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| Smoke from the wildfire 90 miles away made the sun orange in TriCities this morning. |
Ellensburg (Cle Elum), Washington is on fire today.
The last I heard, at least 60 homes have been claimed and the fire was at "zero containment". Out of control with winds kicking up. It's bad.
One of my friends at work has family there and she has been receiving photos via cell phone throughout the day. It gets really real when someone you know is affected. Luckily, her family's home escaped burning, but how I don't know. The photo I saw showed everything around the house burned. The car didn't make it. It was parked near another building and it perished. It can be replaced.
My friend and I chatted a little about how awful it must be to see your home gone within minutes in something like this. No time to think about what to grab. All those photos? Shoot, I might be able to grab a box but I don't have everything in one place. Perhaps I should get around to doing that. Who ever thinks it's going to happen to them?
I got to thinking about what I'd grab if I had to vacate my house within a few minutes. I couldn't really wrap my head around it. I'd certainly make certain my hubby and animals got out with me. And my purse. Whatever pictures I could gather up. Vital records. My camera. Medications. What else? Some stuff can be replaced but what about the things that can't.
How do you replace years of memories made in a home? You simply can't. The best you can do is hope your memory serves you well and maybe you have some snapshots in the box you grab on your way out the door.
I know there are lots of people thinking about those who lost their homes today. I heard the townspeople were gathering resources and taking all the displaced animals to the fairgrounds. Oh, the animals .....
It's a sad day in Washington state.
love, susan
Wow! My heart goes out to all of those people *and* their pets. It's hard to imagine a day where your world suddenly changes without any input from you. Most of us like to think that we're masters of our destiny, but it's funny how the world reminds us every so often that we aren't.
ReplyDeleteI'm going through the process of digitizing all of my photos right now (this has been an on-going project) so that I can have an electronic back up of my pictures. It's sort of comforting to know that even if my computer died my stuff would still be accessible. Plus, I can share the physical copies with my family.
Sometimes I think electronic is the way to go. I just wanna make sure to have my good stuff printed as well. It's hard to fit all these things into a busy schedule.
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