Here in downtown San Diego, business appears to be back in business as the courthouses are back on. Leah drove me to the bus and I bussed it in and the activity level is much higher than it was Monday and Tuesday.
Looks like a light, and mercifully grey fog has beaten back the smoke! The air no longer smells of campfire, and fewer people are wearing dust masks and surgical masks. (Yesterday I saw a San Diego Policeman driving with a dust mask on).
My mind is more at ease, though the county is still under hellish conditions. The banner headline on the Union Tribune today is “BATTLE FOR JULIAN” — another 200-300 homes were destroyed overnight near Julian. The town of Julian, famous for its Apple Festival and as a relaxing tourist destination experienced the onslaught overnight. Horrible. While San Diego kids are no longer having snow smoke days, their schools are back on, kids out in the county still have the day off. And they’re still at risk.
We have several fires still raging. Check the map here to see the shape of the “front” of the fire.
But note also, we have four separate areas with named fires: This U-T map shows Pendleton, Paradise, Cedar, and Otay fires actively burning.
On a blog note, I submitted my posts from ArtLung, San Diego Blog and San Diego Bloggers to BoingBoing and they were picked up. Traffic to those sites has risen, hopefully serving some public need for news about San Diego. Bloggers are still blogging, talking about their experiences and taking photos. Some of the linking sites are: Boing Boing, Doc Searls, Amy Langfeld, CriticalMas, Stör-Signale, Andy’s Waxy.org Links, Tony Pierce, Nerd Boy Mikey’s Electric Bugaloo, Emese, Easy Bake Coven, Lost Remote (which looks like an interesting TV News site). Thanks for linking, and thanks for talking about this thing which is huge news here, and a minor item everywhere else. These fires are current news. And the efforts to take care of those who lost homes are ongoing. This is a big blow to San Diego County. “Worst fire anyone can remember” is how people put it. City leaders begin their sentences with “I’ve been on the job 30, 40, 45 years, and this is the worst…” — you get the picture.
That’s all for now.
To my fellow San Diegans: take care.
