani Bush’s next-door neighbor pounded on her door at 1 a.m. on Oct. 9. Moments later her aunt burst into her room, telling her to pack a bag; they had to leave now.

The power was out so Bush, 20, used the f lashlight on her phone to pack.

“My mindset in that moment was ‘grab what I need for tomorrow,’ because I had school and work the next day. I took my backpack and my work clothes,” Bush said. “Thankfully my aunt reminded me to grab my laptop, birth certificate and passport. Everything else is gone now.”

Bush, her aunt and uncle hurried into their cars and drove to the Windsor Walmart parking lot.

“Throughout the morning we were getting mixed information about what was happening,” she said.

“Around 11 a.m. we finally got the direct confirmation that our entire neighborhood was gone. My stomach dropped, and I didn’t know how to react.”

Eventually Bush separated from her aunt and un-

Student loses generations of poetry in historic fire

cle, staying with her boyfriend’s family in Healdsburg. Her boyfriend’s mother took her shopping on Tuesday to buy basic necessities like shampoo and other toiletries.

“That’s the first time that we drove past Santa Rosa and I could see all the damage,” she said. The air was still really bad. Everything looked different.”

She received plenty of new clothes and overwhelming generosity from friends, but her perspective has shifted since the fire.

“There are a lot of sentimental things I wished I’d grabbed, like my dad’s poetry and my grandfather’s wooden cane. I lost some of my own poetry too,” Bush said.

She recently drove by her neighborhood that was once Mark West Estates.

“They weren’t letting people back in yet, but we could see from the outside and everything is completely f lattened,” Bush said.

Bush is not sure if she can finish the semester at SRJC, where she studies social and behavioral sciences. She lost all her textbooks in the fire.

“When I left, I thought I’d be coming back. Now I’m realizing I’m OK with not having very much,” Bush said. “I’m lucky to be alive. I’m lucky to have Rachel Edelstein/ Oak Leaf Kiani Bush is trying to resume classes at the SRJC this semester after losing her such loving and supportive people in my life.” home on Oct. 9. She lost all of her school supplies and textbooks in the blaze.

Former SRJC instructor loses home

Oak Leaf Staff

Former Santa Rosa Junior college dean and adjunct instructor Ty Benoit stands among all that is left of her Wikiup drive home in Santa Rosa following the Tubbs Fire devestation.

Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor Former Santa Rosa Junior College dean and adjunct instructor Ty Benoit, 68, returned to her home in the Wikiup area after a night at the Mill Valley Film Festival. She was still buzzing from seeing Sean Penn and Holly Hunter in person. Benoit was scheduled to moderate an SRJC panel for the play ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ on Wednesday. A call at 10:30 p.m. would change her plans for that week and beyond.

“We looked at Calistoga and we could see the smoke. We packed our cat and a few things and headed towards Molsberry Market,” Benoit said. “When I left my home, I was pretty certain I wasn’t coming back to it.”

It didn’t take long for Benoit and her husband to realize they had to abandon their initial escape route to Molsberry Market. “We were driving right into it. Everyone else was driving the other way,” Benoit said. The couple eventually made it to Windsor, where Benoit said, “We were literally breathing our house with all the ash in the air.”

A few days later, a neighbor of Benoit’s showed her a photo, taken from a phone, that confirmed her fears: her house burned to the ground. “It was like the Kennedy assassination or 9/11. I will always remember where I was the moment when I got that news,” she said.

Cuento de un sobreviviente de Coffey Park Jose Gonzalez Staff Writer

Daisy Garnica, de 19 años, estudiante de Santa Rosa Junior College, regresó a su vecindario de Coffey Park a las 10 a.m. el pasado 10 de octubre, después de evacuar un día antes y encontró su casa en cenizas.

El incendio de Tubbs destruyó su casa durante la madrugada del 9 de octubre.

Al igual que muchos residentes de Coffey Park, la familia de Garnica se despertó con el caos y la conmoción.

“Nadie nos advirtió. Los vecinos fueron los que advirtieron a todos. La gente gritaba que teníamos que irnos rápidamente porque el fuego venía a mi casa,” dijo Garnica.

Garnica vivía con su hermana, sus padres, sus dos perros y sus dos pájaros. To-

dos evacuaron de forma segura alrededor de las 2 a.m.

“Fue una locura,” dijo ella. “La gente corría por la calle cortándose el uno al otro, gritando y llorando. Fue una pesadilla. Me temblaba las pierna y mi hermana estaba gritando y llorando en el automóvil.”

Cuando su casa comenzó a arder desde el patio trasero, el padre de Garnica se quedó otras dos horas tratando de apagar el fuego.

“Pero se dio por vencido cuando el fuego comenzó a venir desde el frente de mi casa,” dijo Garnica.

Garnica ahora vive con parientes, compartiendo habitación con su hermana de 17 años.

Antes del incendio, Garnica sufría de depresión y ansiedad. Al salir de la casa, su familia solo tuvo tiempo de llevar documentos importantes y mochilas. Perdió todo, incluso libros, su computadora, fotos

Antes y durante las fotos de fuego de la casa de Daisy Garnica en Coffey Park.

y todos los recuerdos de su infancia.

Ella también perdió la medicina que toma para controlar su depresión y ansiedad.

“Me enojé con el mundo, y comencé a llorar y me volví loca porque dejé mi medicamento que necesito para funcionar. Si pierdo un día, puedo ponerme en pensam-

Courtesy of Daisy Garnica

ientos suicidas,” dijo Garnica.

Le llevó dos días en obtener nuevo medicamento.

A pesar de que perdió todo, Garnica ha aprendido a no dar nada por hecho.

“Aprecia todo lo que tienes,” dijo ella.

“En solo un par de minutos, todo lo que tienes puede desaparecer.”

the stories 7

www.theoakleafnews.com

SRJC student narrowly escapes fire Dakota McGranahan Photo Editor Fire burned everything but passion for Santa Rosa Junior College student Gena Bernabe, 19.

Oct. 8 was another typical night at work for Bernabe, who served food while the fire raged on the little TV in the corner of Applebee’s. She had no idea that her life would change that night.

Driving home from work around midnight, she noticed the high winds and fiery illumination, but thought nothing of it. At home she went to bed like normal.

Two hours later she awoke to a commotion. “I could hear roaring winds and so many people in my neighborhood were screaming and screaming,” Bernabe said.

When Bernabe looked outside, she saw the flames—in her own backyard.

She sprang into action, grabbing miscellaneous items in a frantic flurry. She retrieved only her school bag and the contents of a full laundry hamper.

“I had no more time,” Bernabe said. “Everything around us was on fire, and it had only been five minutes since I had woken up.”

As Bernabe and her aunt climbed into the car to leave, they realized her uncle had not yet left.

Panicked, her aunt sprinted back inside to rescue

her husband, but told Bernabe to leave.

“I honestly thought that was the last time I was going to see them,” she said.

The firestorm raged in her rearview mirror as she left her neighborhood alone. Every house she passed had already encountered the fire, each home suffering various degrees of destruction.

“It looked like a fire tornado out there. Embers flying around in the wind looked more like small fireballs,” Bernabe said.

It was when she had left Coffey Park and was stuck in traffic that she began to panic.

“I was terrified. There were explosions almost every moment for several minutes and by the time I got to Barnes Road, I thought we were all going to die in our cars, or die trying to escape,” she said.

All she could do was sit in her car and hope that the traffic would move, and she would make it out alive. Both sides of the road were on fire and Bernabe decided to use her last resort. She called every contact in her phone, praying to reach someone, but had no such luck. The cell towers were down.

It was a matter of life or death, and at what felt like the last minute, the cars in front of her moved and Bernabe escaped for the final time.

She drove until she couldn’t see fire.

“I wandered around alone in my car for a long time because we all ended up separated

Memories What can never be recovered will never be forgotten

James Wyatt/ Oak Leaf

Michelle Poggi, Santa Rosa Junior College director of student outreach, lost her home in the devastating firestorm. Pool water became sludge filled with ash and other debris.

Dakota McGranahan/ Oak Leaf

Among the ashes of her home, SRJC Student Gena Bernabe sifts through the rubble that was once her room.

and in different towns,” she said.

She eventually met her aunt and uncle in the Dollar Tree parking lot on Sebastopol Road.

The next day she moved into her boyfriend’s empty room at his parents’ house. The room is vacant while he’s away at Humboldt State University.

In the days that followed, Bernabe volun-

teered her time helping others affected by the fires. Compounding her troubles, she was in an accident that wrecked her car.

“Right now, I just feel really scattered,” she said.

When she returned home, she sifted through what remained, and found her great-grandmother’s ring, in addition to other items.

Albert Gregory Managing Editor Metal, ceramic and ash are all that remain at the site of a Coffey Park lot someone once called home.

For Michelle Poggi, Santa Rosa Junior College director of student outreach, the memory of times spent in her family’s 28year home on Astaire Court will be what she’ll miss most after the Tubbs fire claimed it, along with more than 6,000 other North Bay structures.

“The difficult thing was when my husband went into the debris and picked up our daughter’s ceramic Winnie the Pooh cup from when she was a baby. That’s when I kind of lost it,” Poggi said. “Things are just things, what we lost are the memories, but we’ll make new ones.”

On Sunday, Oct. 8, late into the night, Poggi and her husband Vincent were still awake when they sensed something awry. “The power went out and we realized something was wrong,” Poggi said.

With no official notice, the smell of smoke told the Poggis it was time to move.

“We took our cat and I took my work laptop because I’m an employee at [SRJC], and I took a set of clothing I could change into because I thought I’d be going to work later that day,” Poggi chuckled, looking back on the foolishness of her mindset in that moment.

Her husband took nothing but the clothes on his back and as Poggi looked around, she felt there was really nothing there she couldn’t live without.

“Of course there’s things I regret not taking, like mementos of my dad who’s not here anymore, and of our children when they were babies,” Poggi said. “I have this firm belief that they are just things no matter what. As sentimental as I may be about them, we did the right thing in just leaving.”

As the Poggis left their home, they put a few things in the car, but traffic was gridlocked on their street and hadn’t moved an inch in what felt like 20 minutes.

“My husband walked around the corner to go look down Hopper Avenue and saw the flames and came back. At that point we decided we were going to walk out,” Poggi said.

They left their vehicles and walked about five miles to the Finley Center, arriving at about 5:30 a.m.

She and her husband, who are staying with

her mother at a development in the Kawana Springs area, have been able to return to their destroyed home only once, for about 30 minutes, to retrieve her remaining car that was nearly untouched by the fires besides a few superficial burns.

“Compared to everything else around there, it looks pristine,” Poggi said. “It’s kind of odd that it was, for the most part, untouched.”

Not only did Poggi and her husband lose their house, but their daughters, who are in there in the early 20s, lost their childhood home. This was especially hard for their youngest, who had only moved out three months prior.

After calling Coffey Park home for nearly three decades and now seeing it reduced to nothing, Poggi said it’s challenging not to go to a dark place, but they’ve tried to remain resilient.

“We’re pretty strong, and I know we’re going to be OK,” she said. “I’m not the kind of person to curl up in a ball and give up. We’re just not like that. But it’s thinking about all those sentimental things that kind of does me in every once in awhile.”

Poggi has received support from all over, including her twin sister Marcia, but of all the support she has received, Poggi has been the most impressed by the SRJC community.

“I am so proud of our college,” Poggi said while fighting back tears. “I feel so good about the response from the college not only for the students, which has been phenomenal, but even for the staff and the faculty who’ve been affected. I feel so much of a community and I really think they did it right.”

The message Poggi wants to get out is she knows there are many with survivor’s guilt, but people need to share their joy of having a home because those who lost their homes need it.

“We need them to be the anchor in the community for us to then rebuild the neighborhoods and rebuild our community,” Poggi said. “We need them to just own that joy and share it with everybody and to not feel bad for it, because we need it so badly in this community. We need the joy.”

8 the stories Rachel Edelstein/ Oak Leaf

SRJC student Nathan Lauterbach doesn’t recognize the hill where his family home once stood.

The entire landscape was destroyed by the fire, along with his neighborhood.

