The fires around San Diego are getting worse. At this stage about 500000 people have been evacuated and 1250 homes have been destroyed. There are several fires around the San Diego area and so far they've burnt about 300000 acres. The really scary thing is that the two biggest fires are hardly contained at all. At this stage they expect one of them to be contained on 31 October at the earliest and who knows about the other one.
The news stations are covering the fires 24 hours a day it seems. I suppose it's a good thing because you can see the vast scale of the fires. There have been pictures of helicopters water bombing the fires and apparently some large cargo planes are expected and will also be able to help with that. Which is a very good thing considering that the one fire was 20 miles long! A national emergency has been declared and apparently Bush himself is coming down to visit on Thursday.
You realise how tragic this fire is when it affects people you know. A while back (maybe a month and a half ago) I was invited to the house of a Rotarian. This was the day after the District's Rotary Foundation Seminar so there were a number of important people in town. He and his wife were hosted a very nice lunch at their beautiful home in Fallbrook for everyone. Fallbrook is directly North of San Diego and slightly inland. It's a very pretty, slightly rural area in that it's a bit out the way. The houses are large and stand on very big properties filled with avocado trees. Everything was very green and lush. Apparently they were evacuated from their house yesterday and don't expect it to be standing when they return.
On my side I haven't been affected much at all. You can smell smoke outside and the horizon is just grey but that's all thankfully. The University is closed for the rest of the week so on Thursday Sarah and I are going to drive up to Bakersfield to visit her parents. Bakersfield is north-west of LA and about 3 and a half hours from San Diego. We're then going to carry on to visit a friend of hers in San Luis Obispo for the weekend. She mentioned something about a Halloween party too so we're going to get costumes tomorrow I think. It should be fun! At least I'm getting to see a bit of California.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Fire!
I don't know if this has made it onto South African news (although it is on the News 24 website), there are huge fires burning in California. More specifically there are several large fires burning around San Diego.
I copied this off one of the news websites to give you an idea of just how huge these fires are. The red area is the burn zone, The little fire symbols are where the fires currently are and the crosses are evac points. Even though we're quite safe (SDSU is somewhere under the 'La Mesa' label on the map), it's still scary.
The news stations have been covering this all day. At this stage 250000 people have been evacuated for the areas surrounding San Diego and it doesn't appear that the fires are going to be stopping anytime soon. A State of Emergency has been declared and good old Arnie is doing his bit and is going around visiting the evacuees.
As far as I can make out the fires are as a result of an incredibly dry summer with virtually no rains and are being driven by strong winds. I heard a report today that a fire had jumped one of the main highways, the I15. When you realise that American highways are concrete monstrosities with at least 6 lanes in each direction, you understand how impressive that is.
I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am fine (just in case you were worried). There's a permanent smell of smoke around and things are quite hazy but aside from that all is good. In fact they're probably better than good because the University was closed at 1pm today and is going to be closed tomorrow too. Something to do with levels of smoke in the air and getting people off the roads so that the evacuees can get to where they need to go. I'm not complaining.
How's this for impressive? The University has these movable electronic signs which they've put up at all the major intersections around the University so that people know what's going on.
It seems we have gone from one extreme to the other here, last week it was cold and it rained! This was a really big thing... I've been told that it hardly every rains in San Diego. Seeing as it is tecnically a desert I suppose that's hardly surprising. Apparently it's rained once or twice since I've been here but I was always asleep at the time and there was no trace of it by the time I woke up.
I copied this off one of the news websites to give you an idea of just how huge these fires are. The red area is the burn zone, The little fire symbols are where the fires currently are and the crosses are evac points. Even though we're quite safe (SDSU is somewhere under the 'La Mesa' label on the map), it's still scary.The news stations have been covering this all day. At this stage 250000 people have been evacuated for the areas surrounding San Diego and it doesn't appear that the fires are going to be stopping anytime soon. A State of Emergency has been declared and good old Arnie is doing his bit and is going around visiting the evacuees.
