Real life is calling, wants you to evacuate

(tags emergency, USA)

Normally I don't talk about "real life" in this blog, but this one hit close to home. The Witch Fire in San Diego County made my family evacuate.

Imagine getting a "reverse 911" call at 4 in the morning and having to vacate the area by 6 AM because authorities are closing the major highways. Crazy. The stats on this fire are horrific: 9.2 million USD damage, 1000+ homes destroyed, etc.

Luckily the worst is over for us and the home was left untouched. Another of my friends also had to evacuate as well but they are fine.

I only got word of the fires through Robert Scoble's blog, which led me to a Google map mashup. Then I did a Google search which gave me an unofficial fire reporting blog, California Fire News. This in turn led me to the official goverment sites, InciWeb and CAL FIRE. So far I have seen only one picture of one of the fires itself, and I won't actively look for more.