October 27, 2017

Feeling the loss Communications major gratefully returns to routine, promotes a hopeful attitude in the weeks to come

Surrounded by flames Rachel Edelstein Web Editor Nathan Lauterbach smelled smoke as he was getting ready for bed around 10 p.m. on Oct. 8 at his family’s home on Heights Road east of Larkfield. He checked a map online, but it showed the fire was far away, so he went to sleep. At 1 a.m. his mom woke him up because they had to get out.

There were sparks flying and they could see the glow of the fire.

“I grabbed my wallet, keys, some clothes, and my DS. I threw my cat in the car. When I opened the garage door I could see fire coming straight towards the house,” Lauterbach said. “As I drove away, there was fire on both sides of the road.”

His parents both made it out separately in their cars, although his dad’s truck caught fire on the road, and he had to abandon it.

His neighbor picked him up.

“I got to my parent’s vineyard in just my underwear and socks and waited there for my parents,” Lauterbach said.

He described hearing explosion after explosion echoing through the valley all morning long. He thought they would have to evacuate again.

Lauterbach and his parents are staying in a trailer on their vineyard for now.

They go to friends’ houses for dinner and showers.

He has a lot of questions, but he specifically wants to know why the county didn’t activate the emergency broadcast system.

At this point he says he’s looking for something to explain why the regular alert systems didn’t work.

They don’t know yet if their home survived. He describes the view of the valley he would enjoy from his parent’s porch. He hopes his collection of Tom Clancy books is still there.

“I’m not sure if I’ll continue with school.

I’m still in shock. I forgot my backpack.

I lost all my notes and textbooks and I’m taking five classes this semester,” Lauterbach said.

He spends time right now reading online or watching Youtube videos, which helps him cope with the uncertain situation.

Beyond the loss of material possessions, it’s also jarring to see the changed landscape.

“It’s hard to recognize the hillside where I grew up,” he said. “You can’t see any of the landmarks anymore. I don’t know what to do. It’s amazing and terrifying.”

Memories lost

SRJC student one of many to lose everything

Dakota McGranahan/ Oak Leaf

The Coffey Park neighborhood in north Santa Rosa now resembles a scrapbook of scenes pulled from a war movie, with nothing but car frames and supports left standing.

Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor For residents of Coffey Park, the Tubbs Fire reduced lifelong memories to mounds of smouldering ash in a matter of hours. Second-year SRJC student Craig Lowry, 18, was among the residents sifting through rubble after the smoke cleared.

On a day when Lowry would normally be sitting in an air-conditioned classroom, he found himself laboring under a layer of dense, toxic smoke, shoveling the remnants of a friend’s home into a wheelbarrow to aid in the search for a fireproof safe. “This is something you don’t experience every lifetime,” he said.

When the flames initially approached the Coffey Park area, Lowry grabbed his laptop and a change of clothes and evacuated to Cotati. The destruction of the blaze transformed hundreds of college students, faculty and staff members into victims of a natural disaster. The ongoing fallout from the wildfires ravaging Sonoma County leaves more than 600 members of the SRJC community facing hazy and uncertain futures.

Some students are worried about how the school will respond to lost time during the semester while students like Lowry don’t have the luxury of such concerns. “I’m not even thinking about school right now. This is bigger than that, and it’s not over,” Lowry said.

Rachael Edelstein/ Oak Leaf

Santa Rosa Junior College student Alex Simms had to flee the Tubbs Fire twice on the night of Oct. 9. Simms’ anxiousness to resume her routine drove her to return to school as soon as possible.

Charlotte Maxwell & Rachel Edelstein Staff Writer & Web Editor A day of celebration turned into a nightmare for a Santa Rosa Junior College communications major.

Alex Simms, 21, lived in the Upper Brush Creek neighborhood of Santa Rosa.

On the night of Oct. 8, she returned from shopping for her dad’s upcoming birthday on Monday. She wrapped the gifts she bought and put them by her dad’s phone so he would see them when he woke up.

Simms detected the smoke outside and checked online only to find an advisory warning. At that time, the fire was near Safari West, a safe distance from her house.

Not thinking much of it, Simms stayed up to work on her college applications.

Around midnight, she woke her parents to tell them she was nervous about the advisory warning. They told her to go to bed because it was far away, so she went back to work on her applications.

Thirty minutes later, a neighbor broke down the front door to her family’s house.

“He was knocking and knocking.

When nobody answered, he just broke it down and said, ‘Get out and run,’” Simms said.

Simms grabbed her cat and assisted her parents with loading boxes of photo albums into their cars. She also took her gym bag, which was ready with a towel, shampoo and conditioner.

She thought she could collect the rest of her stuff when she returned. She hugged her parents goodbye.

“I didn’t realize there wasn’t going to be a ‘we’re coming back,’” she said.

Simms set out for her ex-boyfriend’s parents’ house off Piner Road on the other side of town.

“I figured I’d be safe over there,” she said.

As she drove down the street, the first house was on fire. Traffic lined the street and people everywhere were evacuating. Simms worried she was stuck. When traffic let up, she stopped for gas and continued on her way.

No more than 10 minutes after she arrived, Hopper Avenue caught on fire.

Simms was forced to evacuate for a second time. “Not only did I have to go through this once, I had to go through it again,” Simms said.

She helped her ex-boyfriend’s family evacuate. They were headed to the freeway when Coffey Park caught on fire.

Traffic surrounded her. People screamed and yelled for neighbors to evacuate.

Simms turned off of Piner Road onto Coffey Lane to escape the blaze. That’s when the fire started coming down Coffey Lane, as if the flames were chasing her.

The stress crept up on Simms: “My cat was crying and I was emotional. I ended up getting sick in my car. You can’t even imagine. It was like hell was chasing you, coming after you.”

Not only did she have to deal with the separation from her parents, she also had to stay strong for her cat. On top of escaping a raging inferno to save their lives.

Later that night she drove to Bodega Bay with her ex-boyfriend. The pair lost all communication with everyone, so they decided to drive to Simms’s godmother’s house in Petaluma.

Simms’ parents and the other evacuated family members arrived at her godmother’s house. Together they sat in front of the TV, watching everything burn.

In the following week, Simms couldn't eat; the stress upset her stomach, “I had to go get anti-nausea pills from the hospital,” she said.

Simms normally uses natural remedies to help her relax before bed, but recently she has mostly been relegated to napping.

She is thankful she grabbed her backpack before evacuating her house. It had notebooks and her laptop in it, “I feel lucky to still have school supplies, but I don’t have my textbooks,” she said.

She wants to finish her semester at SRJC because she thinks it will help to restore some normalcy in her life, “I think this is a really good place to start for that,” she said.

Simms hopes at the end of the day, people who still have their homes will climb into bed and enjoy it. “Don’t take anything for granted - the rug that you walk on, the hallway you walk down to get to your bedroom. Once that’s gone, it’s the deepest pain ever,” she said.

“I can’t go home. As much as I want to, there’s no home to go back to.”

www.theoakleafnews.com

the stories 9

Community rallies for adjunct instructor Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor When Ethan De Seife moved his family from Burlington, Vt. to Santa Rosa in July of last year, he didn’t know anyone. All he knew was that he had a job opportunity teaching Media 4, an introduction to mass communications class at Santa Rosa Junior College.

“I didn’t know anything about the community and the people here. It was just a place for me to get a job in my field,” De Seife said.

De Seife also had no way of knowing that one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history would ravage the city of Santa Rosa, burn his home to the ground and leave him, his wife and their 2-year-old son homeless. “We were only living in our home for less than a year before the fire,” De Seife said.

De Seife joins more than 50 other SRJC faculty and staff members confirmed to have lost homes in the fire. Most had to flee in the middle of the night with little or no notice.

The night the fires broke out on Oct. 8, De Seife hosted visiting in-laws. “We all woke up around 1 a.m. and knew we had to evacuate,” he said. The Tubbs wildfire destroyed De Seife’s home in the Hidden Valley neighborhood. “I was standing calf-deep in ash in my former house.”

The De Seife family spent the next morn-

ing at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building, unsure of what their future held as the city burned all around them. De Seife’s entire world was in flux.

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast of the country in Jacksonville, FL, De Seife family friend Jennifer Campbell, 29, got to work on a GoFundMe campaign, unbeknownst to the De Seife family.

“They are very helpful people. He’s a professor, she works in healthcare and they just connect people,” Campbell said. When Campbell began the process of creating the GoFundMe page, there were already more than 4,000 campaigns tied to the wildfires, “I didn’t think we’d get $25,000 in three days. People Ethan hasn’t talked to in 30 years are donating.”

The campaign reached its initial goal of $25,000 in just three days, with contributions from more than 250 people. That level of support is augmented by the presence of the junior college population.

“Students and faculty are contributing to the GoFundMe page,” De Seife said. “Some students are even offering to babysit for me.

It’s incredible, I’m just an adjunct instructor who's only been here for a semester.”

Growing up in South Florida, Campbell is no stranger to natural disasters. “I lived through Hurricane Andrew, but hurricanes don’t completely wipe everything away like a wildfire,” he said.

As the wildfires continue to remain active, the smoke has yet to clear, leaving the De Seife family in a whirlwind of un-

Warning signs: Albert Gregory Managing Editor

It took three signs of trouble for Tom Francois, a Santa Rosa Junior College assistant baseball coach, to realize he needed to evacuate his Fountaingrove home of 19 years during the Tubbs Fire.

He initially woke up at about 2 a.m., noticed the power was out, and heard the wind knocking things around. He decided it wasn't anything serious and returned to bed.

He woke up 10 minutes later and could smell smoke, but still decided it was nothing.

“I figured wind must've blown a transformer, and hot wire must've started some brush fire,” Francois said.

He went back to bed again, but 10 minutes later his next door neighbor came by and pounded on his door. He finally got up.

“I'm an amputee, so it took me a little longer to get to the front door,” Francois said. In 2001 he felt a pain in his thigh while playing racquetball, went to the doctor and found out he had a blood clot from his knee down.

The neighbor told Francois he had to get out of there because “fires are coming.”

“The smoke was so thick I could hardly see in front of me,” Francois said. “The wind was just howling, and in all honesty, I thought maybe I could ride this thing out.”

He realized he couldn't stay, but thought at least he could get his 2010 Toyota Tacoma out of the garage.

The neighbor across the street noticed Francois’ dilemma and instructed her husband, Mike Musson, to help.

He picked up the garage door and held it open while Francois got his truck out. “I’ll tell ya that doggone thing was heavy,” Francois said.

Francois drove out of his neighborhood down Lake Park Drive and noticed the open area on the south was completely engulfed in flames. “It was coming like a freight train,” he said. “I could see

Ali Benzerara/ Oak Leaf

A GoFundMe campaign started by a family friend has raised more than $25,000. Ethan De Seife and his family are new additions to the communtiy, having recently moved from Virginia last year.

certainty. “I have no idea how I’m going to make the transition back to school. It’s not going to be easy,” he said.

The thin housing market in the North Bay will put the SRJC faculty to the test. A recent Bloomberg article featuring De Seife included a graph displaying the U.S. metro areas with the highest rent increase during the last five years; Santa Rosa was at the top of the list.

“Sonoma County has had such a housing shortage for a long time. The wild-

fires are going to make it even harder. It’s going to be especially challenging for adjunct faculty,” said Mike Traina, an SRJC media professor.

With so many unanswered questions swirling among the ash-ridden air, there’s one thing that De Seife does know. “It’s incredible to me the type of support I’ve received from a community I just recently joined,” he said.

SRJC baseball coach loses home, recovers coveted State Championship ring

over the ridge there was this red glow and I said, ‘This is not good.’”

The fire was within striking distance. “I said, ‘Man alive, if that jumps this road and I'm only a quarter mile away, I'm done,” Francois said. “To be honest with you I was hoping for the best and thinking the worst.”

He took off for his brother’s house in Sebastopol. When he arrived, he turned on the television only to see Kmart and Mountain Mike's burning in Northwest Santa Rosa. Then he saw Cardinal Newman High School, Paradise Ridge Winery, the Fountaingrove Inn, The Hilton and the Extended Stay America hotel burn.

“All of that was within half a mile of my house,” Francois said.

Francois’ son, Matt, showed him a picture of a house on Palisades and Bella Vista that was within two blocks. “I knew then that my house was gone,” he said.

About 30 minutes later, a neighbor called to inform Francois that the entire development had been leveled and there was nothing left.

“It looked like something out of a war movie.

