Man , I should have posted this one with the earthquake post . Then the title would have been 'My experience with fire, earthquake and tornado' and just by the title of it you would have thought , 'Vow ! Is she trouble or what'. Well I don't know ...may be I am but since you are here reading about it........chances are you like it......trouble aka me :)
Here goes..........
I love California, I love this city and most things about it . It 's very attractive here, even to all the natural calamities it seems. We had the worst fire last year , an earthquake 2 weeks back and now I just read about another tough fire spreading wild in Northern California. I very well remember the scare it gave us last year. It was Sunday and Dushehra day. We had stayed home inside all day and had no clue about the fire (it was all over local news on TV and we don't watch any). Anurag knew thru' the internet but did not have any idea that it was going to hit home soon. In the evening we got ready to go to the temple for 'Ravan Dahan' (Burning of the demon's effigy). Sky looked darker and I could smell smoke. A friend called on the cellphone and asked us if we were okay. Turned out that we needed to be worried about 'dahan', not necessarily of Ravan though. We can see hills from where we live. Drove up the way a few hundred yards and we could see the flames. I could not believe how quickly the sky turned into a black lid and it smelled like a barbecue way overdone. We returned and closed all the windows and doors. Turned on the T.V. and sure enough our county was on fire. The flashing emergency message on the bottom of the screen said 'mandatory evacuations for Portola Springs which is only 8 miles from us. That was it ! We started packing our bags - documents,pictures, flash light, set of clothes, water and food. We decided that it they announced voluntary evacuations for our area, we would be out. We put the kids to bed and sat tight. I could not imagine the state of home owners whom lifetime's savings were about to turn into ashes. I always thought about what it would be like living in one of those houses sitting pretty on hills .....not so much that night. I must have dozed off on sofa because Anurag told me that the wind changed direction but we were not out of the woods yet. Next morning we woke up to a grey dull sky instead of a bright blue and sunny California morning that I am used to. Our porch was covered in soot layer and windows were dusty. The fire kept burning for another few days and was declared as the worst of 2007. It destroyed 1500 homes , burnt over 500,000 acres of land and swallowed 9 lives.
Since we are talking about fires and earthquakes I feel like recording my experience of being in tornado watch too. This was year of 2006 in Ohio. The things I remember - It had been raining hard and wind was something else that day - a tempest. I remember Anurag waking me up in the middle of night because he heard the siren which goes around when you are/could be in tornado's way. I held Avi close to me and we all ran down to the jacket closet. I need to remind that it was a tiny space. Thank God that Avi was/is a good sleeper and did not catch the tension and the stress in my body. I remember feeling terrified hiding in that tiny closet The siren was going on outside. The rain sounded like a bad rhythm of banging drums. After a while Anurag got out and switched the radio on for latest warning. Thankfully tornado did not come. Laying on the bed with Avi beside me I went through lots of thoughts and they were all scattered - I don't remember most of them but there was one which I get every now and then , specially when I see/read about natural or man made wrecks in our world - Being Grateful !
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