No Outlet

There are so many ironies and small miracles, stories and dramas implied in a scene like this. It is only one small area within the total catastrophe. I was trying to find a picture that  showed the ground clearing efforts that are happing throughout the city, but  I really don't have the camera or the ability to capture the scope of it. I was hoping to show signs of progress, and there are a few, like the bright green grass that has sprouted in unlikely places in the last week, but it's still pretty devastating.

There are hundreds of trucks piled with crushed cars, broken concrete and crumpled metal. There are men in white hazmat suits, respirators and hard hats clearing each lot of toxic material and planting an Environmental Protection Agency  sign (see one with a green post in the extra). They are replaced by armies of people in high viz vests driving bulldozers and Bobcats.  Others wield chainsaws and shovels clearing each lot of debris, burned trees and topsoil. Dozens of dump trucks full of gravel and dirt drive up Los Alamos Road behind our house to Hood Mountain Regional Park every day. The park is still closed, but we think they must be repairing the road. 

OilMan and I have a Pilates class with our teacher, Kathy, every Thursday in Windsor. As roads are opened that are a more direct route to her studio, we see more and more of the extent of the fires and the complete incineration they left behind. It still isn't easy. It is heartening to see so many people working to clear the rubble and prepare the sites for rebuilding, but there so many reminders of so much that ended so abruptly for so many in October. For us, because we had many happy memories there, the sight of the almost untouched wall* in front of the rubble that was once Willi's Wine Bar was especially poignant.

There was a wonderful waiter named Rafael (Raffi) who was always there at lunchtime when I would come in on crutches with OilMan, my chauffeur, who drove me from Berkeley to the foot surgeon in Santa Rosa. (Why I wound up with a foot surgeon in Santa Rosa is a story for another time....) It was at Willi's that we got serious about moving permanently to Sonoma County. We often go went there for special occasions, or sometimes for no particular reason at all. Raffi was often there, and always dropped by our table to say hello, even if he wasn't 'our' waiter. 

It was as we were leaving our house in the dark that first terrible morning that Dana read by the light of the distant flames that Willi's Wine Bar had burned down. **

*If you look closely, there is a rock on front of the wall that still stands at Willi's. It has a hand painted yellow flower on it and the words LOVE TO SONOMA COUNTY . 

**All the 54 employees have been taken care of by the Starks, who own Willi's and four other restaurants in town. We're trying to find out where Raffi is....