Apocalypse Now

By Joe Berk

No, it’s not another movie review. It’s what’s been occurring here in the Southland since Wednesday night.

We’ve had our share of forest fires in the 50 years I’ve been living in this part of the world, but nothing like this. Apocalyptic is not too strong a word. I think everyone who lives in southern California knows someone who lost their home.

This all started on Wednesday evening with the Santa Ana winds. We get them every year. They are usually strong, but this year they were something out of a disaster movie. In southern California, our normal daily winds predictably blow from west to east starting around 2:00 p.m. and going to approximately sundown. There’s an atmospheric/geologic reason for it I won’t pretend to understand or explain. The Santa Ana winds do just the opposite; they below from east to west, and they blow hard. Throw a fire into the mix, and you get what we have been experiencing for the last few days.

I can see the smokey skies from my house. The Eaton fire (the closest one to us) is about 30 miles to the west, but other than that, we were lucky. We’ve had lots of forest fires before in the 50 years I’ve lived here and we could see the flames on many of those fires, but they were always up in the mountains. This time, the fires jumped into residential neighborhoods.

I appreciate all the texts, emails, and phone calls from people checking in on us. We’re fine. The air quality is poor, but that’s trivial compared to what the other people in southern California have suffered. I feel for them, and I hope their situations get resolved quickly.

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