Poway ahead of other burned areas in recovery

By: ANDREA MOSS - Staff Writer
Editor's note: Three months after the deadly Cedar and Paradise fires roared across much of San Diego County, thousands of residents still struggle to repair their lives and return to some sense of normalcy. We look at three communities in recovery and report individual stories from some of those affected by the flames. | Monday, February 2, 2004 10:06 PM PST ∞

POWAY ----- The walls of flame that roared into the city in late October shocked residents initially, but the community quickly recovered and went into action.

Three months later, Poway's strong and united front in the face of tragedy is credited with putting the city well on its way to recovery.

"Things are going very well for our families, considering," said Merrilee Boyack, a leader in efforts to help those who lost homes in the blaze. "It was kind of embarrassing because our families were settled so quickly,"

The blaze ate up 54 homes and one business in southeast Poway, leaving 66 families homeless. While that number paled in comparison to the 2,232 homes and 15 people lost to the Cedar fire throughout the region, it stunned local residents.

Of the 66 burned-out families, 38 were uninsured renters and five had no insurance on the homes they owned.

Residents whose homes were spared immediately reached out to their less fortunate neighbors. The city also created a team to guide fire victims through the recovery process.

As of last week, all Poway residents who lost their homes apparently were resettled in rented houses or apartments filled with replacement furniture and household items.

Much of the help came from a fire relief fund overseen by the Rotary Club of Poway, which raised $110,000 and distributed it almost as quickly as it came in.

The city, meanwhile, has waived building permit fees and fast-tracked victims' construction plans. The first house is now under construction.

Poway development services Director Niall Fritz said he was pleasantly surprised at the pace.

"Things are moving along faster than I expected based on what the city of Carlsbad had told us was their experience after the Harmony Grove fire," he said. "They said for most people, it was right around a year before they started rebuilding their homes."

Everyone in Poway touched by the Cedar fire has a story to tell. Here are a few of them.

Watching and waiting

Traci Barker-Ball and Rebecca Hernandez know some things can't be rushed.

So the women, both student services coordinators at Poway High School, are doing a lot of watching and waiting these days.

Watching for signs that one of the dozen or so students on campus who lost their homes in the fire may be struggling academically or withdrawing socially.

Waiting for signals that teens who insist they are fine might suddenly need a sympathetic ear ---- or hugs.

"For the most part, what I have heard is they don't really want to talk about it," Barker-Ball said. "That's a very typical teenage thing ---- 'I don't want any sympathy.'"

While the reaction is a common defense mechanism for teenagers, it's not necessarily healthy.

"They're going to have to talk about it at some point, because if they keep it all inside and just internalize it, at some point it's just going to blow," Barker-Ball said.

Signs started appearing before the holidays when some of the school's fire victims realized that favorite decorations and other cherished possessions were gone for good.

So Barker-Ball and Hernandez helped launch an Adopt-A-Family program at the school. Whole classes stepped forward to fill the wish lists of kids who had lost everything.

"They didn't think we'd be able to get (their lists) filled," Hernandez said. "Well, we did."

College applications were the next hurdle. At least two of Poway High's fire victims were ready to abandon their college plans, due to financial concerns or the belief their families needed their emotional support, Hernandez said.

"Their parents as well (as us) said, 'no, no, no, this is going to happen. Continue applying,' " she said. "Life keeps going on, but it's different."

She and Barker-Bell said students affected by the fire are doing better than expected.

"I think when they saw the strength of their parents and the response of the community, they were able to get through," Barker-Ball said. "And we're trusting that they'll come to us when they need to and are ready to."

Community service addict

Helping her community is second nature to Merrilee Boyack.

An active volunteer in her church and other organizations, she was among the first helpers to show up at an emergency shelter for wildfire victims at the city's community center.

Her quick response evolved into a longer-term commitment: Boyack agreed to help coordinate the Rotary Club of Poway fire relief fund.

