Ralph Fertig is a Santa Barbara resident with friends in Ojai.
He is president of the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition
Hello all,
I had scant idea how attached I had become to the Internet, but found out
after the Tea Fire struck Santa Barbara & Montecito on November 13th.
The utility lines were fried & it took Cox Communications nearly a month
to get me back up. I would phone every 4 days or so & they would say
“we’re working on it, it will be a few more days.” So no email, no
updated news, no Bicycle Coalition website maintenance, no online orders,
no researching information. Not only that, but the cable TV has also
been out. I felt totally unplugged from the world — what did people
ever do before?
Last night, my Internet cable modem started blinking, I was reconnected
with the world! I downloaded 1200 email messages this morning & am just
beginning to catch up. It will take a while.
Concerning the fire, if you haven’t heard, it came down the hillside to
within 30 feet of my home & garage. A firefighter told a neighbor that
if the wind hadn’t stopped blowing, all our houses would have joined the
220 others that burned. We’re at the mercy of fire & wind. Plus,
another neighbor stayed here & fought the flames & blowing embers with
garden hoses. I suspect that my hillside of succulents further helped
retard the advance as well.

The Tea Fire occurred at 7:00 PM on the 13th. At the time, I was sitting
in the Los Angeles airport, waiting for the final leg of 4 flights from
Istanbul that I had begun 24 hours earlier. With little sleep, dirty
clothes & avid anticipation of sleeping in my own bed again, I arrived in
Santa Barbara at 9:30 only to be met by my house sitter who said “you’re
evacuated.” For the next 2 days, nobody could tell me if my house were
still there. Finally, I was allowed to walk back the road, seeing first
blackened hillsides above me, then my garage, finally the house. I was
very grateful.
By the time that the smell of smoke finally abated, a rain storm moved
into the area. With a denuded watershed, flooding & mudslides were
possible. One-to-five inches of rain were forecast. I was again
evacuated at 7:00 PM. This time I had to sneak Luke, my Abyssinian cat
into a “no pets allowed” motel. (He was a good quiet trooper.) The
storm only dropped an inch, everything stayed in place, & we were let
back in the next afternoon.
My thanks to those of you who expressed concern over my safety. The news
was vague, it took us over a week to find out which homes were actually
lost. Nearly everybody I know has a friend or relative or associate who
lost their places. There are 4 that I know who were unfortunately in the
path of nature’s destruction. The best part is that no lives were lost.
The hillside above me is sprouting green grasses, life is emerging from
the ashes, we continue onward.
Ralph Fertig is a Santa Barbara resident with friends in Ojai.
He is president of the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition.