["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published February 3, 2025] 2025
The recent fires in Los Angeles became especially personal when our younger son, daughter-in-law, three grandchildren and two dogs were forced to evacuate their home, their neighborhood surviving thanks to the incredible efforts of fire fighters. Prior to their evacuation, our son had sent us videos of tanker planes dropping red fire retardant overhead. Waaaay (waaaay) too close.
An unexpected bonus of the evacuation, however, was a shopping excursion with my 15-year-old granddaughter for a belated birthday gift. At a boutique in downtown La Jolla, the young sales woman overhead us talking about the fires and the family's evacuation.
"So," queried the young sales woman, "what was the first thing you took?"
My granddaughter didn't hesitate. "The Dyson."
The young salesgirl nodded. "That's what I would have taken too."
I was puzzled. "The vacuum cleaner?" I said.
They both looked at me like I was from another planet.
For those of us who are truly are from a different generational planet, a Dyson (same company as the vacs) is the Lamborghini of hair dryers, and it was my granddaughter's most coveted Christmas gift only two weeks earlier. Not gonna let that go up in flames! Definitely not an item you'd find on the hair care aisle at CVS where I bought my hair dryer.
I queried my hair stylist on this and she reported that the one she was using on me at that very moment was, in fact, a Dyson. (They come in different price ranges, from "really expensive" to "even more expensive.") Among other features, they're apparently very light weight, quiet, and dry hair much more quickly and with less damage. Definitely worth the money for a hair stylist, or a 15-year-old with lots of beautiful long hair.
Over a beverage at Peets, my granddaughter gave me her fire zone code so that I could keep up with the status of the fire in her neighborhood. Apparently all the kids know the fire zone codes of their friends. I guess this is a reality if you live in Southern California. And now I even know mine! And have Watch Duty and Genasys installed on my phone.
Feeling utterly helpless about the whole fire situation with my son's house, I was motivated to bring out my collection of rosary beads (gifts from my Catholic grandparents) both generic and saint-specific which I only press into service in cases of dire emergency. Catholic saints have been an integral part of my Judeo-Catholic-Protestant family. (I brought my menorah up to LA in December since Christmas Day was also the first night of Hannukah.) If it looks like a saint can help, well, I'm all for it.
Some years ago, as I agonized about a family member's impending cancer surgery, a Catholic co-worker mentioned that in her hometown, when one needed divine assistance, one would hang rosary beads on the clothesline and invoke the saints' help. I wasn't sure why a clothesline but who was I to argue how saints like to work? The surgery went better than could possibly be expected.
So presumably, if saints can do health, they can do houses? As I've done before, I had to sub in my orange tree since we're zoned against clothes lines. The lawn maintenance guys who were just arriving looked at me a little nervously. But they did adhere to my admonitions to please watch the leaf blowers!
My son's house is still standing. And OK, I'm willing to give the heroic fire fighters the credit. But sometimes you need all the help you can get.
The recent Gilman fire here in La Jolla in some ways afforded the community the gift of a trial run of a much-worse fire. A+++++ for the fire fighters. F minus (add 5 minuses) for traffic control. It seemed clear after this event that La Jolla's evacuation plan is "Die in place." (Select one: (a) house (b) car.) Telling people to evacuate with no plan or even actual route to leave seems pretty futile. Given La Jolla's significant elderly population (of which we are two), the Pacific Palisades exhortation to L.A. people who were stuck in their vehicles to "run for your life" is not going to be very workable. We're not sure we'd even try to get out of La Jolla in any direction in our car.
Olof and I have been pondering our own escape plan. Not to give too many details, but it involves life jackets. And preferably low tide and daylight. And if luck were shining upon us, a leftover panga boat.
Now here's an idea. What if the panga boat guys were alerted when there was a fire here? If they thought there was money smuggling people in, imagine what they could make taking people out. This could usher in a new mutually-beneficial era of international relations. I'm just thinking outside the box. And if I had a wildfire right behind me, there is no box I wouldn't be willing to think outside of.
Of course, in any urban area such as La Jolla that already has major traffic issues under the best of circumstances, one has to ask the deeply worrisome question: is there realistically any way to evacuate people? Even if you could get them out to I-5 (and good luck with that), the freeway would be gridlocked as well.
But it would nice to at least have an actual community plan for which the default is not being cremated in your car. I am (really really) hoping recent events will inspire one.