The fund, which stopped taking donations last week because its basic mission had been accomplished, collected $110,000. All but about $6,000 of the money has been distributed directly to the 66 Poway families left homeless by the fire. A final distribution is to be made this week.

"The fire happened on Sunday, and we were handing out checks by Saturday," Boyack said. "It was incredible and very fun. I kept calling them (the families) every day saying, 'I have more money for you.'"

Once those who lost their homes were matched with temporary housing, Boyack helped funnel donated furniture and household items their way.

Boyack said her part in helping Poway's fire victims has been both exhausting and invigorating.

"I felt like I'd given birth to 54 families for a while there," she said. "I put in three weeks of 21-hour days. But it is such a thrill to be able to help them."

She and her own family have been quietly dealing with their own crises in the last few months. When her husband, Stephen, was laid off from his job she put him to work delivering furniture to fire victims.

Her father, who lives in Rancho Bernardo, suffered a heart attack last month. Boyack credited her family's "incredible" support with enabling her to continue.

She received the ultimate payback in the form of a note from her 22-year-old son, who recently returned from a missionary trip in Honduras.

"At Christmas, he sent me a card saying, 'toward the end of (my) mission, I realized how important it is what you're working on. And I want to do the same thing with my life.'"

Memories and family's love all that's left

The Cedar fire woke Amber Fisher and her family as it bore down on their house off Highway 67 just outside Poway before dawn.

"We just saw the fire and started packing our things," the 17-year-old Poway High School senior said. "When we were leaving, I think I was the only one in the family who kind of knew (the house) wasn't going to be there when we got back."

The family, which includes Amber's parents and her 22-year-old brother, escaped the flames with their pets, photographs and a few clothes. Amber's premonition did little to soften the blow of losing the place she had called home.

"It was pretty shocking 'cause all the memories and all were gone," she said. "I lived there 14 years, which is pretty much my whole life."

A quick response from the Fishers' insurance company enabled the family to obtain two fifth-wheel trailers, which they parked beside the rubble of their burned-out home and are living in until the house is rebuilt.

Amber figures she'll be 21 by the time the project is finished.

In the meantime, she is trying to adjust to life after the fire. That's not easy when friends don't really know what to say and a simple walk through a store is a reminder of things you lost, the teen said.

Her family's situation is complicated by the cramped nature of its new living quarters. Amber's parents share one trailer with three cats, while Amber, her brother and three dogs occupy the second vehicle.

"It's kind of hard 'cause you don't get as much privacy as you had," Amber said. "And it's kind of weird 'cause you're not sleeping in your bed. It just feels like you're on a really long vacation, but you can't go home."

Still, the teen said she and her family have two things going for them ---- a close bond and a deep appreciation that they all escaped the flames unscathed.

"It won't be the same, but you can rebuild and start over," Amber said. "The people that lost their houses ... they should look at the positive side ---- they're OK and they can keep going and everything."

Contractor adjusts mindset

Having done his share of new home, room addition and remodeling projects over the years, contractor Mike Vaughan is used to working on tight deadlines.

Sensitivity to clients' feelings gets priority, though, since he took on the job of helping some local wildfire victims to rebuild.

"I think as a contractor, you want to be more patient," said Vaughan, a longtime Poway resident. "Even though we try to do our construction on a time line, I think with the fire victims, you want to let them know that we can do it within an eight-month time frame. But if they want to take a little longer on things and slow down a bit, to just let me know and we'll take it at their pace."

Vaughan and his company, MTV Construction & Maintenance, are building new houses for two Garden Road-area families that lost their homes in the fire. A third family is considering hiring MTV to rebuild their house as well.

The properties of the families Vaughan works for have been cleared and regraded, and their new homes are in the final design stages, he said.

Vaughan said he has reduced his profit margin on these projects.

"It's bad enough that they had to go through what they did," he said. "You want to make this something that they'll look back at and enjoy."

Rising from the ashes

Three months after the Cedar fire, Tom Stobbs is still trying to figure out why fate reached out and touched his Garden Road-area home.

