Saturday, November 15, 2008

Fires Rage in Southern California



As my colleague Jim Hathaway and I headed to work down the 210 Freeway early this morning KFI Radio was updating information regarding the Sylmar Fire. We wondered what was left to burn as a fire ran through this portion of Southern California just a month ago?

All morning as we produced the Sunday Los Angeles Times the lighting system within the quiet room flickered as if someone was playing with the power source. In the pressroom losing power means experiencing a homerun, in baseball homeruns are a good thing if your team scores one, but in a pressroom a homeroom has an entirely different meaning, all the webs running in the press are lost.

Just before completing our shift my colleague Bill Conover received a call that a fire was burning towards his home. His smile that was upon his face as his weekend was about to begin disappeared from his face as he headed to the locker room to remove his uniform and head home.

KFI Radio reported that hundreds are being evacuated from Yorba Linda, this is where Bill and Joann Conover live, so I quickly phoned Bill and sure enough they were gathering their most important documents and belongings as they prepared to vacate and head to a hotel in Costa Mesa. Lets pray for our colleague and his family.

Bill and Joann live South of the 91 Freeway at Weir Canyon Road in the foothills of Yorba Linda.

Excellent fire coverage at the Los Angeles Times

Photo Credit Kanani Fong

No comments: