Saturday, July 5, 2008

UPDATE from the Homeowner Front

These are up to date comments, from the mouths of the actual but different parties who are still in the evacuation zone. These people are not going to be identified at this time. One of them already left "the zone"

For those of you who want to know what is really going on for the homeowners and friends who stayed inside the evacuation zone.
Pfeiffer:
"Pfeiffer Ridge needs supplies and food mostly."

North of the Deli:
"The smoke is thick. I get headaches from it and feel dizzy sometimes. I am going to go rest a bit."

Other Big Sur areas:
"We asked for water and they did not bring it, instead they sent us 3 firefighters from Idaho who seemed like rookies. We had to even show them what to do. "

"The firefighters and sheriff are doing more to actually prevent and stop our progress and than help."

"The Sheriff came up the driveway so fast to try and arrest us that he ran over our water hoses, causes them to have holes. We need more supplies to fix them."

"The Sheriffs were trying to find all kinds of bogus reasons to arrest us. First they kept making sure they we understood over and over that we were not to light any fires. Though we kept on repeating that we got what they said...they kept on. Then when we thought they were going to leave and I was going in to get a drink of water before resuming firefighting...one of the Sheriff's starting asking me if I owned the home or lived there. He said several times-that he could arrest us for violating tenants rights by entering without advance notice. We responded by saying that we didn't think the "tenants who were evacuated would mind if we entered the home we were protecting to get some water to drink" "We also mentioned that we felt that the Sheriff was operating on "automatic" instead of considering the situation. Finally after a few pointless back and forths, we just had to say: "We have a fire to fight...we cannot continue this conversation. They finally left us alone." (Paraphrased for brevity)

"They are doing everything they can to get in our way of our fire fighting efforts. We asked some firefighters who were acting negative towards us to back up their trucks and leave the driveway a slightly different way. The firefighters basically said: No, we aren't going to back up, we want you to unhook your hose. We responded. "We don't have time to unhook the hoses, please back up." They responded: Well the Sheriff is behind us and he won't back up, so neither will we." The Sheriff was asked to back up, he did and this time they did not run over and ruin our water hoses.

"While we hide in the woods to prevent from being harassed and arrested, the fire gains and we lose. They are not gelling anything here,nor are they putting any water on anything. They are not defending these homes."

"They are afraid to go to the road or leave the home because, once they are taken out, they know they won't be able to go back in to fight the fire."

"A few people want to leave but are afraid that they will be arrested. They need a way to leave without that happening. Isn't that what the Sheriff wants people to do? Leave? Let us leave without threat of arrest then."

SOUTH COAST:
Keith Harlan called about an hour ago to thank us for this web blog. He said that when they put the road barriers down in South Coast..they somehow forgot that the campground was still full of people. Tourists. It's just kind of crazy down here. Why are they trying to starve out people who have decided to stay and protect their homes?

If there is anyone who feels that their comments should be edited further. Let us know via phone so that we can make this as accurate as possible.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just spoke to a resident in the Buck Creek area. He said they (FS) will be back-firing along the highway from Anderson to Buck Creek today. The fire itself has burned right to the Buck Creek Bridge on the South side, but is holding there. Low on fuel (10 gallons left), no electricity, but has a lot of tortillas, and is enjoying sailing them off of the deck. Only using the generator 2 hours a day; when fuel runs out, will put a 5 gallon gas can with a sign on the highway. There is car traffic, perhaps from Esalen. Can't even walk on the highway; gets harrassed.

Anonymous said...

We wish you the best and appreciate your spirit as we read your stories from afar. It sounds like we can all learn from this experience. Survival plans are necessary, whether we're in Big Sur or a big city, especially when we have pre-warning about an emergency. My grandparents and their farming neighbors were prepared for nature's changes with stores of food in basements, water wells, kerosene lanterns,...It's time to learn from our ancestors so we're not so dependent on the highway and food producing systems.