I also considered the titles "Refugees" and "Life on the Run".
My friend Shannen called us last night, shortly after putting our kids to bed, and asked us if we needed a place to stay. "Of course not," I replied. I knew there was a fire in Herriman, but it was
all the way on the other side of town. While we chatted, I stepped out onto my porch for a little look-see, where my jaw promptly dropped to my ankles.
We started packing immediately.
At first I was really sad and scared. I started crying and called my sister in Washington to put her on high alert and to ask her to notify the rest of the clan and to pray for our family. We zipped around the house and piled our collection of preciousness by the back door. Dex's memory box and painting were the first things we grabbed. Then I loaded up the back-up hard drives that contained all of our family photos. Justin gathered our important documents while I took pictures of our entire house for the insurance company. I packed a suitcase with clothes and toiletries for all of us and set aside the children's backpacks for them to pack a few things if we had to evacuate. I packed Kinley's hair ties because if we were going to be refugees, we were at least going to be fashionable about it.
It was a worthy exercise to filter through our belongings and discover exactly what we
really need, or more, importantly, what we
don't need. All of our most valued treasures fit comfortably into just a few suitcases and a plastic bin. Well, we packed some pretty precious cargo in our booster seats and car seat carrier, of course. On a side note, I considered packing our library books because I was afraid they would charge us replacement fees if they burned up in the fire, but in the end decided that they could just stick it.
Throughout our preparations, the children continued to sleep, blissfully unaware of the fiery inferno creeping down the mountain. Justin and I walked up and down the street, listened to all the television news cycles, and obsessively followed the city updates on twitter and facebook. We knew a lot of our neighbors were fleeing. We also knew that a lot of them were trying to wait it out like us. We were reluctant to roust the kids from their beds and leave our home unless it was absolutely necessary. We said we would wait until they issued a mandatory evacuation. Once we were packed and waiting, I felt really calm and relaxed. "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear", I suppose.
The evacuation order was heavily rumored to be already authorized at midnight and came through officially on twitter, facebook, and KSL around 1:00 am. We woke up the kids and told them that we were having a grand "adventure" and asked them to gather a few of their most beloved belongings. Tanner's lightsaber and storm trooper gun made the short list. Kinley chose her bunny from Grandma Ahroon, her scriptures, and her Black Beauty book. We woke Crew last of all and strapped him into his car seat.
Just as we finished loading the van, the city issued a retraction on the evacuation. We sat in our driveway
forever trying to decide what to do, chatting with neighbors in the same boat. Eventually they issued a confirmation of the evacuation order and then
another retraction. We needed sleep and figured we might be doing the back-and-forth thing all night. They had already evacuated the neighborhoods across the street several hours before. I knew we wouldn't be able to rest until the fire was under control (a joke) or we had been evacuated. Since the kids were already in their car seats and all grins about their dramatic midnight excursion, we opted to evacuate. They were mesmerized by the sheer magnitude of the fire as we drove out of town. Most of the evacuees had departed many hours previously, so we were just a few straggler cars zipping down the hill, no traffic at all. All the entrance roads to Herriman were blocked. We knew we were making a one-way decision and wouldn't be allowed back into town once we left.
In the end, we didn't go to Shannan's house. In the middle of the night we got a call from one of Justin's partners who offered their home to us. It was only then that it occurred to me that Crew had been sick all weekend and that exposing Shannan's chemo-stricken son Ray to Crew's germs was a
terrible , deal-breaking idea. We arrived in east Salt Lake around 2:00 am. Tanner's biggest concern was whether Wayne and his wife had Raisin Bran at their house. We all went right to sleep, totally spent. The adrenaline had long since worn off and I couldn't keep my eyes open.
We drove back this morning after hearing that residents were being allowed to return to their homes and that the barricades had been taken down. We feel very blessed. The neighborhood across the street from us remains an evacuation zone as the brave firefighters continue to try to squash this blaze. We are grateful for their diligent and courageous efforts in protecting our community. Three homes have burned down and our hearts to go out the the families that lost their homes as well as to those who have not yet been able to return to their houses.
We are so grateful for the flood of concerned texts, comments, emails, and facebook messages. Thank you so much for offering your prayers and in some cases, your homes and hospitality. We know from long experience how amazing and generous our friends and family members are. Thank you.
We're safe and sound in our own home-sweet-home, though we're not unpacking
just yet.
For more breaking news on this story, click
here.