The only thing missing were the craters from the bombs, but there was fire still going, smoke still going,” Francois said. “We saw a house—it was fully involved and I mean it was a huge home and there was nobody there to fight it because those guys were spread so darn thin.”

Francois returned to the rubble where his home had stood around 10 a.m. on Monday. Finding it too hot to sift through the debris, he decided to wait a day.

Francois served as police officer for 33 years in the City of Campbell. David Carmichael, the current Campbell police chief, called him and said“Tom, there's officers coming up to help you.”

Despite Francois’ refusals, the officers insisted and returned once again on Tuesday.

The officers and Francois recovered two police badges he had in a shadow box and, “most importantly,” his state championship ring from SRJC baseball’s win in 2016.

“It was pretty toasted, but I'm just happy to get

Dakota McGranahan/ Oak Leaf

Top: Firefighters use the top of Wikiup as a vantage point to scout out the other devastated areas. Bottom: Santa Rosa Junior College assistant baseball coach Tom Francois records stats for the SRJC baseball team as part of his duties. Francois served as a police officer in Campbell, Calif. for 33 years.

it back,” he said. The officers promised to make him a new shadow box.

“I’m just thanking god I'm alive.”

Now it's Francois doing the difficult job of navigating through the insurance companies, but he feels overall Hartford has been great and he feels blessed with all of the help and resources friends and family have offered. He puts SRJC head baseball coach Damon Neidlinger at the top of that list.

“He was the first guy to call me and said, ‘Tom I have a room for you and you can stay here as long as you want,’” Francois said.

His family offered the same assistance, but he felt overwhelmed by all the help, and he knew no matter where he would go, it would be temporary.

“I don’t want to be moving from pillar to post,” Francois said.

For now, he’s staying at his brother’s house and trying to find a more permanent place in the next two weeks, hopefully in Santa Rosa.

“The furthest I want to go is Petaluma, but if I have to go further I've got to do it,” Francois said.

“It’s like I tell the boys on the field, ‘We adapt and overcome,’ and that’s what I’m in the process of doing right now.”

Francois had his house built more than 20 years ago. He raised a family in that house. He lost his wife while living in that house.

“I lost my wife three and a half years ago, and that house was a tribute to her,” Francois said.

“Every nook and cranny of that house was her.

Her memories will always be in my heart and my head, but I want to rebuild that house as a monument to her. It gives me something to look forward to.”

10 the stories

October 27, 2017

Rincon Valley fire investigator shares her story Jett Williams Deputy A&E Editor

Brandon McCapes/ Oak Leaf

SRJC EMS student Evan Aguilar’s truck survived after he abandoned it to help evacuate seniors at Brookdale in Fountaingrove. Aguilar had to guide a first-time bus driver in an ash-covered city bus full of patients to safety at Finley Community Center.

SRJC student heads into danger to help Brandon McCapes News Editor What started off as a night playing the board game “LIFE” turned into a night of fire and death.

In the early hours of Oct. 9, Evan Aguilar, 24, rushed towards the f lames in Fountaingrove to aid those in danger.

Aguilar, an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) student at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Public Safety Training Center in Windsor, had been playing a board game with his girlfriend when the smell of smoke alerted him to the fire.

As thousands f led the fire, he risked life and limb to do what he could to help.

He drove from Kawana Springs Road towards the f lames he saw on the horizon.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know where I was going, and I ended up at Brookdale,” Aguilar, who helped evacuate the seniorliving community on Fountaingrove Parkway said.

Emergency personnel were grateful for his presence as they attempted to evacuate hundreds of residents onto city buses.

“They gave me a pair of gloves and said to move out all the patients from the facility,” he said. Although Aguilar said the academy did a great job to train him, the chaos of the night presented its own challenges.

“Not to say what we were doing wasn’t careful or coordinated, but it was definitely very rushed,” Aguilar said. “It was tough because a lot of those patients aren’t able to walk and a lot of them are dementia patients.”

At one point, the Brookdale employees

on the last bus with Aguilar f led to save their cars, leaving only the EMS student and an untrained volunteer to drive the patients to safety. “I looked at my truck and I thought, ‘If it burns, it burns.’”

The volunteer, who couldn’t see through the ash-covered windshield, relied on Aguilar to direct the bus with his head out the window.

Together, they delivered the patients safely to Finley Community Center, but the need for Aguilar’s assistance wasn’t over. He volunteered the rest of the week and drove to affected areas as far as Napa helping prepare people for evacuation.

“I was just going to different evacuation centers seeing what I could do to help,” he said. “One night I drove up with a nurse to Kaiser while the fire was still burning. We had to pull the doors open to get insulin for the patients at the vet’s building.”

EMS Academy instructor Anthony Campaña heard about Aguila’s heroics from a nurse in medical operations. “I must say he is a humble guy since I had to learn about this from others.”

Aguila is quick to point out that he doesn’t consider what he did heroic.

“I just did a decent job of doing what I was trained to do,” Aguila said. “That was all it was, not heroism.”

Fire Prevention Officer Cyndi Foreman woke early Monday morning in her Windsor home to radio calls of structure fires on Mark West Springs Road, and a Sheriff’s Deputy trapped by a wall of flames. Upon hearing the call, Foreman knew it was time to go to work.

“I did not at that time realize the magnitude of what was happening. I will be forever changed by what I saw,” Foreman said.

As she got dressed and walked out to the service vehicle parked outside, neighbors near and far walked over and started asking her questions. They wanted to know what to do.

“In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ‘No, we don’t need to evacuate.’ But I certainly wasn’t going to tell the public that,” Foreman said.

As her neighbors left to their homes she turned to her husband and said, “We’re not evacuating. Get the dogs loaded up. I’ll call you and let you know.”

Foreman got in her truck and drove from her house to Larkfield. Even before she saw the glow of the flames, she could hear the muffled booms of propane tanks exploding in the Mark West Springs neighborhoods.

“Every time I heard one of those, I knew it was another house we had lost,” Foreman said.

Foreman knew this fire was different from any other she had seen before.

“Usually we call the site of a fire ‘controlled chaos.’ But this was straight chaos. The sheer magnitude of this fire was absolutely shocking,” she said.

To help get the word out, Foreman drove through neighborhoods sounding her siren and banging on doors, trying to save as many lives as possible by telling people to evacuate.

As she made her way up into the Wikiup hills, Foreman twice had to turn around to keep herself safe. “The closer I got to the top, the more dangerous it became. The last thing we need is a firefighter stuck or injured,” she said.

Foreman knew it was counterintuitive to put herself in unnecessary peril to save others.

Roberta MacIntyre/ Oak Leaf

Cyndi Foreman, Fire Investigator for Rincon Valley and Windsor Fire Protection Districts, was early to arrive to the rapidly growing Tubbs Fire.

“Then we’re gonna be drawing resources for that and not getting help to the folks who really need it,” she said.

At one point, she and several other firefighters were standing in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, at the base of Mark West Springs road. They began to hear loud popping sounds, which they realized was ammunition going up in flames. The source was Markell’s gun shop, where Foreman’s department bought flashlights and tactical gear.

“It just starts to make it very real. When you attach horrific sounds like that to people you know, it’s a game changer,” Foreman said.

Foreman was baffled at the sheer scope of this fire, and the speed with which it consumed land and buildings both in the hills and on the valley floor.

“The fuel that this fire had, the path that it took; there was no fire modeling to predict what this thing did. When it blows across six lanes of freeway, when it takes out entire neighborhoods miles away from the firefront...there’s no way to make that make sense,” Foreman said.

SRJC loses two Grant Wetmore Opinion Editor The recent wildfires did not leave the Santa Rosa Junior College unscathed. In addition to the hundreds of homes lost to the flame, the fires took the lives of 42 people to date.

Among the death toll were Montee Kirvin, a retired SRJC instructor, and former student Christina Hanson.

Kirvin, 81, taught Introduction to Fish and Wildlife from 2002-2003. Though his teaching career was short, he still managed to leave an impression.

“He was passionate, knowledgeable and inspirational. He was the photographer of the slides he showed in class,” said Kasey Wade, a friend and fellow instructor in the Agriculture/Natural Resources department. Wade believed Kirvin left teaching to pursue other projects.

Kirvin’s biggest accomplishments were

not in teaching, but in preservation work. A lover of falcons, Kirvin worked extensively to preserve and protect the endangered Peregrine Falcon species. Kirvin’s research helped ban DDT, a dangerous pesticide that causes the thinning of falcon eggshells.

Hanson, 28, also perished in the flames.

Though she attended SRJC several years ago, she was fondly recalled by instructors.

“She was very bright, always smiling and happy to chat about social problems after class,” said SRJC sociology instructor Dr. Rima DasGupta. “Christina was in a wheelchair, but she never talked about it as a problem. Rather, she felt it gave her a chance to see things from a different perspective.”

College Skills instructor Molly Taylor said Hanson tutored American Sign Language for a few semesters. “She had spunk and spoke with assurance,” she said. “She worked hard and did well. She seemed to have all the typical young adult experiences of many of our students.”

the stories 11

www.theoakleafnews.com

Picking up the pieces

James Wyatt/ Oak Leaf

Top: The brother of a Coffey Park resident digs through the rubble of his sibling’s leveled home looking for a prized coin collection. In his hands are copper plates from Mexico he found through the ashes.

Left: Martin Little searches for his coin collection near Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa after the Tubbs fire destroyed everything he had owned. Little, a retired California Highway Patrol officer, rented his home and lost everything.

Right: Residents of the Larkfield-Wikiup area, Jeff Lippincott and Storm Fogg, stand in front of police blockades and attempt to gather news of when they will be able to return back to their homes.

James Wyatt/ Oak Leaf

Top: Pennie Parlin and Alison Pruitt stand in the ruins of their Coffey Park house in Santa Rosa after the Tubbs fire devastated the entire neighborhood. Though most of their possessions were lost in the fire, their spirit was high knowing they were safe.

Bottom: A Coffey Park resident stands in the debris of her bedroom.

Photo essay by James Wyatt

fight, flight or freez 1 3

Coffey Park The flames encroaching upon the Coffey Park neighborhood spread quickly, rapidly growing in size. The Tubbs fire would eventually wipe out the entire subdivision, leaving an area of Santa Rosa resembling a massive graveyard with chimneys standing in for tombstones.

“It was surreal. I saw the back of the house, and it was glowing orange,” said Anetra McCartney, 22, a first-year SRJC international student athlete.

2 Fountaingrove “It looked like something out of a war movie. The only thing missing were the craters from the bombs, but there was fire still going, smoke still going,” SRJC assistant baseball coach Tom Francois said. “We saw a house — it was fully involved and I mean it was a huge home and there was nobody there to fight it because those guys were spread so darn thin.”

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wikiup Wikiup Drive was hit hard by the firestorm, destroying houses like the one above. Former SRJC instructor Ty Benoit was one of many forced to evacuate Wikiup on the night of Oct. 8. A few days later, a neighbor of Benoit’s showed her a photo, taken from a phone, that confirmed her fears: her house burned to the ground. “It was like the Kennedy assassination or 9/11. I will always remember where I was at that moment when I got that news.”

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4 cardinal newman Cardinal Newman High School, located in northern Santa Rosa, was significantly damaged in the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed 19 classrooms, the admissions and counseling offices, soccer and baseball fields.

Spread by Dakota McGranahan and Rachel Edelstein

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ze: survivalists L E G E N D

Evacuation Centers Burned Landmarks Burned Buildings

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1- Luther Burbank Center 2- Cardinal Newman High School 3- Paradise Ridge Winery 4- Fountaingrove Golf Course 5- Hilton Hotel off Fountaingrove Pkwy.

6- Fountaingrove Inn 7- Historic Round Barn 8- Annadel State Park 1- Finley Community Center 2- Cook Junior High School 3- Elsie Allen High School 4- Veterans Memorial Building 5- Sonoma County Fairgrounds

A week’s worth of catastrophe

14 the community

October 27, 2017

When tragedy hit Santa Rosa

Bear cubs respond Chelsea Wood & Jose Gonzalez Staff Writers While the community rallied in support of SRJC, its students gave back as well. Numerous volunteers, including SRJC students, set out to work at the 15 local shelters that opened to house thousands of wildfire evacuees.

Students assisting at shelters led tasks such as donating excess supplies, cooking and patrolling for looters.

