A Crash Course in Prioritization

Last week I found myself in the middle of a HUGE brush fire. At first it was just smoke on the horizon...

The smoke looming over the hills by my house.

We lost power many times that day and at first we couldn't figure out what was going on. Then, we saw it. Not being one to panic in an emergency, we kept an eye on the horizon. We decided to hike over to the hill near our house to see better which is when we saw the helicopters live and in action.

Around 7pm the flames began to crest the hil. As we stood with our new neighbors surveying the situation, we began to hear the stories of all the previous fires. We were now going to have to face the fact that this fire was coming right towards us.

By about 11 pm we were asked to evacuate our homes. Having heard from the neighbors that most were staying to help water down their homes, we began the task of figuring out -- what would go in the car in case of emergency exit. Scary! How do you prioritize that? And worse yet, we had barely finished unpacking and some stuff we didn't even know where it was!

View from a block from our house around midnight.

Around 1 am I tried to get some sleep. It was like sleeping in a war zone. Helicopters flying over head and the dense smoke billowing in. The firefighers were surrounding our house, keeping us safe and Mark was out watering the house, keeping an eye on everything. Of course we made it through unscathed (thanks to the firefighers) but exhausted.

Without power, we evacuated to Camp Marriott to keep an eye on things and get some rest. A little bit later we treked back to check on things and realized that the fire had doubled back around the other side of us and was heading towards the reservior (where the helicopters had been picking up water.) Now the complete other side of the neighborhood is in flames.

The reservoir on fire.

At this point we knew there is no way we are getting back in to our home anytime soon. The power poles had all been burned and the truck was stuck getting over the mountain by ANOTHER fire! So we packed up and headed to Cambria (more on that here) to recoup and get out of the dense ash and smoke.

We did get our power back on Sunday (5 days later) and are getting back on track. This fire taught me a few things:

1. I'm grateful for people who without question, support each other.

2. Always have flashlights with new batteries.

3. Always know where my "high priority" stuff is.

4. I have a great team who supported me while I was out of commission.

Thanks for letting me share this crazy week with you! Now, let's go get those goals!