Almeda Fire 5 - Phoenix Rising
September 16th, 9 days after the fire starts, and central Phoenix which has been at a constant evacuation level 3 is finally downgraded to level 2. I'm sitting at work monitoring Facebook feeds after patients have finished up. It's a light day. Wednesdays have been lately, and I'm already done with my morning appointments.
A call comes in from my manager. They've heard that Phoenix is open but no one has yet confirmed. They'd like me to take the afternoon off and go check, take care of anything I need to, and not worry about the clinic.
So I go. I emphasize that if something does come in to please call. I'm only a 15 minute drive away. The main entrances are still closed: the freeway, north and south Highway 99. Facebook is lit up with accounts of people heading in the back way: south on 99, right on S. Stage, left on Houston, both 4th and 1st street concrete barriers have been removed.
It is blissfully true. I drive in and see various cars driving around. As I get to Andi's and my neighborhood I recognize most of them. On this clear sunny non-windy day I am finally able to start to let out all the pent up breaths and worry as I turn into my driveway and see everything still standing. ...and I've known all along that everything is here, but in this moment the aspect of returning home and knowing that I can stay here, it is liberating. I am able to, for a moment, simply stop. Andi and I have been so lucky overall throughout this process. We have properties that made it through the initial firestorm. We were able to keep mom and dad's place safe, and with that have a safe place to stay this past week. We've been able to check on our property almost daily. We've been in a position where we can work to take care of friends who have lost everything. We, like everyone, have been going going going going.
I call around to my neighbors: yes Phoenix is open, yes your properties are safe, yes people are moving back in.
Exploring Around
Over the next week I spend time exploring and figuring out how much of our town has burned. There are conflicting reports, none of them good, but all of them agreeing that the majority of structures within the fire area are completely destroyed.
Along the greenway aged trees are exposed, giants that have withstood the tests of time. Within town shells of business stand. Puck's donuts famous monument is there, almost completely untouched, as the twisted shelves and equipment take up residence within crumbling walls.
Within the community hope begins to spring up. A rising mural vanside appears overnight; a local man and artist who works to give back to his devastated community.
Around us the eeriness of destruction looms. At night total darkness falls at night without the false glow of electric light. Throughout both Talent and Phoenix chimneys stand as tombstones to the aged houses within which they stood, surrounded by their own personal devastation. They watch, monitoring, as we return.