Seamus Reed, 18, a first-year SRJC student, lost his family home in Coffey Park but volunteered his time with American Red Cross at the Finley Community Center. “I was tired of sitting around at the place we were staying and doing nothing. Keeping busy has made the whole process of losing my house easier,” Reed said.

Cristal Lopez, 20, a third-year SRJC student, helped every night after the Healdsburg Community Center opened for evacuees Oct. 9. Lopez, a Healdsburg City employee, coordinated volunteers to make sure evacuees received necessities. “The most impacting stories come from those who have lost everything and are still willing to volunteer,” Lopez said. “My heart breaks for all those who have been impacted by this tragedy, but I know Sonoma County will unite and overcome this.”

Edgar Soria Garcia, 20, a SRJC journalism major, received word from his sister that she and friends forgot to pack feminine hygiene products as they evacuated. Garcia quickly went to Target and personally bought $150 worth of pads, tampons and women’s clothing. “My friends told me they wouldn’t have even

Courtesy of Jesus “Chuy” Valencia

Jesus “Chuy” Valencia, SRJC student and chef, cooks for evacuees near Oakville.

thought about it,” Garcia said, continuing that his time with female roommates sparked the idea. He donated the items to the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial shelter.

Yaquelin Buenrostro, 21, a SRJC business management major, donated her time by serving meals and organizing supplies for evacuees.

Jesus “Chuy” Valencia, SRJC student and chef, cooked and managed volunteers at the Finley Community Center. He volunteered eight straight days of his time while off from work as a chef in Oakville and Sonoma.

His shifts lasted 10-12 hours each day. “I can't fight fires, but I can fight the hunger in people's bellies,” he said.

In the devastated Coffey Park neighborhood, two SRJC students handed out water bottles and masks to those sifting through the remains of their homes for much of the day on

Oct. 10.

“What are we going to do? Sit there and do nothing?” said Pamela Ochoa, 22. “We don’t know what to do so thought we could at least handout water bottles and masks.”

Her friend, SRJC student Maria Juarez, 20, said, “We all have friends who lost a bunch of houses, so it’s something you have in mind for them.”

Students who aided with relief efforts aren’t the only ones from SRJC to contribute to the community.

SRJC’s objective is to assist faculty, staff and students with their recovery and acclimation back to a normal sense of academic life.

The public relations department sent daily updates on campus closures, financial relief and support services. The Southwest Center’s staff personally called Spanish-speaking students to update them on SRJC activity.

Continues on Pg.15

requests to license the pin image for Tshirts and other merchandise. She has declined them across the board, even though everyone who has inquired has been hoping to help contribute to the fundraising efforts.

“I copyrighted the image as part of my normal routine before I published it,” Butchart said.

“Nav igating licensing agreements and ensuring all the funds are for charity at this volume is more than I can handle right now. Keeping it under tight control will help me ensure it’s not infringed on for profit elsewhere, and that the proceeds it generates will be diverted back to our community.”

Butchart is working on making T-shirts and other printed items in response to the enormous demand.

“The ROSE-ilience fundraiser has taken over my life for the moment.

My family has to remind me to eat and sleep, but I am so happy to be giving my undivided attention to this task,” she said.

Like the entire Santa Rosa community, Butchart’s passion and drive are the crucial seeds necessary for the city to return in full bloom. “It’s fitting that our town is named for a beautiful, tenacious perennial plant,” she said.

“Roses grow back every year.”

The ROSE-ilience of a devastated community Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor Mikayla Butchart was tired of living in New York City. She wanted a quieter life, one where she could have more space and “refill her creative well.” After spending 15 years in the Big Apple, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in illustration at the School of Visual Arts, she had an urge to return home two months ago.

“I started to feel attracted to Santa Rosa again. I wanted to be a part of the creative culture here,” she said.

“There’s a lot of very cool people doing a lot of very cool things.”

After the wildfires burned a path of cataclysmic destruction through her hometown, Butchart knew she needed to do something to help. “I felt so helpless all week,” she said. “After hearing all the volunteer shelters were overstaffed and financial donations were preferred, I felt like I had no

way of lending my support beyond my immediate family.”

That’s when the artist put her skills to work.

“I experimented with different rose imagery. I wanted to capture the compassion and collective support this community has been showing in the wake of this disaster,” Butchart said.

She spent three days sketching page after page of roses and clasped hands, nixing anything that looked too much like a businessy handshake or praying hands until the image felt right. The end result was a poignant image of two hands, joined in an embrace, resembling rose petals. The image would become the ROSE-ilience enamel pin, offered at $15 each, with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly to wildfire victims.

The response was overwhelming.

“My first inquiry to the manufacturer was a quote for 100 units; I was not expecting the pin to go viral and generate this level of response,” Butchart said.

The pins have been shared more than 1,800 times on Facebook and have generated more than $20,000 that Butchart is donating to the City of Santa Rosa’s official relief fund, Redwood Credit Union North Bay Relief Fund and Redwood Empire Food Bank.

“I’ve been over whelmed with messages from people in our community saying the image brought them to tears,” Butchart said.

The ongoing battle for the community will prove to be one of healing and rebuilding. For Butchart and her art, the struggle will be a legal one. “I think the ongoing battle will be ensuring that the ROSE-ilience image I designed remains in my hands and doesn’t get reproduced for profit elsewhere,” she said.

Butchart has received hundreds of

ROSE-ilience pins can be purchased on her Etsy shop, mikaylabutchart.

www.theoakleafnews.com

Volunteers

the community 15 Wayward winds of October

SRJC students find ways to help their community

By Kyle Torr

Continued from Pg. 14

It was tryin’ times when the red skies came Over the hills, those black ridges of shame And the houses were stripped past their skeletal frames A disaster unprecedented ‘Twas not one hour into Monday morn When the winds turned heavy and swelled with scorn Before even the firemen could arrive to warn Too fast for anyone to prevent it

James Wyatt/ Oak Leaf

Santa Rosa Junior College students Pamela Ochoa (left), Maria Juarez (right) walked around neighborhoods like Coffey Park handing out particle masks and water bottles to anyone in need Oct. 10.

The bookstore will be donating to those who lost books and school supplies in the fire.

Thirty additional laptops will be added to the school’s loner service program and lost loner items will not be charged to student’s accounts. Bikes will be offered to students who lost means of transportation by Community Bikes in Santa Rosa.

From Oct. 18 to Oct. 20, SRJC opened its campuses to offer support to students affected by the fires. Services include access to academic and crisis counseling, financial aid, showers and wifi, student health services and admissions and records.

On Oct. 19, SRJC hosted a community event, SRJC Strong, providing free food, wellness resources such as massages and help with grant applications for the school population.

During the first week back in session, SRJC offered therapy dogs on the Santa Rosa and Petaluma campuses to ease students experiencing trauma. The dogs, from Bergin University of Canine Studies, will be available in the Doyle and Mahoney libraries until Nov. 2.

SRJC’s culinary arts program hosted Sonoma Family Meal, a free food organization started after the Nuns fire. The four-day long meal service produced approximately 5,000 meals every day, each meal feeding four to six people. Community members in need could pick up lunches or dinners to-go twice a day.

San Francisco chefs and restaurants such as Tartine, f lour+water, Bicycle Bahn Mi, Traci de Jardin’s and others donated meals. Local contributors such as Kendall-Jackson, Costeaux French Bakery, F.E.E.D. Sonoma, Franco-American Bakery, Vintner’s Inn, Bella Rosa Coffee and more also donated meals.

The SRJC Men’s soccer coach, Marty Kinahan, brought his team to assist at the event on Oct.

21 and help relieve weary volunteers.

On Oct. 23, all SRJC classes and activities resumed on the Santa Rosa and Petaluma campuses, including sites in Southwest Santa Rosa, Shone Farm in Forestville and the Public Safety Training Center in Windsor.

SRJC will offer free parking on all campuses until Oct. 29 with more recovery events scheduled in the coming weeks.

The events will include therapy dogs, food distribution and mindfulness activities.

At least 650 SRJC students and more than 60 faculty and staff members have lost their homes. In response to the fires, the SRJC Foundation formed the SRJC Fire Relief Fund and disbursed monetary aid to about 400 faculty, staff and students, according to Ellen Maremont Silver, SRJC’s communications and marketing director.

The SRJC Fire Relief Fund received a donation of $50,000 from Exchange Bank and an additional $100,000 from The Press Democrat. The SRJC community contributed another $150,000. The SRJC Foundation started with $100,000 and has now raised $400,000 total to help find housing for students and faculty.

“We are deeply grateful for the generosity of Exchange Bank,” said SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong. “Our community is resilient, and I am confident we’ll get through this together and come out an even stronger institution.”

Donations to the SRJC Fire Relief Fund may be made online at: firerelief.santarosa.edu.

All of the people put out in the night Fleeing the burden of infernal plight When all of the city began to ignite And more than just houses were lost Charred remains of memories gone for all time For elders, for children, for men in their prime A return to form will be a treacherous climb At an undesirable cost I dashed with restlessness back into the room My boots they were tremblin’ with every nearer boom And the bloodcurdling thought of being presently entombed Under ashes and debris where I stood I escaped within moments of homes turning to rubble We drove like madmen to escape the ragin’ trouble And I looked back, and I scratched at my stubble Sayin’ “Well, there goes the neighborhood...”

We watched from the steps of unfamiliar places The fires, they stole away of all of our traces Now a man in the dark he stands, and he’s faceless With the embers falling down ‘round his feet The wood-shingled roofs they lit up in a blaze The outlying flames disappeared into haze Their far-flung disturbance left me in a daze As I mourned ‘neath the murky, grey sheet Wilting leaves and burnt grapes on the vine Oh, the harvest this year isn’t doing so fine And the traffic’s at a standstill up and down the line It’s been that way for hours upon hours Can anyone spare me a shirt off their back?

I’m covered in soot, and my soles they are black After trying to squeeze my whole life in a crack In the wall to be saved by no showers The fires they fell to the roar of the water Mother Nature she clutched for the heels of her daughter To pull her up by the bootstraps and lead her off to the slaughter For the hydrants had cut off all use for her So I ventured forth into the desolate land To feel all the pages falling through my hand And my knees buckled, I fell down and could not stand As I was victim to the one Lucifer Oh, those wayward winds of October skies Blowin’ ash into town and smoke in our eyes It was a long hard-fought battle no one had realized And forevermore we had all better learn So they planted a Lilly, alone in its field With the dirt all scorched, blackened with no yield It gave its whole industry to act as a shield And now there’s nothin’ left to burn Oh, little town of Saint Rose When the carnage stops, no one knows And it’s a drag to see you without any clothes The forecast says fog on the Golden Gate Bridge But it’s Smoke from the Red Skies over Atlas Ridge Kyle Torr is a journalism student who lost his home in the Wikiup neighborhood.

16 the perspective

October 27, 2017

EDITORIAL

Will the love in the air remain thick once the smoke clears?

R

emember the week following 9/11? When it seemed like every car you saw proudly displayed an American flag decal on the bumper? Or how every house had a flag planted in the front lawn? The entire country rallied together and unified as one red, white and blue force of stars and stripes. Remember how long that lasted?

The North Bay wildfires may be gone. The smoke lingering in the air will soon depart and like clockwork, our normal routines will return. Everyone affected by the wildfires’ unforeseen destruction will carry a multitude of unanswered questions in the days, months and years to come. The main question on our minds: When the smoke clears, will the love in the air still be just as thick?

The overwhelming amount of generosity and resiliency within the community is awe-inspiring, but how long can that level of support and togetherness sustain itself before we denigrate back to the me-first mentality that afflicts us all?

Are we still intrigued by Las Vegas? Is anyone still worried about what’s going on in Houston? Does anyone even care that Puerto Rico

is practically living in the stone age?

We live in a hyper-digital age of trending news stories. When disaster strikes and tragedy hits, we consume it like the release of the new season of “Stranger Things” on Netflix. Ritualistic obsession for a week and then we move on to the latest release.

Disasters are not a trending news story. They are a disaster. Community unification in the form of disaster relief is not a trend. Community

unification should be the constant that existed before and remains after.

