The fire-service controlling the raging fire
"I
tried digging through the debris hoping something of mine was still there.
Nothing," Corbett wrote. "I thankfully have most my clothes, and
whatever valuables I could throw into my car in the 20-minute period between
waking up and being forced to leave despite wanting to grab more of my things.
It wasn't the fire that made me decide to stop packing. The smoke was too much,
I couldn't handle it. Being out there was surreal, everything is burnt and
destroyed."
The Entire
neighborhood was scorched beyond recognition in the Santa Rosa, California,
area, after fast-moving wildfires tore through, killing at least nine people, (as per initial reports).
Resident Joshua Corbett posted these photos on Instagram,
writing, "This used to be a where I lived. The neighborhood is gone."
"Please
continue to send prayers our way," he wrote. "We need it."
At least
15 people have died as a result of wildfires across the state, authorities said on Tuesday.
In the Santa Rosa area, 27,000 acres have burned. All
Sonoma County public schools are closed today and officials say 24 evacuation
centers are open to the public.
Thousands
of residents were displaced by the fires, according to Santa Rosa Mayor Chris
Coursey.
“I’m lucky. My house is fine, my family is fine, but my
city is not,” Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey said at a press conference Monday.
“It’s going to take a long time for us to recover.”
Patients
at the Kaiser
Permanente and Sutter Santa Rosa
Regional hospitals in Santa Rosa were forced to evacuate early Monday as flames
tore through surrounding neighborhoods.
Santa Rosa
homeowner John Graves said he was mourning after most of his neighborhood was
leveled.
“I’ve been here 25 years. It was a great neighborhood,”
Graves told ABC’s San Francisco station KGO on Monday. “It’s gonna be a lot of
work getting it back.”
Kim Hoe, a 33-year-old tech worker visiting from Penang,
Malaysia, said he was staying at the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country in Santa Rosa,
which was destroyed by flames.
He said he and his colleagues began to pack up Monday
morning when someone knocked on the hotel door and told them to run.
"We just had to run and run. It was full of smoke.
We could barely breathe," Hoe told KGO.
ABC News' Quinn Owen contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment