I’ll ask around. The people I know who were affected by the fire probably wouldn’t qualify, but I’m not sure. Meanwhile, are you at Brooks in Santa Barbara? If so, there is already a lot of re-building going on there. I see some people are living in small camping trailers on their property. You might just try going up to some of the construction folks and asking around, or knocking on the doors of some of the trailers.

Good luck,

Doc

I’m sorry to hear about your situations, and moved by your compassion for those whose losses are real regardless of the castes in which others place them.

I don’t know much about what’s being done in the community — but only because I am physically not there. I was there for the end of the fire’s worst on Thursday night, and for the immediate aftermath, only because when we got news of it I happened to be in the Bay Area for a conference, and immediately drove down.

These days we’re living mostly in what our kid calls “alt.home” or SHIFT_HOME in Massachusetts, while I pursue a fellowship there. We return to our home in Santa Barbara as often as we can, while locals have been looking after it in the meantime.

I am sure, however, that there are plenty of efforts to help. The day I left, last Sunday, the main topic in our little church community was the fire, and what individuals and various groups were doing to help.

Santa Barbara is more of a town than a city. I doubt that anybody who lost a home was more than two degrees away from anybody who didn’t. We’ve only been residents there since 2001, and know two families who were immediately affected — one who lost a home and one whose home survived (though not in livable shape) while all their neighbors were burned out.

It’s still early in the process of following up, and helping out. I follow what’s going on mostly through this page on Edhat, and see many good signs there.

My best to you both. It’ll be good to see you when we return.

 Boston.com’s Big Picture http://bit.ly/wv84

It’s interesting how, in the midst, one does not pray for one’s self. It seemed terribly egotistical to do that when hundreds of neighbors were living through nightmares. Yet pray I did. Including one of thanks for the grace of our home’s survival. And the truly amazing job that firefighters did of containing a blaze that years before might easily have wiped out much of the town.

I mean, I don’t doubt that 1990 technology and firefighting organization would have allowed many more homes to burn — quite likely including ours.

Read the last paragraph here.