And Then It Rained...The End of Our Rollercoaster Ride known as the Black Forest Battle

Where to start??
Do I start where I am now? Tonight?
Do I back up and start from Tuesday afternoon,
when we unwittingly became a statistic in national news
as they announced that a wildfire merely 3 miles away from our home
was burning out of control and we were among a few thousand people
who were in different stages of
evacuation?

Though it's only been 4 days,
it seems like each day was a hundred hours long
since Tuesday.
A little before two o'clock pm the fire ignited,
"way over there in Black Forest"--
a community to our east that
we pass all the time on our way
into town.
We know quite a few people who live over there,
from a much-loved Bishop and his family,
other friends from church,
classmates,
to Diana's former piano teacher.

Because of the crappy drought Colorado has been in--
we've been on water rationing since April,
it wasn't much of a surprise that a wildfire was likely
at any given time,
it was just the matters of when and where.

Still, if there could be a worse place for that to happen
aside from Black Forest,
I don't know where that would be.
Black Forest is called that for a reason...
it is a wall of black pine trees,
so thick throughout the area
you really have to know where you're going
as landmarks are really not obvious.

There is a mix of demographics in there--
from people who've lived there a zillion years
in mobile homes and log cabins--
ranchers and regular folks,
to fantastically wealthy professionals in million-dollar homes,
complete with tennis courts and built-in pools
that they enjoy in utter privacy.

Before I went to bed Tuesday night,
we knew the fire was going to change alot of people's lives--
whether they lived in a log cabin or a tuscan-inspired villa...
fire is no respecter of persons or money.

Wednesday morning brought tons of media coverage,
and more help,
but also record-setting heat, wind gusts up to 40mph or more,
headed in several different directions,
demanding that all of us stayed glued to our televisions
and facebook for the latest updates...
important updates and instructions.
Mostly, we wanted to know who needed to worry the most.

Tuesday night we told the kids they should gather a few belongings
for a 72 hour bag..."just in case"--
not even dreaming that we'd actually have to leave.
The fire lines were at least three miles away, as the crow flies,
and would have to go through several homes
before it got to us.
We were good to stay put, we thought.

I went to work Wednesday,
and by this time
rumors are flying from everyone
about those who lost their homes already.
And let me just say this now--
it added to the confusion and stress,
because I was specifically told by people I thought knew what in the heck
they were talking about,
that certain friends' homes had burned to the ground
only to find out later that it wasn't true.
Equally frustrating was good-intentioned folks
sharing whatever they thought they knew about
about our neighborhood's status of evacuation--
"We'll be leaving in 20 minutes"
"we should be getting the word to go in the hour"
or, as one neighbor came up to Kent in the yard and announced
that our water company was going to turn OFF the water
for our area within the hour!

None of that was true.
But man alive, did it stress us out.

By Wednesday, the fire, now "fireS" were out of control...
the wind dictating the speed and direction of the flames
our skies and air were smoke and ash filled.
Our cars were dotted in ash and a thick haze in every direction
forced us to stay inside with the a/c running.
As much as I wanted to stay home,
I went into work anyway.
But by mid-afternoon,
a new report shared that our area was now on
"Pre-Evacuation".
My face must've shown stress,
as a customer in the store who was standing next to me
when I heard the news,
offered to give me a hug.
At first I said, "No, I'm good."
But my arms reached out to her anyway,
and I appreciated this stranger's embrace.
I turned to my boss,
whose house is also in the area,
and said, "I have to leave."

Called Kent on the way home,
he left his job in Denver and headed home too.
Traffic was. CRAZY.
Everyone was trying to get home, no doubt.

I had emailed our missionary's Mission President in New York
earlier that morning to give him a heads-up,
so he could warn Diana before she heard about it.
I didn't want her to be alarmed and worried about us
and her hometown.
I continued to update him every few hours via email,
as our plans changed.
Wednesday, our normally quiet neighborhood was alert, busy, alive.
Garages were all opened as cars were being loaded up;
people were standing on their roofs looking eastward at the dark ominous
fire storm clouds,
trying to see how close it was to us;
several people were walking around talking to one another,
checking on our elderly neighbors,
securing their properties,
some left,
while some, like us, turned our packed and loaded cars
backwards in our driveways to ensure a quick getaway
in a moment's notice.

Our children were fretful.
Arianna was in tears most of the day.
I kept giving them little chores to do,
to keep busy and told Ari to turn off the news
and put in a movie.
Joseph is like me and kept himself busy,
going through things to make sure
he wasn't leaving behind anything he'd miss.
I told him our house wasn't likely to burn down,
if anything,
if worse came to worse,
we'd get some smoke damage at most.
Dara was glued to the news on her pc.
I didn't know if I should worry about her or not...
she's 18, so she can govern her own emotions.

By bedtime,
Kent and I decided that we'd drive to the east firelines
and see whatever we could see--
we drove up Northgate to 83--the roadblocks were in place
by police cars' flashing lights.
We turned and drove up Gleneagle Drive,
then drove down Sun Hills Drive,
over Granby Road,
then east down Stella Drive that borders Fox Run Park,
to Rollercoaster Road and ended back to Old Northgate Road.
There was nothing to see.
I half-expected to see more wildlife,
perhaps driven by the fires,
around us, along the forest roads,
but we saw nothing to be alarmed or concerned about
and returned home.

We called the kids into the front livingroom
and told them what we'd done and seen
and felt completely safe to stay at home
and not evacuate like our neighbors had done.
Kent offered a prayer and asked for protection
for our family,
our friends and neighbors,
for the firefighters and their families,
and for Heavenly Father to send rain
to our beautiful forests.

Even with all of that,
our kids were still fretful.
It was nearly 10:30pm before we realized how late it was
and told the kids to try to get some rest.
Arianna made a pallet of blankets at the foot of our bed.
She didn't want to be alone in her room away from us.
Dara said there was no way she could sleep,
but went down to her room anyway with our black lab, Kota.
Joseph, tired and stressed, went to his room.

I had just barely laid down when the phone rang--
it was a Reverse 911 call.
We were elevated to the next evacuation step:
"voluntary".
Because we'd just driven all around,
and saw nothing,
we decided to try to get some sleep.

Coaxing my self to sleep,
I finally drifted off.
About twelve thirty I awoke and looked east towards the fires...
nothing but darkness to see.
I went back to bed.
At two thirty am I got up again,
looked east and again saw nothing.
My stomach was a wreck.
Kent had made a McDonald's run for dinner
earlier and my stomach was reminding me
why we don't eat McDonald's.
Since I was up,
I decided to take a spin around the house.
Seeing light peek from under Joseph's bedroom door,
I went to inspect it.
Surely he wasn't still awake, I thought.
Opening the door,
I saw my five-foot-ten-inches-tall thirteen-year-old son,
asleep on his floor,
fully dressed,
all of his lights on.
His bed covered in items he'd pulled out of his closet
that had been discarded, not important enough to take in his 72 hour kit.
I pulled all of that off his bed,
and gently nudged his shoulders and whispered in his ear,
"Hey Boofus. Joseph, wake up."
He startled awake, like I figured he might and I quickly assured him
everything was fine.
"Let's get you in bed, Buddy. It's ok."
His tired body got to his knees and he tumbled on top of his mattress,
exhaling a loud sigh as his head hit the pillow.
"Let's pull off your shoes." I said.
He shook his head and mouthed, "No." in defense,
but I took ahold of one shoe and removed it and then the next one.
He didn't fight it.
I covered my brave son's shoulders,
hit the light switches on the way out,
and closed the door.

I finally went back to bed at 4:12am.

Thursday morning started exactly like Wednesday morning.
I woke up at 7, turned on the now-twenty-four-hour-coverage
of local news to get fire updates.
Turns out it had been a long miserable night for firefighters
and the weather wasn't going to help again--
hot and windy.
They'd sent in investigators to see how many homes had burned--
it was over 300.
Oh my gosh.
I hadn't expected that many.

My facebook was lit up continually with red "notification" dots...
out of state friends and family expressing concern and offering prayers for us;
Updates from local news agencies,
Terry Maketa, Sheriff of El Paso County,
and lots n lots of disaster photos taken and shared of the burned, scorched homes and earth,
animals--horses, cows, pigs, dogs--that had been found alive, running around Black Forest.
Postings asking for help in recovering those animals,
or postings of the ones found, trying to hook up with their owners.
And everyone, no matter what else they said,
they suggested everyone to "Pray for rain."

Kent and I decided that he'd stay home from work,
since that phone call the night before,
but I would go ahead and go into work,
since he was home and my work is just ten minutes away
in Monument.
After catching up with the news,
my body demanded that I lay down for "just a few more minutes"--
I didn't wake up again until close to ten am.
I called my boss and let him know...
his family had already evacuated their home that morning
so he completely understood my delay.

I got on with my day,
ate some breakfast and came upstairs to get ready for work
when there came "Breaking News" on TV.
The fireline was being pushed west,
and there was a chance it could jump 83.
Now, we'd told the kids the night before
that once that fire jumped 83,
we'd leave.

