Oct 24, 2007

California Wildfires

We have a lot of family who lives in the area of the wildfires right now, especially in San Diego. My niece and her family lost their home yesterday, but they are all safe. My sister-in-law lost some rental property as well, but she is safe. I have other in-laws whose homes are very close to the fires, so I am praying for them as well. My sister lives farther north, but the heavy smoke is a great health concern for her, as she already has some significant health issues.

On another note, my husband, Mark, has been called up to help with the wildfires. He is currently spending very long hours coordinating the communications between fifteen or so government agencies. When Katrina went down, probably the number one issue was the lack of communication between government entities. I am glad that Mark has consistently excelled at his work in homeland security so that he now has the opportunity to do something of great importance in real life. With Mark's unusual ability to see the big picture, I'm sure his bird's eye view of these coordinations will help speed up the government's response times in this disaster. I'm very proud of him and know that he will excel in this opportunity to serve his country.

2 comments:

simplegifts3 said...

Jen, I prayed early this afternoon for God to send angelic help, for the weather to cooperate, and I will be praying for your family and for Mark.

The problem is there are so many fires going at once!

Do you know what the death toll is at this point?

Jen Fishburne said...

Hi Lynn! I just talked to Mark about this and apparently it was a false alarm regarding my niece's home. It is safe after all.

As of right now, there are five confirmed dead.

The problem really is that people are not cooperating with the law enforcement agencies and it is taking much extra effort to get people to evacuate. That uses up a lot of extra man-power that could be used to fight the fires.

Right now, they are not even fighting the fires, but just trying to keep more buildings from burning. So far, 2200 buildings have been lost or greatly damaged and more acres have burned than that of NYC.

President Bush will be visiting there tomorrow.