As far as I can make out the fires are as a result of an incredibly dry summer with virtually no rains and are being driven by strong winds. I heard a report today that a fire had jumped one of the main highways, the I15. When you realise that American highways are concrete monstrosities with at least 6 lanes in each direction, you understand how impressive that is.
I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am fine (just in case you were worried). There's a permanent smell of smoke around and things are quite hazy but aside from that all is good. In fact they're probably better than good because the University was closed at 1pm today and is going to be closed tomorrow too. Something to do with levels of smoke in the air and getting people off the roads so that the evacuees can get to where they need to go. I'm not complaining.
How's this for impressive? The University has these movable electronic signs which they've put up at all the major intersections around the University so that people know what's going on.It seems we have gone from one extreme to the other here, last week it was cold and it rained! This was a really big thing... I've been told that it hardly every rains in San Diego. Seeing as it is tecnically a desert I suppose that's hardly surprising. Apparently it's rained once or twice since I've been here but I was always asleep at the time and there was no trace of it by the time I woke up.
Monday, October 15, 2007
I'm baaaaack!
I am quite willing to admit that I've been absolutely shocking about posting stuff on here so I must apologise. I decided that today was the day that I was going to start getting everything back into order with my life. Why has everything got out of order? Because I've been busy and it's really hard living on your own! (and admittedly because I've been lazy). My 'to do' list has got to a point when it's looking really scary so I decided that I really had to do something about it.
As for what I've been up to - nothing thrilling unfortunately! I've been being a student, in other words I've been studying! Isn't that peculiar? In my last post I mentioned tests - two of them, international trade and econometrics, went well but microeconomics was shocking! The biggest problem was time and the fact that there was enough of it for only half the paper. It was not fun. We've also had endless assignments, I just handed in another one this evening and have another due next week. It doesn't seem to stop! You'll be pleased to know I am surviving though.
Life is starting to look a bit more fun too - I have a lot of things lined up for the next few weeks. Highlights include going to see an exhibition of the dead sea scrolls, New York and then going to Santa Barbara with my friend Jen for Thanksgiving. No doubt other stuff will crop up too. Hopefully some of the touristy variety!
I think I got my first bout of homesickness this weekend. I was feeling quite sorry for myself! The main protagonist was the Rugby of all things. Why? - because I haven't been able to watch any of it! There's also no one here who I can talk to about it - rugby is a bit lost on my room mate. It just seems that everyone in SA is so into the RWC (as they should be) and I'm feeling left out! I met a guy who plays rugby for SDSU last week in our apartment block's laundry of all places! I think I'm going to find out where he's watching the final and gatecrash...
I think that's about all for now. As I remember interesting stuff from the last few weeks I'll try to remember to post it.
As for what I've been up to - nothing thrilling unfortunately! I've been being a student, in other words I've been studying! Isn't that peculiar? In my last post I mentioned tests - two of them, international trade and econometrics, went well but microeconomics was shocking! The biggest problem was time and the fact that there was enough of it for only half the paper. It was not fun. We've also had endless assignments, I just handed in another one this evening and have another due next week. It doesn't seem to stop! You'll be pleased to know I am surviving though.
Life is starting to look a bit more fun too - I have a lot of things lined up for the next few weeks. Highlights include going to see an exhibition of the dead sea scrolls, New York and then going to Santa Barbara with my friend Jen for Thanksgiving. No doubt other stuff will crop up too. Hopefully some of the touristy variety!
I think I got my first bout of homesickness this weekend. I was feeling quite sorry for myself! The main protagonist was the Rugby of all things. Why? - because I haven't been able to watch any of it! There's also no one here who I can talk to about it - rugby is a bit lost on my room mate. It just seems that everyone in SA is so into the RWC (as they should be) and I'm feeling left out! I met a guy who plays rugby for SDSU last week in our apartment block's laundry of all places! I think I'm going to find out where he's watching the final and gatecrash...
I think that's about all for now. As I remember interesting stuff from the last few weeks I'll try to remember to post it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
