Thousands of San Diego Fire Victims Evacuate to Qualcomm Stadium: A Volunteer's PerspectivePublished : 10/23/2007 by Jessica Dungans
Walking into Qualcomm Stadium with the sun shining overhead in blue skies, I almost imagined I was headed to a Chargers game on an average afternoon. Then I started to notice the masses of wandering people donning white particle masks, pitching tents, gathering various supplies from aid stations, and walking dogs, while quietly consumed by an eerie silence infrequently interrupted by a jolting “Coffee!” or “Pizza over here!”
Such was the scene at Qualcomm when I first arrived as a volunteer around 12pm Monday, October 22, 2007, as nearly 1,000 non-evacuated San Diegans quickly turned the “Q” into an over-manned and well-oiled refuge machine. Reaching a ratio of 1 volunteer to about 10 evacuees, eager volunteers and I stood under two small tents outside the office, waiting for task managers to corral us into different jobs.
Tables popped up everywhere and were soon weighted down with various cans of corn, beans, and tuna. The fresh food line, offering everything from Power Bars to hot lasagna, was fully stocked from the ground up. Costco filled the place with crates of water bottles, Domino’s and Filippi’s stacked up towers of pizza boxes, and Starbucks handed out cups of coffee.
“Have you heard about any horses running around?” asked a North County resident named Brad, with his umbrella cockatoo, Peanut, sitting atop his knee, seemingly both un-phased by the evacuation. They had abandoned their home early that morning in a rush and, because he doesn’t own a trailer, he had no choice but to set his horses free after a “smack on the behind to set them running.”
The family sitting next to him had no idea what state their home is in, yet doubting its survival, they appear strangely calm. They crack jokes about the teenage daughter’s part-time job as a magician assistant, while her younger brother, with a Musketeer-esque mustache and drawn-in goatee, returns with a 6-pack of Pepsi. “Aw, why did you take the whole thing?” his mother and sister exclaim. “They told me to take it…for the group,” he adds with a mischievous smirk. Their pet rabbit has made friends with me by the time a couple comes by offering their local church as shelter for the night; smiles of gratitude are exchanged when they hand over a card with directions.
The general mood is surprisingly positive. People have yet to hear about their homes, and are keeping their minds off the devastation by volunteering or playing with their children. However, a completely different crowd occupies the shaded upper regions of the Qualcomm stands. Families sit together nibbling on pizza, while their eyes are glued to the numerous television screens blaring the latest coverage. This group of San Diego residents is waiting, dreading, to see their street behind some newscaster pointing out the homes burned out of existence among the orange glow.
It’s a toss up. The extreme winds, which seem to grow stronger by the hour, blow embers every-which-way, and which rooftop they land on is out of anyone’s hands.
I watched a couple with their two dogs standing in the sparse shade, listening with blank faces to the radio broadcasts simultaneously sounding off from several vehicles in the outer rung of the parking lot. “We’ve been watching the news all night,” the woman said, as I read the anxiety and anticipation in her voice. Chris and Diane had left their home in Rancho Bernardo around 6am that morning and still carried remnants of ashes on their clothes. “Just pictures and photo albums,” says Diane, “and important papers,” Chris adds, were all they managed to gather before leaving their home at the mercy of the flying flames.
Back inside more and more families set up camp in tents along the inner walls and covered hallways. A cheery young boy named Alan emerged from a tent full of relatives who had come from Ramona and been at the “Q” since 10am. He pointed out that nearly the entire passageway on the Plaza level between sections 3 and 4 was filled with his family and friends, as he tossed his football back and forth in his hands. “I remember the 2003 fires. We lived in the same house, but didn’t have to leave then.”
The elderly displaced and those requiring medical attention were aptly separated from the hustle and bustle in the upstairs clubhouses. The seniors weren’t preoccupied with the fiery footage on every screen, but rather with their puzzles and lost wheelchairs. “They took my wheelchair, I’m trapped!” exclaims a distressed woman to which an elderly man seated next to her assured me, “don’t worry, she’s out of her mind.” The displacement, for some, seemed to spur a state of confusion, but for the most part they seemed to be happy to leave their retirement homes; like some kind of fieldtrip.
In this mini-city pre-teens bounced about, booths offered insurance claims, young adults kept children lively through games of stickball, and a local musician played electric guitar through his wheeled amplifiers. Horns squawked from palette movers bringing in more donations, a rainbow clown twisted balloons into hats and animals to a small crowd of jaw-dropped kids, the loudspeaker “check one-two’d,” and the most recent Qualcomm numbers, by 4:45pm, were approximately 10,000 evacuees and 1,000 volunteers.
As night drew near, evacuees ate more and prepared to sleep in their tents, cots, and cars ready for some rest after a traumatic day. An encouraging visit from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger livens up moral before San Diegans turn in, not knowing what the next day may bring.
To see more Qualcomm Stadium and San Diego fires images, visit the DiscoverSD.com photo gallery here.
Photos by: James Norton
Main image: Poway fires in San Diego, October 22, 2007
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