How long will those who do not play a central role in the community care about what’s going on in Sonoma County? We, the community, cannot afford to wait around to find out. We need to take ownership of the disaster, the recovery and the rebuild. No one is going to do this for us but ourselves. Our tragedy is not going into syndication. When the North Bay wildfires lose their ap-

Braving the storm: Albert Gregory Managing Editor When the Tubbs Fire struck the city of Santa Rosa late on the night of Oct. 8, the city was literally torn apart, thrusting its citizens into peril.

The Oak Leaf staff was not spared this terror. Many of our staff were evacuated from the fire, including one of our co-editorsin-chiefs, James Wyatt, who lives in the Wikiup-Larkfield neighborhood. Wyatt and four other staff members were forced to evacuate their houses.

While the fires still raged that morning, two of our staff, driven by their journalistic instincts went to the Veterans Memorial Building evacuation center. The Oak Leaf’s Co-Editor-in-Chief Ali Benzerara and News Editor Brandon McCapes saw each other, realized they needed to team up and went out into the unknown dangers waiting for them in the city.

Meanwhile the rest of our staff was either being evacuated or staying with their homes and families, anticipating the next waves of mandatory evacuations that would be soon to follow.

Many of us had no idea two of our reporters had decided to go into the field to cover the catastrophe burning around them.

When they were finally able to get service, they began sending the photos and videos to managing Editor Albert Gregory, who lives

in Petaluma, safe from the fires. As their photos and videos began to pop up on our website, theoakleafnews.com, in addition to our Instagram and Twitter feeds, other staff writers became inspired and awoke from their daze. They knew they needed to help.

As service became more available we reached out to each other and 10 of us met at The Oak Leaf Newsroom, even though the campus was closed and we were technically not allowed to enter. But we needed access to our equipment, so we briefly met and planned our day.

Benzerara and McCapes continued their harrowing coverage of active fires, getting the attention of major news sources like the New York Times. Wyatt and Gregory went out to cover the devastation in Fountaingrove, Coffey Park and more, along with Co-Features Editor Michael Barnes, our adviser Anne Belden and our skilled videographer Roberta Mcintyre.

Others like Web Editor Rachel Edelstein and Photo Editor Dakota McGranahan accompanied staff writers to cover the evacuation centers.

That’s how the next week continued to unfold. We were kicked out of our newsroom by SRJC Police but continued to meet at our advisor’s house in Sebastopol and Edelstein’s house in Santa Rosa, closer to the destruction.

We would meet, break off into groups and venture out trying to cover every aspect of the fire we could. Not all of our staff was able

peal as a trending news story and the funds from the campaigns run out, where will we be? When the next disaster hits and takes over as the latest trending news story, our community will be old news to everyone, not a part of the community.

We must think local and act local.

We must maintain this unification for the years to come in the long road to recovery. The wildfires may have only lasted for a week and a half, but the fallout will extend for years to come.

It’s up to us, the community and SRJC in particular, to step up and take the reigns on enacting the changes and policies necessary to fully recover. In the words of our president, Dr. Frank Chong, “SRJC is training the people who will rebuild homes, rebuild the community and rebuild our lives.”

Let’s step up Bear Cubs and keep the love in the air for the long haul. We’re going to need it.

Junior college journalists thrust into historic event, learn on the fly

Oak Leaf Staff

Roberta MacIntyre, James Wyatt and Albert Gregory don their N95 masks to travel bravely into the fire zones and capture footage.

to help because they were experiencing the same stress and terrors many of you reading this faced, but over the next two weeks a core group was established including Benzerera, McCapes, Wyatt, McGranahan, Edelstein, McIntyre, Barnes and Gregory.

This was easily the greatest learning experience an aspiring journalist could have. Many reporters will go their entire careers never covering a disaster of this magnitude.

We learned on the fly proper techniques and skills that will assist us the rest of our lives. We faced our fears whether it be literally walking into a fire or talking to those who had lost everything.

Although our adrenaline was flying high through most of the experiences, at the end of each day we struggled to upload all of the material we gathered, at times, questioning whether all of our hard work was going nowhere. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources of a big media outlet and looking back we would’ve done anything for a team of copy editors waiting hand and foot.

That’s where our adviser stepped in. She organized us and put a priority on making our content available, especially on social media. A lot of help came from our Peer Assisted Learning Specialist Devin Schwarz, who remained posted

at his home, continuously editing videos and articles for us while we reported from the field.

Though we were just classmates before Oct. 8, we were transformed into a cohesive team, united by a common desire to bring our fellow students a comprehensive report of the fires from our perspective.

We will never forget the experiences we shared during this tragedy nor will we forget the people we talked to, the devastation we saw and the love we felt as Sonoma County residents demonstrated their strength and did everything they could to not let this fire define them. We will forever be #SRJCstrong #SRJCfuerte.

www.theoakleafnews.com

the perspective 17

Two fires in one night, constantly on the run

Reina Underwood-Mironoff

I

Staff Writer

t started out as any other normal Sunday. On Oct. 8, I woke up at a reasonable time, ran my normal errands and started my scheduled shift at Hooters in Rohnert Park. Little did I know this would be the last normal Sunday I’d have for quite some time.

As another stressful football Sunday shift came to an end, I went to Graton to relax and invited a coworker to join me for a drink while I interviewed her for a story.

Later, when we exited, a strong

smell of smoke slapped us in the face and the windy night felt hotter than any I’ve ever experienced in Santa Rosa. I caught a glimpse of the mountain ridge in an intense amber glow. I will never forget how deep and bright it was at the same time this image will haunt my nightmares.

I knew this was fire and frantically called friends and loved ones. My boyfriend convinced me everything was going to be fine and that we were safe.

Shortly after, I reunited with my boyfriend and we headed

home at around 2:45 a.m. The smoke had thickened, making it harder to breathe, as we turned down Fulton Road toward Piner Road, we were blinded by evacuating headlights going in the opposite direction.

When we reached our neighborhood it was calm and appeared as if our entire neighborhood was still asleep. My boyfriend climbed onto the roof and could see the flames.

He shouted down, “It looks as if it’s only down about two streets.”

We frantically packed up our life and tried to gather the most important things first.

In the chaos we left the backdoor open, and my dog Hondo escaped in the fence line and disappeared. This evacuation had become a rescue mission.

Cars whizzed by furiously and our dog was nowhere to be found. As the smoke grew thicker and the flames grew closer, our neighborhood suddenly sprung to life. Residents quickly packed up their lives before everything went up in smoke.

The neighborhood filed out like ants. We were the second to last group to evacuate our street and with still no sign of Hondo, we decided to stop packing and

split up to find our rogue dog. At that moment he came galloping through the smoke to the sound of my boyfriend’s voice.

Suddenly, explosions began firing off rapidly as we fled.

By 4 a.m. I attempted to turn off our street and escape the war zone only to be forced to turn the opposite direction because of the evacuating traffic, and after two minutes of driving, the Tubbs fire f lames were dead ahead. I f lipped a U-turn as fast as traffic would allow, but it didn't feel fast enough.

A grueling 35 minutes later I successfully made it across town to the Todd Road exit. As I turned onto Mountain View Avenue, I could see the flames of the Nuns Fire, burning over the mountainside, heading directly towards my mother's home.

I felt trapped and cornered with nowhere to turn. I arrived at my mother’s to pack everything I could fit, and decided to check on the neighbors plan for evacuating. One of my neighbors had a back-hoe and planned to dig a trench around their parents’ house in hopes of saving it, and two neighbors were hosing down their yards and roof.

Another brave neighbor took

it upon himself to get his watertruck from work and arrived with the truck at around 5:30 a.m., just in time for us to get the news about G and H sections of Rohnert Park also evacuating.

We were all awake in our yards ready to fight for our neighborhood and our lives.

As the flames cleared the Crane Canyon Road, embers licked the edge of the dry fields behind my house. My family gathered together awaiting our seemingly bleak fate. Then the wind continually slowed and seemed to change direction in our favor. All we could do now was wait.

At this point, we were unsure if my boyfriend’s house was still standing. Also, if my mother's house would see another sunrise.

I was forced to come to terms with the fact I might actually lose my childhood home, The house I’d grown up in since age 4 could go up in a puff of smoke.

As the night faded to morning, we patiently waited for the smoke to clear.

The fire changed direction numerous times and several new wildfire scares kept us vigilant throughout the entire week but fortunately our house survived.

Brandon McCapes & Ali Benzerara/ Oak Leaf

As the fires rage throughout Sonoma County, the community quickly comes together to fight the tide of needs suddenly flowing in. Firefighters begin attempts to contain the blaze as soon as they can, forced to make the impossible decision of what to save and what to abandon. Community organizations all across the state step in to help.

18 the perspective

October 27, 2017

The fire guided me through the dark

James Wyatt Co-Editor-in-Chief I was depressed with my life before the wildfires reduced a vast majority of Santa Rosa to scorched earth.

I questioned whether studying journalism was the right career path for me. My parents are both public servants, and it felt like anything less than heroism or helping the community wouldn’t suffice for a rewarding career.

When I was young, the courage of their work defined them as heroes. Helping people during their darkest times seemed like the most rewarding feeling to me, and I felt pressured to find a career resembling that.

As I grew older I found aspects of valor in journalism, but doubted its importance compared to first responders.

The question of journalism’s impact rattled through my head.

Hours before the fire, my depression reached a tipping point. I sat in my car, emotional and lost, trying to escape from everything I felt.

However, my sister wouldn’t let me.

I put my life on hold because I lacked selfconfidence. I let fear limit my emotional capacity to accept the changes that needed to be made in my life.

Albert Gregory/ Oak Leaf

Co-Editor-in-Chief James Wyatt shoots footage of the devastation from a fallen shopping center in Fountaingrove as the ashes still smoldered on Oct. 10.

My sister calmed me down. She asked what my plan was moving forward and helped me put my life in a perspective. I had no answers, but she told me that tomorrow is a new day.

At 12:53 a.m. I received a call. It woke me up, but I didn’t answer. Then a text came in from someone else that read: “Wikiup is on fire, are you ok?” I looked out my window and saw the orange glow of the flames heading over the hill towards my house.

The worries and depression I felt hours before suddenly became inconsequential. I sprang into action, woke up my family, drove closer to the fire and saw the flames creep over the hills. I reported to the neighbors who were standing outside, questioning what to do.

Propane tanks were exploding only a mile from my home. It really was time to evacuate.

My family and I grabbed the dogs, our photos, my mom’s jewelry and a small bag of clothes. We situated ourselves for the night in Healdsburg.

All I could think about was the fire and how it was encroaching on my home. Little did I know my childhood home in Coffey Park was burning down and thousands were suffering.

Following the devastation, I knew it was my chance, as well as my responsibility, to provide pertinent news to my community. I was the source to report on the wildfires’ destruction and to inform people of the truth.

In one night a firestorm devoured my city and provided me the opportunity to see how truly important the news is. Suddenly, being a journalist began to have real purpose for me, and it slowly pulled me out of the depression.

The Tubbs fire torched my childhood home to nothing but a graveyard of houses marked with chimney headstones. The sites of my daily commute to Santa Rosa now resemble a ravaged war zone.

For 15 years, I’ve driven past the same landmarks nearly everyday. Fountaingrove, once

a developed housing area is now rubble and ash. The mountainside that used to light up with houses at night has returned to an unrecognizable state of darkness.

I became familiar with the desolation and destruction I saw in Coffey Park and Fountaingrove while photographing for the Oak Leaf. I’m reminded of what could happen to me and my family.

It drove me to know more about the fire.

The more information I gathered, the more I could relay to the ones I loved. I began to attend the daily press conferences and ask questions to our local authorities battling the wildfires.

After two weeks of covering wildfires, I’m exhausted, yet I no longer feel depressed. I no longer question journalism’s impact on society. When the wildfires burned down my city, it instilled in me a new passion for my life to build upon in the future.

The second fire Lenita Marie Johnson Staff Writer As the Tubbs fire neared my home, I had a close encounter with another episode with fire.

When the wildfires broke out, I noticed more and more stories in the headlines, television and radio news reports. As they increased, a feeling of paralysis began to set in.

My apartment complex issued an initial advisory evacuation. As a native New Englander, I started receiving phone calls from friends and family, especially those on the East Coast, family in Chicago and my friends from Boston University. It started to feel as if I was in an episode of the “Twilight Zone” or the “Outer Limits”—all too surreal for words.