A nauseas feeling came over me
and I immediately sat on the edge of the bed,
dialed my work and told them I wasn't coming in.
Instead,
I cleaned my house.
I scrubbed toilets and showers,
and cleaned out the top of my always messy desk,
tossed out papers,
emptied trashed,
vacuumed the stairs,
swept the floors,
scrubbed the sinks,
cleaned out the fridge,
folded, then re-folded some laundry,
dusted everything I walked by,
wrote another email to Diana's mission president,
changed the sheets on my bed and made it super super neat,
wiped out windowsills,
in short, I was burning up on the inside,
just like that fire was burning up those trees and homes.
I didn't believe my house would burn down,
I never did believe that,
but there might be a chance that it would have smoke or water damage
and I couldn't leave my house in any kind of mess.
And when I'm stressed, I CLEAN.

By Thursday, we were trained that the worst of the weather was going to be
mid to late afternoon...
so after my cleansing fury,
I was sitting in front of the TV in my room,
waiting to see how another dry, windy day was impacting the fire.
I don't know that I expecting any major change though
until the words came out of the reporter's mouth--
"Mandatory Evacuation...Flying Horse, Northgate Boulevard, Sun Hills Drive,
Gleneagle, Rollercoaster Road, Old Northgate, Voyager Drive...Mandatory Evacuation."
Those were the very streets we had driven down the night before,
those were, in our minds, the red flags, we'd reached our limit.
I jumped to my feet and yelled to the kids
it was time to GO!

We loaded up the dogs,
checked the security on the house,
left one light on--
I'd purposefully left an upstairs light on in the loft,
but Joseph was the last one up there
and for the first time
in his life,
turned a light OFF.
So we only left the piano light ON,
and pulled out of our driveway, saying a prayer as we drove away
just ahead of the rest of the remaining neighbors on our street.

We were amazed at how empty the roads were
in the ten minute drive south to our friends' home
that we were invited to stay with...
but just as we got there,
they also had their TV on--
we saw on the news the awful traffic clogs
that happened after we left.
It was a parking lot on the roads leading away
from the Mandatory Evac areas.
Authorities closed Interstate 25 down to one lane
for evacuees in both directions.
I was grateful to have missed all of that.

After dropping off our things where we were going to sleep,
we took our dogs to another friend's house,
further south.
I was amazed at how calm everyone was,
the further we got away from the fires.
People were jogging,
riding bikes,
mowing their yards,
little league baseball was going on at a park--
it was a whole 'nother world
compared to the chaos we'd just come out of.
I was wishing we lived on that side of town,
in complete oblivion.
They were having just another Summer Day
while our world was on fire and
our possesions carefully tucked into
every inch of our cars.

We dropped off our dogs--
our 6 month old golden retriever, Zuri,
acted like a kid on a field trip!
A little nervous at the new yard,
but soon her curiosity took over,
her tail wagged revealing her approval.
Dakota, on the other hand,
was a mess.
She'd never been to another person's house before
and when I walked out of the yard towards the car,
she cried and barked hysterically.
I yelled back, "I told you to stay off my couch!"
laughing so my kids would laugh too.
Otherwise, we might all cry at the situation.
Leaving our pets in someone else's yard
for their own safety.
That isn't something anybody should ever have to do.

Back to our friends house we headed,
encountering more and more diverted traffic
the closer we got to our end of town.

Kelly had started dinner,
the kids were unusually clingy
and stood in the kitchen with us,
offering to help.
That's when I knew my kids were upset.
Like, really, really upset.
Upset enough that they didn't wanna go watch TV while dinner
was being made,
no, they stood right next to me and chatted their heads off.

They were so dang happy to be "safe",
they said it over and over again.
Making me realize that we should've left the night before
even if though it wasn't necessary to our safety.
We should've heeded the "Pre-Evac" and the "Voluntary Evac"
for our kids' sakes.

After dinner, Kent and I made a drive back over to our house.
On the way there,
we saw tons of police cars at the different boundaries of the
mandatory evacuation sites
and Camo-painted military humvees manned by National Guardsmen.
This. was. serious.

We got to our house,
checked it out, looked around at our neighbors,
making sure everything looked completely normal and boring,
and went back to Kelly's house--
tired and emotionally spent.
I crawled into bed and slept like I hadn't slept in days.

Seven am came and I opened the iPad to check the news--
cooler weather was coming in, with expected dry thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Most concerns focused on lightening. Rain was less than 30% chance.

I got up and checked on the kids
who were sprawled out on blow-up mattresses and sofas
sound asleep.
Safe and sound.

