:: fri may 12 00 ::
7:00 update: GOOD NEWS!! everyone here knows i virtually never use capital letters, so this has to be great. winds have significantly died down. much headway has been made today ... they're going to be doing another infrared scan tonight, then targeted bombing from the big capacity airplanes tomorrow. they may be able to get containment on this beast over the weekend. local tv stations are pulling their 24 hour coverage tonight ... it all looks much more hopeful.
they need feed for the horses at the albuquerque fairgrounds.
3:00 PM update: believe it or not, there's an hour long wait at the bloodbank ... new mexico is low, and the call went out. wow.
heather wilson, our representative, is decisive. she said in the press conference that she may not know liability, but she knows responsibility. nice to hear someone cut through the usual fluff.
the more i look at footage, the more i notice that flat tar roof and metal roof dwellings seemed to have survived, vs. the traditional wood frame houses with shingle roofs. virtually everything in santa fe is masonry, restricted by zoning. los alamos has a lot of 40's and later wood construction. in burn-potential areas, i would guess a masonry house has significant advantages.
2:00 PM update: the local tv stations are flashing streets and house numbers at the bottom of the television screen. it just keeps on ... dozens of houses on the same street ... displayed in cold hard numbers and letters. there's something so ... so ... sterile about this. these are people's homes, filled with memories, good times ... keepsakes, private spaces. i just hope that as they watch television, and see their address come up, they know we all are all hurting right along side them.
the red cross has made a plea: send us more money, no food. apparently they've got so much, they can't deal with what they've got right now. says a lot about new mexico, actually. an official mentioned something along the lines of "people care about each other, and that's what community is all about."
for what it's worth, looking straight towards the fire, same perspective as yesterday ... different zoom ratio:
"smoke"
they've just completed a press conference. it seems they estimated 18,000 acres involved, but the infrared displayed 28,800 acres. this fire has split into multiple priorities ... the town fire, the wildfire. the town fire seems stable at the moment, not out. the wildfire is bad, and still getting worse.
the official destroyed home count, according to the news conference, is 191.
they are estimating people may be able to return to their homes in a week, minimum. the return is complicated by the fact that natural gas lines to homes have been compromised, electrical lines have been compromised, as well as other community services. they have to do a progressive, controlled 'relight' of services ... preferably with no occupants to be injured.
the environmental representative (in a particularly gaudy shirt) reported that air quality is pretty much as predicted. he did not specifically address what the smoke might be comprised of, but it was good to hear him specifically address the stability of the mountainsides after the fire is over. july, our rainy season, is not far away ... and that could easily double this disaster.
a note of great interest: los alamos has always had restrictive entrance/exit points for reasons of security. they had estimated that the evacuation would take 10 hours minimum. the citizens cleared out in 4 1/2.
there is a feeling of anxiety, though. even in santa fe, you can feel it. but in the midst, a few keep their humor. i've already received emails from folks making cold-war era jokes about the russians coming over to help with water bombers ...
there's another press conference, this time from a los alamos national lab perspective, from area 49 at 2:00 today MST.
11:00 AM update: folks were happy to receive any canned meat other than tuna. i was going to post a picture, but it would show you nothing. the wind's hauling around to come from the northwest. from our vantagepoint, the jemez mountain range is gone behind a white/gray smog ... the sangre de cristos march north and disappear. it almost looks like we live on the plains, in a fogbank.
it smells. i can only imagine what those poor folk in espanola and chimayo have suffered over the past few days ... they had it a lot worse than this. yet people are still outside working at this point.
10:30 AM update: the smoke's just about here. we're going out to drop off more food, then we batten down the hatches and watch the news to make sure the hazardous stuff isn't burning ...
9:13 AM update: the sad news, 28,800 acres burned ... wildlife decimated. the glad news, over one million pounds of food donated, and so far not a single human life lost.
if you have loved ones or friends who have been evacuated, you can find contact numbers for the various shelters at this location.
it looks like the planes, the bombers will be able to fly today! that's great news. and the russians have offered water bombers as well.
from what i can tell, abiquiu was evacuated for smoke.
liz butler of the daily lobo, news for the university of new mexico, points me to their coverage.
there's a feeling of some relief this morning. it seems the wind changed, taking the fire eastwards ... from my experience, that's towards more brushy, arid regions than the forest proper. los alamos metro seems to be better for the moment. i'm hearing estimates of anywhere from 250 to as many as 400 homes lost.
the winds are somewhat calmer, and it's actually a bit chilly outside. all good signs.
we understand that this has become a national effort, with fire crews from montana and minnesota on their way to assist with all these fires.
apparently during the night the fire burned through a couple of los alamos national lab properties ... we'll find out about that situation this afternoon. everyone's being very 'tender' of the lab ... what we're all concerned about is their waste management techniques. they've been here for what, 50 some years? who knows what they've dumped in the arroyos ... before the environmental protection act ever came into existence.
hah. the albuquerque journal reports that "another danger was posed by a hazardous waste area in nearby white rock, said paul schumann, an official with the lab's environmental restoration project team. the waste, which includes asbestos, low-level radioactive waste and PCBs, is stored in steel drums and fiberglass compound containers. If the area catches fire, possible health effects could range from the short-term, such as liver poisoning, to the long-term, such as breathing a plutonium particle, which could cause cancer, he said. the fire was about five miles away thursday night."
the wind may shift around and send the smoke plume over santa fe by afternoon today. all other things being equal, sandra and i are discussing plans for a bail out ... maybe it's time to go to las vegas and bet on what's going to happen next.