When I was two years old I lived in Massachusetts, the first born to my parents. I got out of bed one night in the middle of winter to go to the bathroom. On my way back I stopped at our pot belly stove to get warm.

The next thing I remember was looking over and seeing my dad in his pajamas staring at me. He saw me standing there, my nightgown ablaze. He quickly grabbed a blanket off the sofa, wrapped me in it and ran me to the hospital, clear across town.

I spent the next year in Shriners Children’s

Hospital bed, staring out the window in my room. Most of the time I saw kids playing. I went from the bed, to wheelchair, to crutches and finally learned how to walk again.

Fast forward to present.

What I remember about the news reports of the wildfires was a familiar feeling of fear—rooted in childhood—as I stared out my window, knowing the fire was approaching my home. I live a stone’s throw from Howarth Park and Spring Lake, close to the blazing inferno. One of my best friends— who is like an older sister—called and asked what I was going to do. I had no idea.

The next thing I know, she showed up at my place, and told me to pack a bag. We drove off to her place near Guerneville where I spent the next three days.

The first night I slept through the whole night. I didn’t watch any TV coverage of the fires.

I began to feel my blood pressure return to normal, although I did worry whether or not my apartment was still intact.

When Mina Jean, my friend, asked if I was ready to go home, I was hesitant to say yes.

But I knew it was time.

What I didn’t know was the devastation I was about to witness.

From wineries to homes and businesses, places I once visited had burned to the ground. Nothing left but ashes and smoke.

When we arrived at my home, things felt almost as normal as when we had left.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I unlocked my door. Everything looked the same.

Clothes, books and magazines thrown about, with a few dishes in the sink.

Ah, home sweet home.

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A week of worry, fire and fear

Dakota McGranahan Photo Editor I watched in horror as the fire rolled over the hills, ripped through trees and devoured everything in sight.

It left nothing but a skeleton behind, the ashen bark, stark against the flames.

Sitting in my car, I felt nauseous. Just hours before, I was sitting in my friend’s home laughing and talking over the roar of the wind; and now I sat gazing upon such graceful destruction.

I urged myself to drive again. I needed to get home and warn my family. However, the path lay scattered with rocks and branches that forced me to swerve down unknown roads.

It also didn’t help that I was in uncharted territory; I was nearing Sonoma State University when I realized I was unfamiliar with the roads I had taken.

The fire glowed a fluorescent orange behind me. As I approached my house the embers illuminated the sky; a premonition of the destruction to come.

Unknowing of what was in the near future, I briefly checked the news and, feeling assured of a swift recovery, I went to bed.

It was only three hours later that I awoke to yelling down the hallway. Startled, I lay in my bed and listened.

“Patrick, the fire is coming for my house, we had to evacuate,” my aunt told my father.

I awoke and instinctively checked my phone. My eyes bulged as I was inundated with notifications. Text messages, social media alerts and news updates flooded my phone. I went to bed worrying about my late English assignment and woke up to an explosion of devastation.

I joined my family around the television as we discussed our next move; we had never prepared for a disaster before. We were terrified.

The first building I saw burn was Cardinal Newman High School. I watched through the glass screen of my phone as picture after picture appeared, each displaying another charred building of the school.

Everything after that became a blur. Rumors caught on faster than the actual fire. People panicked, families evacuated and the fear of looters loomed over us. The realization that the town I had lived in for 18 years was burning didn’t hit me. I just numbly observed as the flames consumed buildings and cars as more and more people fled.

I often hear the comparison of our smoldering town to that of a war zone, and I never understood why until days after.

After the first day, I escaped the grasp of my family and decided to see the anarchy for myself. I drove to the 76 gas station just down the road, and in that short trip I was shocked by what I witnessed.

The sky glowed orange with a smoke cloud thicker than soup blocking the sun. The sun did radiate a blood red but remained hidden behind the smoke clouds.

Cars sped down suburban roads, racing with each other to buy supplies. The stores were barren after the first day, and now people suffered in lines awaiting the next delivery.

The entire scene was surreal, something out of a movie; it was apocalyptic.

When I returned home, I packed my things into my car and prepared for the worst.

I grabbed my press badge and camera and was off once more; only this time to investigate the madness.

Deeper into the suburban jungle, traffic lights re-

the perspective 19 mained dark while drivers sped past them. Police cars littered the streets and most businesses remained closed.

It was apparent that the farther I traveled, the more chaotic things became. Fire ran rampant on the city’s borders, citizens fled only to be evacuated again: every turn they’d make, there would be another. There was nowhere safe to go.

After a while of wandering I met with the Oak Leaf newspaper staff and began venturing onto desolate roads filled with smoke.

It was after this that I received the call to evacuate.

Even though I was on the other side of town, I sped down roads and drove through shortcuts to get home.

My heart was pounding and my mind was a mixture of panic and calmness.

I parked at my neighbor’s house as a wave of deja vu flooded over me. This was just like the first night. I already had a bag packed so I loaded it into my car and took my valuables.

The first thing I grabbed in the very beginning was a handmade bracelet. They were prayer beads from a local market. My friend Ashlee had gotten it for me after she visited Nepal, but on her flight home, an earthquake devastated the country. When she returned, I wore it every day until the Nepalese were safe.

I use the bracelet as a good luck charm, a safety blanket of sorts. Through all the chaos of packing and fear of losing my home, I focused all of my energy into this bracelet. I used the prayer beads as a beacon of hope when I had none.

We all packed in 15 minutes, and my dad told my grandma and me to leave without him. He began watering the roofs of not only our house, but our entire neighborhood. He told the neighbors to leave their hoses out and that he would take care of their homes.

Everyone rushed to their cars and sped away, not knowing if they’d see their homes again. With a cloud of uncertainty floating over us, my grandma and I were the last to leave the neighborhood. Smoke rose above the houses as we drove away from the empty street.

I hadn’t been emotional until then. I let a single tear roll down my cheek. This could be the last time I’d see my house.

It didn’t feel real to be on that freeway driving away from my home.

It didn’t feel real sleeping in another person’s home.

And it certainly didn’t feel real until after the first 10 days of crisis.

In the days after, I only did two things: volunteer and work as a journalist. They were the only two things keeping me grounded in my uprooted life. My friends’ homes, all the spots I normally visited, they were gone. Burnt to a crisp with nothing but memories and debris remaining.

Witnessing the devastation in person is something that has been forever burned in my memory. Seeing people cry, get angry, or even laugh, it was all so much.

Hearing these stories first hand from both strangers and friends will haunt me forever.

I walked into fire. I visited ghost towns that were once homes and neighborhoods of people I know. I watched in anticipation as fire approached my neighborhood. I smiled, cried, yelled and mostly felt numb. I had an experience most will never have, and I am both humbled and grateful for this.

Oct. 16 marked the beginning of the end of the devastation for Santa Rosa. I finally returned home, anxious to sleep in my bed again. The first night replays in my mind. But after all of the tragedy, I feel somewhat at peace. I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist and smiled. I was safe, my family was safe, and my home had survived.

I felt an overabundance of love for my community.

A place I had originally hated and vowed to leave had now become something so much more for me. It had meaning.

And as I fell asleep on Oct. 16, I was granted one last wish of comfort as I heard the pitter-patter of rain against my window.

The calm had arrived at the end of the storm.

Stop and smell the roses

Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor Three months ago I was living in Long Beach, California. I made a life for myself in the area. It’s where all my friends and family live. I had my own studio apartment, a girlfriend and the beach within walking distance. What I didn’t have was the type of happiness and peace of mind that brings perspective.

I left behind all that I’ve ever known and relocated to Santa Rosa with the hopes of picking up the pieces of my life, rebuilding for the future and gaining some much-needed perspective.

The last thing I expected was to find myself in the middle of an entire community now forced to do the same; following the destruction from the unforgiving wildfires.

For the past three months I questioned my decision to start over in a city where the only person I knew was my sister and the only thing I had going were the classes I was taking at the junior college. I was depressed. I complained about everything I no longer had: my place, my bed, my bike and the rest of my material possessions that couldn’t fit in my car. I complained about the lack of friends, family and social interaction in my life. I complained about the lack of financial security. I complained simply for the sake of complaining.

I don’t complain anymore.

The night of Oct. 8 put an end to that. I made the choice to leave it all behind and start over with nothing. The victims of the North Bay wildfires didn't have that choice.

Santa Rosa alone lost five percent of its entire housing, at least 22 people are confirmed dead and tens of thousands were forced to evacuate for up to a week.. The city was reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland of ash, soot and poisonous air. It was like a disaster movie come to life, only worse. People have lost everything, the damage is estimated to cost more than $3 billion to repair and the scars of this nightmare will take years to heal. And to think I’ve spent the last three months complaining about how bad my life has become because I haven’t gotten laid since I left Southern California or how my new roommate is a 1-year-old who can’t stop crying in the middle of the night.

It’s unfortunate that our society makes us believe our lives are at the center of the universe, that nothing is more important than ourselves. It’s even more unfortunate that it takes something like a natural disaster for most of us, mainly speaking for myself here, to appreciate what we have and what we complain about doesn’t matter. It’s miniscule, trivial and a waste of time.

One of the main selling points my sister would use when enticing me to move to Santa Rosa was the people, their warmth and generosity. As terrible as the North Bay wildfires have been, the crisis has brought out the best in Santa Rosans, proving my sister right. Wildfires can destroy houses and wipe out power, but they can’t destroy the human spirit, nor wipe out unconditional love. There are signs going around Sonoma County with the phrase, “The love in the air is thicker than the smoke,” and this is not an exaggeration.

Witnessing the overwhelming show of support and resilience in the community is beyond humbling. The number of citizens willing to open their homes, donate their time and pledge money to those affected is awe-inspiring. I’m honored and grateful to live in a city that is home to such a loving and selfless community.

Although I am not officially a “born and raised” member of the community, I can’t help but feel imbued with a deep sense of communal pride for the city I live in. I no longer question my decision to start over in Santa Rosa, and I have no question that this city will be able to start over, pick up the pieces and rebuild stronger than ever.

Amidst the chaos, destruction and sadness of an unprecedented tragedy, I have gained the happiness and peace of mind I was searching for when I moved to Santa Rosa. It came in the form of a community in crisis, teaching me what perspective really looks like, even if I have to gaze out through ash and smoke to see it.

20 the perspective

October 27, 2017

Trial by fire Ali Benzerara Co-Editor-in-Chief My alarm came to life at 5 a.m. on Oct. 9. I came to life at about 5:30. It was time to get ready for my internship at KGO radio in San Francisco, my regular Monday routine.

I checked my phone, but didn’t have any service. I thought that was weird, especially since my Wi-Fi wasn’t working either.

As my mom and I left for our jobs, our quiet Bennett Valley neighborhood had an abnormal amount of people in the streets, even though it was still quite early in the morning.

Like always, we were headed to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds so my mom could drop me off to catch the Golden Gate Transit into the city.

As we turned onto Bennett Valley Road, I was in awe and my stomach dropped as I looked to the northern hills of Santa Rosa, engulfed in flames. My mind couldn’t even comprehend what I was looking at.

I was dumbfounded when I arrived at the bus stop and saw nothing but chaos in all directions. To the right, the Veteran’s Memorial Hall was packed with Kaiser patients and families who had nothing but the clothes on their back. To the left, Grace Pavilion had emergency services from all departments scrambling to get stations set up and people safe.

Ambulances, fire trucks and police brigades raced by me from every direction. People were pulling up to the bus stop parking lot with their cars packed to the brim, crying as they walked into the newly erected evacuation centers.

I had no idea what was going on. The only thing I knew was I had smoke filling my nose every time I took a breath.

After sitting at the bus stop for 30 minutes, a Golden Gate Transit supervisor pulled up and said all service to and from Sonoma County had been canceled, swiftly leaving before I could ask him what was going on.

I walked to the Santa Rosa Police Department about a mile away to grab the car from my mom so I could return home. As I turned the corner from Brookwood to Sonoma Avenue, I saw barricades with every city bus available parked out front, along with some school buses. They all read “Out of Service” across the light bar.

I met my mom inside to grab the keys and that's when I found out there was a fire raging in Fountaingrove and most of northern Santa Rosa.

I immediately went home to inform the rest of my family what I knew.