I went back to bed and fell asleep again
until nearly ten.
We got up, ate some breakfast,
and watched the news.
Nothing had changed except the number of homes that had burned,
overnight.
It may have been a restful night for me and my family,
but not for firefighters.
They'd been fighting a good fight,
and winning small battles.
The biggest battle would be based by the weather today
they said.
Sheriff Terry Maketa (who, when you close your eyes, has the voice of Kevin Costner, no kidding--
even Kelly mentioned it to me at dinner!),
anyway, at the morning conference, he suggested citizens go and wash our cars so we'd get some rain...
the first show of levity since all of this began,
it got a laugh.
And then, for whatever reason--
perhaps because we all wanted to be told to DO SOMETHING--
residents went out and washed their cars!!

We saw the dark clouds gather to the West
then, as Kent and I were over at the house this afternoon,
we were standing in the Bishop's yard
talking about the fire
when I saw a bright flash of light
like a camera flash
and instantly heard the *Crack* of lightening.
We dashed to their covered porch,
and Bishop insisted on driving us around the corner to our home.

Within minutes,
it started raining.
Pouring down,
sheets of rain.
Raining so hard, it came down sideways.
Oxygen returned to my body.
I could breathe again.

Kent wasn't sure it was enough to change anything.
The news guy was saying it probably was going to be
an isolated shower that wouldn't affect the fires.
Bummer! I thought.

But he was wrong.
It rained and rained and rained...
it was raining on our Mayor as he spoke in a press conference,
so much that someone else held an umbrella over his head
while he spoke.

And just like that, we knew there was hope.
We were turning a corner on this fire.
It wasn't going to keep eating everything in it's path
and carry on as furiously as it had been.

Within the hour,
in fact, by the time the conference was over,
the Mandatory Evacs for our "checkpoints" was clear.
We could go home.

I called the girls who were still over at Kelly's and told them to get their things together.
Kent and Joseph and I unpacked somethings in the back of the car--
things we hadn't unpacked at Kelly's but still wanted to have "just in case".
I opened the windows to let the fresh air in,
opened the drawn blinds and curtains,
and then we got in the car and headed over to pick up our girls.

They were ready and waiting at the door for us.
After we dropped them off,
Dara and I scooted over to get the dogs
who were ridiculously excited to see us!
Kota, who normally whines the whole stinkin' time she's in the car--
I have no idea why...
well, she was completely silent on the way home.
Asleep.
And our bouncy little puppy, Zuri, wagged her tail until it she couldn't wag it no more,
and also fell asleep in the back seat.

Kent and the kids greeted us as we pulled up with the dogs...
they were sitting out front eating watermelon like hillbillies
and you'd have thought we hadn't seen these dogs in a year!

Tonight at dinner,
we took some time to reflect on this unusual experience.
Asking the kids to share somethings they've learned and will remember from it;
*from Joseph:
"Have a 72 hour kit all the time, ready to go."
and "Be yourself. Stay calm so others will stay calm around you and it's good for you, too."
*from Dara:
"Have all of your special things in one place. I tore up my room looking for things and now it's a huge mess I have to clean up. From now on, I want that stuff all in one place, ready to grab and go."
*from Ari:
"Leave when you feel like it, don't wait until someone tells you to go."

And from me, I realized we own so much stuff that we don't use or need or want. Aside from legal papers like birth certificates and mortgage info,and our pc tower, etc,-- I took one journal, my favorite camera, some jewelry--not all, my personal scriptures and our family sealing portrait and photo albums. The rest was irrelevant to me.  In light of this, I will be purposefully thinning our house out like never before.  It is ridiculous to own so much stuff.

Kent says we're the most important parts of his life so he's happy we're all safely tucked in tonight.

I have to say that we are incredibly grateful to live in this extraordinary community--our leaders are honorable, respectable and respectful men and women.  Fantastic at what they do, they ARE Leaders by every definition of the word.  We have had firefighters come from all corners of the state, as well as Out of State, and we could not be more grateful than we are for their commitment to protecting our lives, our property and our communities.
And finally, I acknowledge God's hand in all things.  It is without a doubt that He sent the rain today as our prayers and hearts were lifted heavenward.  We are mourning with those that mourn, and we will do all we can to lift and serve them in the days and weeks and months ahead.  Thank you, Heavenly Father for answering our prayers and the prayers of those who love us so.
While the fire is still only 30% contained, and we are still on a "Pre-Evac" status,
we feel confident that the worst is over and the situation will continue to be resolved.

Have I told you how much I love Colorado Springs??  Oh, I do.