"It's in the middle of the neighborhood," he said. "What's really amazing is that houses abutting the fields around us, their fences got burned, but they're OK. And for some reason, my house got burned where it shouldn't have ... nobody can explain it."

The 20-year Poway resident isn't sitting around waiting for an answer. Stobbs, 65, recently became the city's first fire victim to break ground on a new house.

With framing done, the Fairburn Street house was being plumbed and wired for electricity last week.

A speedy payment from his home's insurer, a streamlined city permitting process and an efficient architect and contractor helped move things along, he said. Now living in a rented house three blocks away, Stobbs visits his property daily.

He and his 21-year-old daughter Missy were home when the Cedar fire swept over the hills that divide Sycamore Canyon from their subdivision.

"I got some wonderful photos of the hills on fire," Stobbs said of that day. "Then the volunteer sheriff's people came by and said, 'you have to evacuate.' "

He and Missy left with their four dogs. Before going out the door, Stobbs grabbed family photos, instinctively picked up a basket of freshly laundered underwear and snapped a few quick shots of his house.

He now laughs about the underwear, which came in handy in the week he spent camped in his recreational vehicle in the local Wal-Mart parking lot.

Stobbs is also surprisingly upbeat when talking about the things he lost to the flames, including collections of unique, out-of-print books, electric trains and photography equipment.

"It's a heck of a way to clean out my garage," Stobbs said.

Noting the recovery process can be overwhelming sometimes, he advised other fire victims to "keep the faith."

"Have confidence that things are gonna come out for you," Stobbs said. "It may take a long time, but you will get back to normal."

Nature to the rescue

Mother Nature has taken the lead on fire recovery efforts in the 325-acre Goodan Ranch Open Space Preserve, which is co-owned by the city and county.

The Cedar blaze claimed nearly all of Goodan Ranch's natural habitat as well as several 1920s-era buildings. Since the fire, workers from the county Department of Parks and Recreation, have scrambled to shore up hills left barren by the fire.

Officials originally said they hoped to reopen the preserve early this year but the date has been pushed back until at least spring. Erosion continues to be a concern, dead trees still abound at the site, and worries about the possible presence of hazardous materials in the burned buildings has halted debris removal.

Still, signs of rebirth are popping up.

"Sage, oak ---- that seems to be sprouting out there," said Brian Allbright, assistant director of the county's parks department. "We're not surprised that there's been regrowth this soon. We expected it. In fact, we've seen it throughout most of the burned areas."

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.

How to help or get help:

City of Poway's CARE team, disaster relief information and agency liaison: (858) 679-4347

City web site: http://www.ci.poway.ca.us/cedar/fire_assistance.html

Free erosion control consultations: National Resource Conservation Service at (760) 745-2061; or city of Poway at (858) 679-4228 (info is also available on city Web site listed above).

Construction tool drive: donations of tools, home improvement store gift cards or gift certificates and cash may be dropped off from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at Poway Valley Collision, 14211 Garden Road, Poway. Checks can be sent to the Knights of Columbus Tool Fund in care of Poway Valley Collision.

Aftermath in Poway

Financial aid:

$17.2 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants given countywide. No statistics available on Poway residents.

$5.3 million in Red Cross aid countywide for financial assistance, emergency shelter, counseling and other services.

$155 million in Small Business Administration loans approved countywide, with 36 loans totaling $4.5 million going to Poway fire victims.

Damage estimate:

54 homes and one business destroyed. City officials could not provide a cost estimate for the damage.

Building permits:

1 permit issued to a Poway homeowner; 1 guest house permit also issued. 3 house permits in the process of being approved.

Erosion control:

more than 15,000 gravel bags, more than 3,200 hay bales, more than 1.1 million square feet of hydroseed either given to residents or used by the city. Residents can fill their own sand bags at two city stations: one is across from Old Poway Park at Midland and Aubrey Street, the other is across from Garden Road Elementary School on Garden Road.

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