After checking in with my family, my journalistic instinct overwhelmed me with the urge to go cover whatever the hell was actually happening. I told my family to start wetting down the house and pack up to evacuate, just in case. Then I raced to the Veteran’s Memorial Hall, the new home of the evacuation center.

When I arrived, it was even more chaotic than an hour earlier. The volunteers who were handing out waters and snacks were evacuees themselves They saw the need for help and stepped up to the plate.

I can’t even begin to explain the feelings that crossed my mind as I walked into that building. As I looked around at all the elderly, the youths and the families who potentially had nothing left, I almost broke down in tears. All these people blindsided by this disaster.

No one looks forward to Mondays, but this was by far the worst Monday anyone could have ever asked for.

After walking around the Veteran’s building, I ran into my Oak Leaf News Editor Bran-

don McCapes. Fortuitous, considering I didn’t have any cell service, and Internet was down in most of the city.

We quickly exchanged what little information we had and decided to go out together and cover all the madness as a team.

We collected our gear and headed to the end of Range Avenue and Piner Road where a gun store was on fire, with bullets shooting out from all directions. All that remained was the front wall with a burnt sign reading “GUNS.” As soon as we got through all the traffic, Brandon and I walked towards the destruction of what was once a trailer park.

When we approached the trailer park at the end of Range Avenue, there was a father and his young son staring at the trailers that burnt to the ground moments prior. I asked if they lived there, pointing to the trailers that were still standing. The boy said, “We used to live right there,” pointing to the rubble in front of him.

I looked at him, then at his trailer, then back at him. I couldn’t believe he was talking to me, a reporter, moments after his home burned to the ground. I began to empathize with the boy and his father, but then a small adrenaline rush overcame me and filled me with excitement. I was getting the story. I was breaking the news. It felt bittersweet. However, I wanted to keep going.

Brandon and I sent our interviews and pictures to our managing editor, Albert Gregory, for the Oak Leaf website.

We continued to ride around, chasing active fires and looking for the breaking news. In most locations we were there before the firefighters.

For a majority of the time I found it especially hard to not be a part of the news. I saw people watering down their homes, as their neighbors’ houses became engulfed in flames.

I wanted to throw my equipment down, grab a hose and help.

I couldn’t though. I knew that I had to continue to capture as much as I could. I needed to get these people’s stories out there. I needed to get information online about where the fire was most active and how people were saving their homes.

Now this isn’t to say I didn’t help at all. There was one instance where an ember the size of a log fell onto someone’s front lawn as they were watering their property from the roof. He asked me to move it into the street for him, so I did. I’m not an asshole. What was I going to tell him ‘no’ and force him to climb down and do it himself? Sometimes you can’t avoid becoming part of the story.

As the day came to a close, the adrenaline that fueled me for 12 hours straight finally wore off and the gravity of the situation began to sink in. I finally had a second to think back about everything I just covered. The devastation, the carnage and the loss. It all began to hit home.

As the fire spread on the East side, my house became endangered. My family evacuated to Novato and I to my girlfriend’s house in Rohnert Park. I continued coverage throughout the week wondering if I would show up to my neighborhood one day with everything in shambles as I had seen in other neighborhoods.

The next morning the New York Times contacted me after viewing footage I posted to our paper’s Instagram. I nearly cried at the fact that my dream job, the only reason I’m pursuing a bachelor’s degree, is hitting me up for my coverage of the fire.

I can honestly say this has been one of the most frightful, horrific, amazing and exhilarating times of my life and I will never forget it.

Two harrowing stories of quick learning under the most dire circumstances

Bottom: Brandon McCapes Top: Albert Gregory/ Oak Leaf

Brandon McCapes News Editor I didn’t believe my roommates when they woke me to tell me we were advised to evacuate on the morning of Oct. 9. When reality set in, I was torn between the desire to follow my friends to safety and the compulsion to grab my camera and enter the fray. I knew whatever was happening was big, and I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t do my best to cover it.

Without cell service or radio, I only knew the fire was north, so I headed North before being stopped by police. At this point I didn’t know the Oak Leaf press pass I had in my camera bag could have gotten me through police barricades.

I photographed Journey’s End burning from the Kaiser Hospital parking structure before heading to the Veteran’s Memorial Center to interview disaster relief personnel and get my bearings.

It was there that I ran into Oak Leaf’s CoEditor-in-Chief Ali Benzerara. Driving my worse-for-wear ‘03 Honda CRV to Coffey Park and Fountaingrove, we periodically posted our footage on Facebook or sent it to our managing editor, Albert Gregory.

When we reached Hidden Valley, it was in a state of anarchy. Firefighters were spread thin as the fire encroached on houses bordering the forest. The heat was remarkable and the scale of the destruction difficult to contemplate. Scattered residents who had refused to evacuate desperately hosed down embers as neighboring homes yielded to the fire. Many homeowners seemed to successfully keep the fire’s spread at

bay and save their homes with garden hoses.

We saw an entire neighborhood reduced to ruin, flames having moved on to homes in other areas leaving only broken gas lines spewing fire over mounds of grey desolation. We understood the tragedy of what we were covering.

For the next two weeks eight Oak Leaf staffers, including Ali and myself, chased fires up and down Sonoma County. Accurate information was in short supply among our neighbors in Santa Rosa, especially in the first few days.

The bravery and dedication we saw from first responders was inspiring. We made one rule during our forays: don’t get in the way.

Each day we learned from the mistakes we made reporting the day before. We had no delusions of grandeur, and we knew our coverage was amateur at times, but we felt what we were doing was important. Sometimes that just meant passing the barricades to check on cities and neighborhoods our friends had heard were destroyed, other times it meant entering dangerous areas to get close-ups of the fires, against our advisor’s wishes. We informed our families, neighbors and Facebook friends what we learned each day.

I kick myself for not volunteering or doing more to help those affected during the first weeks of the fire. I’ll admit there was a thrill to passing through police barriers and exploring uncharted territory. Still, I believe in what we did and I’m proud of the hours of hard work my classmates put into covering these historic fires and what we’ve produced. It’s my hope that, even in a small way, our reporting will help to document this event and drive the conversation in a positive direction as our community moves towards healing.

The recovery 21

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Recovery: From the ashes we will rise

Brandon McCapes/ Oak Leaf

Brandon McCapes News Editor Community leaders did not mince words when they talked about the scope of the wildfires endured by the Sonoma County and Santa Rosa Junior College communities the week beginning Oct. 8.

“There’s never been a bigger fire, a more destructive fire or a deadlier fire in California,” Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey said. “We’ve seen some whopper fires but this was bigger than them all.”

Santa Rosa Junior College President Dr. Frank Chong said, “The impact is deep. It’s heavy and it’s going to be for a long time.

Although the fires are nearly extinguished, the long road to recovery for the college and the wider community has only begun. Whole communities were evacuated and residents of Sonoma County breathed in an atmosphere of smoke and fear for more than a week.

Some are just now returning home, while others sift through the charred remains of their lost homes.

A vision of the challenges in the days ahead becomes clear as campuses and businesses reopen and Sonoma County residents attempt to regain some semblance of normalcy.

The ‘Bear Cub family’ Since the first day of the fires, SRJC’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has been handling the college’s response and decided to close the campus until Oct. 22 following an initial two-day closure on Oct. 9.

College officials are doing everything possible to assist students and encourage them to complete coursework as the semester resumes.

The two-week campus closure forced faculty of each discipline to find ways to cut what they could from course material while still providing students with the skills and instruction needed to fulfill state educational requirements.

“We’re adjusting everything as we go,” said Mary Kay Rudolph, dean of instruction. “Our number one rule is no harm can come to students. We cannot ask more of them just because we have less time.”

The Student Government Assembly (SGA) expanded funding for its food pantry, created the Fire-Relief Comfort Zone in Bertolini Hall on the Santa Rosa campus and will continue to advocate for undocumented students who don’t qualify for federal disaster relief aid.

“SRJC is a family. We’re a Bear Cub fam-

ily,” SGA President Evelyn Navarro said.

“It’s our duty as SRJC faculty, staff and students to make sure our community is well-taken care of in this time of need.”

Navarro praised the work of faculty in the Student Affairs and Student Equity offices but emphasized the need for unity in the difficult times ahead.

“We are going to bend over backwards to make sure students can do what they need to do to get through this semester,” said Ellen Maremont Silver, SRJC director of communications. We’re not giving up on this semester. We’re all in this together.”

SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong said, “I hope students understand that this is a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophic event, so it’s not business as usual, and even when we come back, it won’t be business as usual.”

The wider community The rebuilding process will be coordinated between local, county, state and federal governments. Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey estimates the cleanup process will be completed by Feb. 2018 and will include the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The city and county governments will likely lose revenue in taxes due to loss of property, businesses and tourism, but the total economic impact will remain unclear until formal assessments are done.

Before the fires, the county boasted a booming economy with only a four percent unemployment rate. Shirlee Zane, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, encouraged residents to take advantage of local assistance centers providing access to local, state and federal disaster loans.

“The Small Business Administration (SBA) has disaster loans available to individuals and business to replace damaged property,” she said. “It’s really important we do an economy-related recovery and get people resources as soon as possible.”

Zane says the displacement of employees will cause a dip in our economy but job-seekers can use Sonoma County Job Link to find employment.

The county is granting emergency tax allowances to the cannabis and tourism industries, both of which were hard-hit by the disaster.

Al Lerma, Sonoma County director of business development said, “I think there is a perception that Sonoma County is not open to business because the damage looks so much more extensive in the media. The county will have to reach out to let tourists know we are open for business.”

No vacancy The fires destroyed roughly five percent of residences in Santa Rosa, reducing supply in an area already suffering through a housing crisis.

“It’s pretty stark,” Coursey said. “We had a housing crisis two weeks ago and now we have 3000 fewer houses in the city. It may be exacerbated in the coming months as people come in for debris clean up and construction.”

Countywide, the number of homes lost climbs to 4,000 with approximately 10,000 people currently displaced.

Rebuilding may begin as early as next spring and some commercial properties may be rebuilt as multi-family housing complexes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will provide 500 intermediary housing units in the coming months, with trailer units expected to arrive in four weeks.

Coursey said that the housing crisis is particularly difficult on students and said the city and county will continue efforts to make housing more affordable.

On Oct. 24 the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors adopted two measures designed to make existing housing stock available to those who lost their homes.

The measures loosened residential housing regulations and restricted the issuance of new vacation property rentals.

The district attorney intends to prosecute landlords guilty of price-gouging in an attempt to profit from the disaster.

“We’re turning over every stone,” Zane said.The love in the air is thicker than the smoke. Mike Grabowski, SRJC Administration of Justice faculty member, recently traveled to Newtown, Conn. and Columbine High School as part of a sabbatical project about community resilience, or how communities collectively heal from tragedy.

Grabowski said Santa Rosa should try to return to life as it was before the fire and individuals should take advantage of support services.

“Sometimes it’s human nature for people to be hesitant asking for help but they shouldn’t be. A community went through this, not just one person,” he said.

Despite Grabowski’s worries about long-term effects on adolescents and first responders, he believes individuals and communities can be strengthened through tragedy.

“Sometimes people don’t realize their strengths until they’ve faced adversity,” he said. “We are resilient by nature. Each of us must work on finding and keeping that resilience in our own way; sometimes with the help of others, sometimes from those we least expect.”

Courtesy of Google Images

Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Shirlee Zane, SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong and Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey are three community leaders who will help spearhead recovery efforts.

Behavioral Science instructor Brenda Flyswithhawks, who led attendees in a Native American prayer at the SRJC Fire Relief event Oct. 19, is optimistic about the future of the county and college.

“We’re gonna rebuild this,” she said.

“We’re gonna rise right out of these ashes and we’re gonna be bigger and better from it.”

22 The recovery

October 27 , 2017

SRJC re-opens; holds fire relief event Michael Barnes Co-Features Editor The Santa Rosa Junior College community gathered at the Lawrence A. Bertolini Student Center on the Santa Rosa campus on Oct. 19 and took a collective breath— literally.

Karen Stanley, an SRJC wellness instructor, began the SRJC Fire Relief event with a breathing exercise intended for spiritual healing.

After the worst wildfires in California’s history forced a two-week closure of the campus and canceled all school related activities, the college is finally ready to welcome back its students, staff and faculty members to resume the fall semester.

