Ten Days in September

Monday, Labor Day, September 7th, 2020. As we prepared to get a good nights’ sleep before a three hour drive in the morning, the wind started. We had been warned beforehand that it would. However, it was coming from the east which was unusual. The term “historic” was bandied about. Three wildfires were burning north and east of the area we locals call "the canyon" which includes sister cities of Gates, Mill City, Lyons and Detroit. Certainly concerning but nothing to worry over. Little did I know.

The later the hour, the fiercer the wind blew. Growing and howling down our cul-de-sac cracking small tree limbs and shoving debris as it roared. Our bedroom window faces the street and shortly after midnight I noticed car lights coming into the neighborhood. I got up and stood looking out the back door window at our neighbor’s house across the street. “I wonder what’s going on at Rick’s house.” We knew Rick had health problems and lived alone. We feared a medical emergency but something felt different. Both Rick’s adult daughters were running between house and cars, arms loaded down with things from the house. Then we saw Rick also shoving things into a vehicle. He looked fine. What was going on?

That’s when my cell phone began to vibrate, our house phone rang and the power went out. A level three evacuation alert had been sent. With only the light from my cell phone we were able to locate flashlights, overnight bags and Copper. We dressed quickly and I called our daughter-in-law, waking her up to tell her we were coming to their house. She and my son live sixteen miles west. We didn’t know what else to do. I was not worried. We’d spend one night out of this raging wind, drop Copper at the kennel in the morning and still be off on our mini-vacation. Steve and I had been homebound for six months like everyone else. We were determined to take a little time away from home. Our goal was to visit Astoria, a coastal town we had not been to in over thirty years but we remembered it fondly. So along with Copper’s dog food and treats, two packed overnight bags waited beside the back door. Those packed bags turned out to be a time saving blessing.

As we stepped out the back door we were battered by hot, threatening wind.  It felt oddly surreal and other-worldly. I couldn't wrap my head around what I was seeing. The neighborhood was a flurry of night-time activity, car lights cutting through black created frantic patterns, hot wind swirled, scattering tree limbs and pummeling us with what I thought was debris. Some of it looked like the fireflies I’d played with as a kid during Pennsylvania summer evenings but I knew there were no fireflies in the Pacific Northwest. We were being pelted by burning embers and ash. Rushing to get the car out of the garage we both stopped. A pulsating red glow in the eastern sky gave us the first clue of what was coming. I began to worry.

Steve said, “I think we should take the camper.” 

There are times when words aren’t necessary between two people. This was one of those times. I knew what he was thinking…..we might not have a home to come back to.

 Whenever I think of our home town, I always see the movie title, “A River Runs through It.” Indeed one does, the North Santiam River. The north side of town runs alongside that river while access to the higher south side of town is across a bridge over the river. This is where we and most of the town population lives. That bridge crossing the North Santiam River, linking Linn County side of town to the main highway had closed for repair work in July and was not scheduled to reopen until the end of October. We were forced to escape down a back road. We weren’t alone.

I don’t drive well at night anymore what with age and poor eyesight so most of my concentration was on the road and other cars. This might have helped me not be so aware of the flames around us. But there is one picture glued firmly in my brain. I will never forget seeing the violent beauty of one completely engulfed fir tree. Rising perfectly Christmas tree formed into the night sky, each black branch clearly silhouetted inside an engulfing red-orange inferno. A picture at once visually stunning while at the same time fearfully heart breaking.

Fire was everywhere, scorching and burning on the north-side of the road, jumping uncontrolled from tree to home to underbrush pushed along by still howling, still hot winds. Dried brush on the south side ignited and began running beside the road. The fire had not yet become the tunnel of flames later evacuees would race through. It was only a matter of time before both sides of the road would create that tunnel.

The nine mile drive into Lyons, our link to Hwy 22 and safety beyond, was dreamlike. Heavy traffic in those midnight hours weaved calmly and orderly through blazing timbers and brush. There was no panic. I never once feared for my life.

Tuesday, September 8^th, 2020. Sometime during the night Stayton was put on a Level 2 alert: Be ready to evacuate so things were chaotic inside our son’s house that morning, everyone gathering precious items, pets and clothes. Neither Steve nor I had thought about grabbing albums, birth certificates, insurance papers, heirloom rifles or all the precious pictures and writings my computer holds. I now realized what we’d left behind. Irreplaceable things a fire can eat up in seconds. 

We gathered our few belongings and left our son’s house into what I can only describe as an apocalyptic scene. Ash piled up on cars an eighth inch thick continued to rain from that still eerily glowing red sky. Sun could not gouge its way through thick smoke but illuminated everything red. Wind had calmed, no longer gusting violently, but even in the early morning hours, the smoky air was hot.

I stood awestruck. Nature’s beauty was once again on display while simultaneously displaying evidence of her horrific power.

