By the evening of Monday, Oct. 22, the beach communities were filling up. On-street parking on residential streets in Pacific Beach was scarce, as local residents opened their homes to shelter refugee friends and family displaced from San Diego’s fire-ravaged neighborhoods.
Tracy and Chris Loughridge of Crown Point welcomed an evacuated police officer and his fiancée, along with neighbor Dawn McClinton. McClinton had lent her home to a Poway family ” friends of neighbors whose home was already overflowing with family evacuated from North County ” who thought they had lost their home.
“He told me that when they left their house there were 50-foot flames in their backyard. They looked shell-shocked. I told them they could have my house,” McClinton said.
North Pacific Beach resident Mindy Wing and her family sheltered friends from Carmel Valley, who arrived about 11 p.m. “I was glad they were able to get hold of us. A lot of neighbors in North PB have taken in friends and family,” Wing said.
Nanci Dalzell and her husband, of Sail Bay, sheltered a family of four with their two cats.
“They were on pins and needles until a few hours ago to learn that their (Rancho Bernardo) house had survived, where the houses behind them did not. It is a bittersweet feeling to know your home is still standing when your neighbor’s is not,” Dalzell said.
Carmel Valley resident Jim Smith arrived at his mother-in-law’s Buena Vista Street home Monday night along with his wife and daughter, two cats and a dog.
“We learned about the mandatory evacuation from the news. We didn’t receive a reverse 911 call,” he said. On Tuesday afternoon Smith was waiting to hear if they were cleared yet to go home.
Joanne Sullivan of Rancho Peãasquitos was walking her Basset hound Katie at Santa Clara Point Tuesday afternoon, enjoying the fresher beach air but eager to return home. She, her husband and her daughter were staying in her aunt’s Mission Beach condo along with their three cats and two dogs. Her neighbor, who refused to evacuate when she couldn’t find a hotel willing to accept her sick dog, had told Sullivan her home had survived.
“We took what we could, and I’m thinking of the things we didn’t take that are really more important. When we get home we’ll think what we’ll take the next time,” Sullivan said.
Other evacuees were fortunate to snare a room at one of the beach communities’ hotels and motels, most already at capacity at the time the fires hit.
Crown Point resident Namara Mercer, executive director of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association, said that her organization surveyed members for room availability and came up with 800 rooms countywide.
Michael Hall of San Diego Concierge coordinated reduced-rate room bookings, as he had during the 2003 Cedar Fire and 2005 Katrina evacuations. The association will continue to provide lists of available rooms on a daily basis through the crisis.
“Everyone’s been overwhelmed with the demand for rooms,” Mercer said.
Among the local hotels taking in evacuees are the Best Western Blue Sea Lodge, 707 Pacific Beach Drive, and The Beach Cottages, 4255 Ocean Blvd.
The Blue Sea Lodge took in at least 20 families, said Kimberley Hubbard, hotel assistant general manager. Like many hotels, they stretched their usual “no pets” policy to accommodate evacuees’ pets, as happened also during the Cedar Fire exodus.
“We have people who definitely know they lost their homes. There’s a couple here that got up and went to work today even though they lost their home. They’re just pleased that they have their family. There’s an elderly lady [evacuated here and] that just broke my heart. All day she just looked at the ocean,” Hubbard said.
Tom Frost, owner/operator of The Ocean Cottages, reported turning over about half his 300 rooms and cottages to evacuees, dropping his rates by 50 percent and also welcoming their pets.
“The people that are coming here are very grateful that we’re able to accommodate them. For the most part they’re laying low, planning the next stages. This is not a vacation for them. This is tough on the people that are here,” Frost said.
The Blue Sea Lodge’s Hubbard could see a positive side to the crisis.
“PB has really pulled together” to help fire victims, she said.