SRJC President Dr. Frank Chong said the night was going to be about three things: The impact of the fire, the response and the recovery.

The wildfires’ destruction is unprecedented for the state; SRJC in particular felt the effects of the devastation: at least 534 students, staff and faculty members lost their homes and 35 percent of the school's population reported that they were forced to evacuate.

In response to the natural disaster, SRJC raised $150,000 ($50,000 of which the Exchange Bank donated) for SRJC wildfire victims. As the community grapples with an abundance of uncertainty in the wake of the fires, the biggest question facing the school is the retention of students, staff and faculty members moving forward.

Sonoma County faces a long road of rebuilding in the years to come. SRJC, which has always played an instrumental role in the community, hopes to continue this during the recovery efforts.

“SRJC is training the people who will help

rebuild homes, rebuild the community and rebuild our lives,” Chong said.

The Fire Relief event featured an impressive list of guest speakers, headlined by Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor for California Community Colleges. Ortiz understood the importance of attending in person.

“Dr. Chong called me and I could hear it in his voice. I knew something was not just wrong, it was really wrong,” Ortiz said. “The junior college has gone through a great depression, a world war and countless challenges throughout its history. This is one more that will define the character of Santa Rosa Junior College.”

Not unlike the community, the school faces monumental challenges ahead in the aftermath of the natural disaster. Ortiz promised the school will not be alone when facing the uphill battle to come. “We will bend every regulation, we will pound on every door in the capital to do everything possible for the family of SRJC to recover.”

Ortiz was followed by Congressman Mike Thompson, who praised the school as “a toprate community college” and praised Chong as “a great guy.” Thompson stressed that the college would be here for students, staff and faculty in need during these trying times.

“I have never in my life seen the federal and state agencies working as smoothly as they are now,” Thompson said. “It’s unprecedented. We’ve had approval of every federal request made within days. This is the worst wildfire in California's history, and we all lived through it.”

Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane said, “Disasters are the great unifier.”

The massive loss of housing caused by the devastating wildfires has raised the level of concern for the community in terms of the amount of affordable housing that will exist

Dakota McGranahan/ Oak Leaf

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley pledges statewide support for Santa Rosa Junior College as the school moves on from the North Bay wildfires at a #SRJCstrong event on Oct. 19.

in Sonoma County. Zane’s motto in response to this is: “If there’s something that can kill NIMBY-ism, it’s this. Build, baby. Build.”

The disaster brought mass destruction, but it also brought mass unity, something that Students Government Assembly president Evelyn Navarro admits may not have always been there. “We might not have been as unified as we should have been at the beginning of this.”

As a student, Navarro voiced a fear echoed by the majority of the student population. “I was afraid to come back and see the college I love so much just be a ghost town.”

The list of speakers ended with a prayer from SRJC psychology instructor Brenda Flyswithhawks, a member of the Eastern Band of the Tsalagi, Cherokee Nation. As the rain outside began to pick up in force, as if Mother Nature herself decided to finally chip in on the healing process, Flyswithhawks said, “This is the beginning of the opening as far as I’m concerned.”

Robert Ethington, dean of Student Affairs and Engagement Programs, helped to run the event. “Dr. Chong wanted to put on a community gathering before school started as a way of welcoming everyone back,” he said. “We hope to make those who lost their homes feel like the JC is their home.”

The Fire Relief event felt like a homecoming for the close to 400 who attended.

SRJC polling students, staff and faculty members conducted an email survey on students’ readiness to return to school, which revealed more than 75 percent felt ready to resume classes when the campus re-opens on Oct. 23.

On a night when the SRJC community displayed its willingness to extinguish the flames of the most devastating wildfires in California history, it proved there will always be one flame that will never go out, the burning desire for the pursuit of higher education.

Community gathers resources for all Ali Benzerara Co-Editor-in-Chief

When disaster strikes, victims sometimes begin to lose hope. Often, relief efforts don’t come in time—Puerto Rico being hit by Hurricane Irma, for example. That is not the case for the wildfires that ravaged Sonoma County a couple weeks ago.

With so many other disasters tearing through our nation, Sonoma County and most of Northern California prepared to fend for themselves. As Santa Rosa began to burn, resources from all over the nation came to help.

Since the California floods in January and February of this year, Federal Emergency Management Agency has been actively helping 51 counties with infrastructure projects totaling $1 billion. When wildfires broke out in Sonoma and seven other counties across Northern California Oct. 8, FEMA quickly directed attention on the North Bay. “We knew that something was going to happen, and we were in touch with the state,” said Victor Inge, external affairs officer for the response division in FEMA Region IX. “The moment California stood up its Emergency Operating Center we were right in there with them, side by side, prepared for what was going on. You could say it was expedited because of the nature of the event. It was almost a nonotice event, but we knew of the urgency.”

Once the imminent danger subsided, FEMA, in joint operations with the state, county and city, set up a Local Assistance Center at 427 Mendocino Ave. in Santa Rosa to assist disaster victims with their needs. It is an application center for aid for people directly affected by the wildfires.

“What we tried to do is create a one-stop shop for disaster assistance. So people who lost every-

thing can come here and leave feeling a little bit better about their housing, vehicles, clothing, food and rental assistance,” Inge said.

For FEMA, the process to acquire aid is a bit technical. However, it is designed to help people affected by a disaster with urgency and precision.

“It’s not an application for aid, it’s a registration for assistance. It’s a little different,”Inge said. “We want to take you and bring you in, find out what your situation is and tailor an approach to your recovery. We want to get these people and get them into a place that’s safe and sanitary and temporary so they can contemplate what their long term housing situation will be.”

FEMA, a federal agency associated with Homeland Security, tends to get more attention when it comes to aiding natural disasters. However, FEMA partners with many organizations, the largest partner being the Red Cross.

“The Red Cross is partnering with FEMA—we are supporting FEMA’s need,” said Red Cross volunteer Joseph Apicelli, a 12-year veteran from the organization “In a day or two, this is gonna end, then we’ll do what we really came here to do: drive through the neighborhoods and serve hot meals to anybody who’s hungry.”

As FEMA, The Red Cross and other agencies across all government levels come to assist,Santa Rosa Junior College has provided a bounty of helpful resources.

SRJC Fire Relief Fund has raised close to $400,000 so far and has already used 80 percent of the money to provide students, faculty and staff who lost their homes with $500 grants, said Pedro Avila, vice president of student services.

By the end of the first day of the chaos, Student Services set up a student support center hotline and received more than 100 calls that day from students who lost their homes and needed support.

A week later, student services, the counseling center, financial aid and other services reopened in the Bertolini Center despite the wider campus’ closure.

“I’m very proud of how SRJC managed things, I think as a team we responded well,” Avila said.

As SRJC resumes classes, the District Police are ready to direct anyone to needed resources.

“Our main concern is keeping students safe and directing them to the right resources,” said SRJC Chief Lorenzo Duenas, who lost his home in the fire but returned to work the very next day.

For students struggling with anxiety and trauma, the Student Psychological Services in Plover Hall has plenty to offer. The department teamed up with the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to provide up to six free counseling sessions for SRJC community members and their families.

Support groups start next week for anyone impacted by the wildfires.

“We are being very flexible with our schedules so we can see students quickly,” said Bert Epstein, manager of student health services’ mental health programs.

For students looking for additional resources, Student Psychological Services created a Crisis Support & Self Help section on its website where you can get emotional support 24/7, learn ways to cope through disasters and seek additional resources outside of SRJC. The Disability Resources Department, which usually caters to a specific type of student, has opened its doors to all students in need, on a caseby-case basis.

“If students need additional resources, we will make them temporarily eligible for disability resources upon a discussion with a specialist,” said DRD Manager Kim Starke.

DRD resources include note taking, a special space for test taking and additional time for test.

Where to find SRJC resources SRJC Public relations fire relief information:

public-relations.santarosa.edu/help-students

Crisis support and Mental Health:

shs.santarosa.edu/crisis-support-self-help crisis support mental health services

Student support center hotline: (707) 527-4424

Self-Care Center Bertolini 24/7 live support specialist:

www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distresshelpline/disaster-types/wildfires

FEMA assistance application: www.disasterassistance.gov/get-assistance

EAP: 800-999-7222 Sonoma County fire and emergency resources: sonomacountyfire.org

The recovery 23

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Roberta MacIntyre Staff Writer An air quality consultant hired

by Santa Rosa Junior College confirmed that all SRJC facilities “look really good” compared to the recommended Air Quality Index (AQI) levels.

SRJC Facilities Operations responded quickly to shut off air handlers in the early stages of the wildfires, working hard to change each of them out prior to reopening the campus on Oct. 23.

In regards to the air quality within the buildings, Wayne Hon from the Northern California Cal OSHA Office said, “The only way to find out how bad it is, is to take samples to see.”

This is something the SRJC environmental health and safety staff are currently doing. “The Junior College has been using an outside air quality consultant to monitor both inside and outside of buildings on campus since Oct. 15, and the air quality is way below Cal/OSHA regulatory levels,” said Doug Kuula, SRJC’s manager of environmental health and safety. “Environmental health and safety folks have been all over the district, there is no visible ash or residue in the locations where they have been and the rain took care of what was outside.”

Overall, it appears the SRJC Environmental Health and Safety

Editors-in-Chief

James Wyatt and Ali Benzerara

Roberta MacIntyre/ Oak Leaf

Santa Rosa Junior College Environmental Health and Safety staff, Robin McHalle and Doug Kuula, work hard to change filters and monitor air quality.

are working overtime to provide students, staff and faculty with a sense of normalcy.

In regards to the air quality SRJC student Celine Gossage said, “From what I have been able tell so far, I haven’t really noticed much. It hasn’t been too bad for me.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends two key housekeeping methods to reduce the health risks from smoke.

Occupants are advised to wipe and vacuum away dust particles from the fire with a damp cloth and use the Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system effectively.

The EPA recommends that commercial HVAC systems be

operated continuously while occupied to provide the minimum quantity of outdoor air for ventilation, as required by the building’s standards or building codes. It appears this is exactly what the SRJC facilities staff is doing. “My first class today was heavily air conditioned so I didn’t notice anything too bad,” Gossage said.

If you have concerns about the health and safety on campus, contact SRJC Environmental Health and Safety at (707) 527-4803. For more information on the effects of wildfire smoke, check out the guide: Wildfire Smoke - A Guide for Public Health Officials at: https://w w w3.epa.gov/airnow/ wildfire_may2016.pdf

Section Editors Managing Editor | Albert Gregory A&E Editor | Ali Benzerara A&E Editor | Jett Williams Features Editor | Amoura Deering Co-Features Editor | Michael Barnes News Editor | Brandon McCapes Opinion Editor | Grant Wetmore Sports Editor | Albert Gregory Editorial Cartoonist | Rachel Edelstein Multimedia Editor | Devin Schwarz Web Editor | Rachel Edelstein Social Media Editor | Meghan Buckman Staff Writers Ian Crory, Chelsea Wood, Anthony Rea, Roberta MacIntyre, Meghan Buckman, Terry Meunruakham, Charlotte Maxwell, Lenita Marie Johnson, Jose Gonzalez, Michael Barnes, Matthew Wreden, Reina Underwood-Mironoff Photographers Photo Editor | Dakota McGranahan Layout Team Devin Schwarz, Dakota McGranahan, section editors and editors-in-chief

Check out our website: Online

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In 2017 we decided to transition ourselves into the modern era by expanding our online content and pulling back on our print production. Eventually the Oak Leaf will become an online-only publication.

This exclusive, digital content can be found daily at www.theoakleafnews.com

Contact Newsroom: 707-527-4401 Ads Office: 707-527-4254 Advisor: Anne Belden: 707-527-4867 abelden@santarosa.edu Peer Assisted Learning Specialist Devin Schwarz EMAIL oakleafstaff@gmail.com Advertising Manager Ashley Sennette oakleaf-ads@santarosa.edu

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We appreciate your feedback. Send letters to oakleafstaff@gmail.com or to the Oak Leaf office. Letters should include first and last name and be limited to 300 words. Letter may be edited for style, length, clarity and taste. Libelous or obscene letters will not be printed.

Volume cxxxviii Issue 1

October 27, 2017

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the oak leaf

ALL THAT REMAINS ‘I thought we were all going to die’

A city left in ashes, Santa Rosa looks to rebuild