Someone heard that a fire evacuation center was being prepared at the state fairgrounds in Salem. We now had a destination. A blinking light proclaiming FIRE EVAC CENTER welcomed us as volunteers guided us into the Red Gate. The main parking lot directly across from the fair entrance had already filled up with displaced people, we were sent to overflow parking inside the red gate just in front of the Jackman-Long Building. We had no way of knowing it would be home for the next ten days.

Before we could even start familiarizing ourselves with new surroundings, volunteers pulling children’s wagons piled high with burritos walked among refugees offering food. And that was only the beginning. 

As we settled in Facebook kept us updated as to the course of the fire. Thundering down our much-loved canyon, pushed furiously by sixty mile an hour wind gusts, joining strength in combination with the Riverside and Lionshead wildfires, the Beachie Creek Fire continued to devastate and demolish beloved small towns.

Facebook also supplied us with stories of bravery and loss. New pages were added. We could list ourselves as safe on one. We would learn of those who weren’t from another. Five people lost their lives, numerous longtime friends lost their homes and several favorite businesses melted into ruble. Pictures of the aftermath were unbearable and unbelievable to look at yet consumed much of our time those first days.

We evacuees may have look like zombies, dazed, muddling in and out of smoke filled daylight darkness, ash still showering into irritated eyes. Group shock quickly grew into a community of displaced souls.

 Marion County volunteers set up long tables inside the Jackman-Long Building, against one wall food, canned goods and perishables. Dinners rolled in from different restaurants every night. Stacked along the other wall, hygiene items, bedding, clothing, items were continually resupplied. The list is long. Giving hands continued to fill ours. Most of us had never been in the position of taking. Most of us had done the giving.

Wednesday, September 9^th. We were being bombarded with information. Some of which was not true. All of us wanted a definitive answer regarding our homes and we were still trying to adjust to life in a parking lot. We were safe and I tried to focus on that but the later the day, the more I wanted to know about our house. We knew there was no access to the canyon on Hwy 22 and the National Guard set up road blocks on the back road as well.

And we still had Copper with us. Copper is a medium sized dog, lean and fast. He loves to run. He joyously bounces ahead of us unleashed on any wooded trail. He’s a good dog and listens. Here, on blacktop grouped tightly together with so many others, he stayed on leash. A grassy stretch provided an area for him to do his business and allow him to chase his ball if he didn’t interfere with others but he wasn’t happy. And he was breathing in more ash than we were. He didn’t wear a mask. Steve says I worry too much about him but there you are. I guess maybe I do. We decided to take Copper to the kennel and while we were out, to try to access our town. I needed to see home…..or, where it had been. 

If you've never seen the effects of forest fire, it's hard to describe. The silence is thick. Air, at the hazardous level, a charred taste, smoke thick with the smell of woodland death. We were stopped by the National Guard. They needed proof of who we were and where we lived. We were allowed entry with the warning, “We will not be able help you if something happens. Enter at your own risk.” And we did. God blessed us that day. Our house, though barely visible through the smoke soup, stood untouched.

Thursday, September 10^th. Most of the third day was spent discussing our worries and gobbling up bits of information. People carrying large square black boxes and microphones began canvassing the group. The reporters had arrived.

Community in a small town nestled in the Oregon foothills, means being able to walk to the local market when you run out of milk at 7:30 Sunday morning, stopping in for the monthly soup luncheon at the senior center or a Friday night dinner at the Eagles Lodge in support of weekly fund-raisers. In short, community means people; just folks, common lives, common needs.

Nothing very special about it. Until there is.

March 2020 changed our world. Panic arrived alongside a word most of us had not heard in our lifetimes: pandemic. Suddenly we were told to cut community ties, stay at home, close restaurants, hair salons, wear masks, don’t gather in groups of more than ten people and only do essential shopping, staying at least six feet away from other shoppers.

What we thought would be a short run new virus, surely gone by summer, turned into an endurance race. Each trip to the grocery store became a challenge, arrows painted on floors directing one-way foot traffic. Shoppers constantly required to deal with new changes.

Events defining summer were cancelled.

The virus held the country in its grasp but by then we all seemed to be settling in to necessary routines, accepting the fact that summer heat had not driven it away. Instead, for us, summer heat blazed into an inferno. 

Those hot gusty September winds rammed flames down an Oregon canyon leveling homes, businesses and towns changing reality once more.

So, in the end, this is a story about community and how the meaning of that word can change in the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart, the transmission of a virus or wherever a burning ember chooses to land.

Home for us, between Sept 8th and Sept 18^th, was very different than any kind of community I’d known before. Those ten days will remain the time I saw selfless giving, people doing so much for others, offers from businesses small and large, individuals driving through parked campers and tents offering to do laundry, so much daily kindness in a year of division, a year of keeping distance, a year isolated, a year of fear. A brief ten days of hope and community in a year gone mad.