Sonoma County evacuees share their worries, fears over the fire

Flames forced thousands of people from their homes across Sonoma and Napa counties Monday, with harrowing stories of escape, loss and uncertainty. Here are some accounts from those who shared their experiences.

Like so many people Monday throughout the region, Skyfarm Drive resident Germain Hauprich wanted to know if her house survived.

She, her husband and 86-year-old mother, and their two Labrador dogs, escaped the fast-approaching fire from their east Santa Rosa neighborhood about 1:30 a.m. after getting an automated call to evacuate immediately.

“I started to go to the car, open doors and throw things in,” Hauprich said. “I could see the red glow coming from the hill across the street.”

The three adults and two dogs headed down the hill, rendezvousing with neighbors at Safeway on Mendocino Avenue until the power there went out. She and her family moved to a Rohnert Park Safeway parking lot, seeking distance, light, supplies and a restroom.

Unable to book a hotel room, they went to family in Tracy.

Hauprich, whose family has lived near the top of the drive off Highway 101 since 2003, had little hope that her home had survived.

“We have the dogs. We have ourselves, our purses and our wallets and of course we have insurance,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Daughter wakes parents

Lori Barekman, who lives on Park Gardens Drive in the Fountaingrove neighborhood, said her 11-year-old daughter, Mariana, woke her and her husband Wade Eakle about ?1:45 a.m. alerting them to the smell of smoke.

“We could see so much smoke and all the reflections of the fire from our back deck,” Barekman said. After conferring with neighbors, she and her family decided to evacuate before a formal order was issued.

Everyone she knows in her neighborhood evacuated.

“We were on the top and it was coming toward you,” she said.

Things ‘get crazy’

Katy Masingale’s GMC Yukon was one of dozens of cars waiting in line for fuel Monday morning at the Valero gas station on Redwood Highway North in Petaluma. The 25-year-old and her husband Justin, had been watching the news all night from their Penngrove home, and finally decided to evacuate around ?9 a.m.

They grabbed their four dogs and 2-year-old daughter Rylee, packed up clothes, diapers, water and camping gear, and made plans to stay at a family member’s home in Novato.

“I’m really, really nervous,” she said. “I didn’t think it would ever get this crazy.”

‘Big balls of ash’

Joy Reid first woke up to the smell of smoke at 1:30 a.m. in Journey’s End Mobile Park. By 2:30 a.m., the smoke was so bad that she decided to get up and see what was going on.

An hour later, the 57-year-old could see the flames licking the roadway from where she lives. That’s when people started pounding on doors, yelling to get out.

She grabbed her cellphones, purse and backpack, got in the car and headed south.

“There were flames and there were big balls of ash coming over into our park, landing in the driveway, the entranceway,” she said. “I’m just nervous because I have no idea.”

Hiding cats left behind

When Nancy Shumacher evacuated her home at Brookwood Mobile Home Park in Rincon Valley around 2 a.m., she had to leave her five cats behind.

“I’m scared to death that everything is gone,” said the 69-year-old. “I couldn’t get them out, they were all hiding and I felt like I needed to go.”

She grabbed her purse, medications and cellphone, and with her dog Molly headed to the police station on Sonoma Avenue where a young officer told her she needed to get out of town.

“He said you need to get on Highway 101 and drive south and keep going,” she said. “So that’s what I did.”

Home a lonely survivor

Terry Andrew, 63, has lived at Journey’s End Mobile Home Park for five years. When neighbors banged on his door at ?2 a.m., chunks of embers from the affluent Fountaingrove neighborhood were blowing onto the trailer park, he said.

He packed his girlfriend and her 93-year-old mother into his car and left.

Hours later, he returned to find his trailer undamaged. But across Sahara Street, blocks of other homes had been leveled, some still smoldering hours after the blaze roared through.

Return trip for documents

If Avani Gupta hadn’t already been awake when her friend, Shaishav Rajendra, called to tell her to evacuate, she doesn’t know how long it would have taken to find out about the fires raging near her Coddingtown-area apartment complex.

“I was already up, otherwise my phone was on silent,” said the 25-year-old. “And I never got an alert on my phone or anything.”

Rajendra, 25, found out through one of his coworkers at Keysight Technologies.

“He said that they were evacuating this area, there was a wildfire, so I left at 3 o’clock and called these guys and asked them to evacuate, too,” he said.

By 3:30 a.m., their complex was under mandatory evacuation orders.

Together, Rajendra headed to the Finley Center first, as did Gupta and her roommate Soniya Kamath, 27. But when they arrived, they realized they hadn’t grabbed anything, and doubled back to gather important documents.

“But that’s all we got, no clothes or anything,” Rajendra said.

‘At least we’re alive’

Pedro Alquezada was at home with his wife at their Cedar Avenue home in Sonoma late Sunday when he got the call from his brother-in-law, checking in on the family to be sure they were packed and ready to go. They weren’t. Not even close.

“He said, ‘Hey guys, you have to be ready because maybe Sonoma will burn,’” Alquezada, 46, said. “I was like OK, so what do I take?”

He and his wife, Maria Zamudio, 52, gathered what they could: some clothes, jewelry, and important documents.

They headed to the Lucchesi Center in Petaluma about ?3:45 a.m.

“We’ll stay here, and we’ll see what happens,” Pedro Alquezada said. “I told them it’s all material, at least we’re alive.”

Evacuees seek coffee

Santa Rosa’s normally bustling downtown was ghostly Monday afternoon, with a thick smoky haze hanging in the air and an eerie quiet. Of the few people wandering Fourth Street were 77-year-olds Nancy and Jack Swearengen, wearing face masks. Evacuated from their home in Spring Lake Village and seeking shelter at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, they were on the hunt for coffee.

“We evacuated but we didn’t bring laptops, we didn’t bring books to read,” said Nancy Swearengen. “One couple found a deck of cards so they could play some bridge. This is way (worse) than we ever imagined.”

Firestorm follows hurricane

Carol Pajala pulled out of her driveway at 3 a.m., uncertain she’d have a home to return to in her Buena Vista Drive neighborhood in Santa Rosa. She didn’t bother to pack. All she grabbed was food and toys for her 3-year-old golden retriever, Hannah, who played by Pajala’s side with a plush fox while taking shelter at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

Hannah brought her comfort, and so did her sister-in-law, Teresa Goble, who’s visiting from Houston.

“I feel relaxed considering that I don’t know if my home survived,” said Pajala, 65. “People and pets are more important than things.”

Goble, 42, was scheduled to fly out Monday afternoon, but her flight out the Sonoma County airport was canceled because of the firestorm.

“I’ve had enough of natural disasters,” said Goble, whose neighborhood flooded when Hurricane Harvey unleashed on Houston a month ago.

‘Animals are going to die’

Patty Keiser grabbed her two cats but was forced to leave behind two rescue horses when she fled from her family ranch off Bennett Valley Road. She didn’t have a trailer to haul the horses to the stables at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

Keiser, 57, hoped to find a trailer and return for the Arabian and quarter horses but wasn’t allowed back on her road.

“A lot of animals are going to die today,” warned Keiser, who saw flames engulf homes when she initially drove through Kenwood.

After securing her cats at her friend’s home, Keiser turned her attention to helping others rescue their animals. She managed to secure a trailer to save some horses in the Sonoma Mountain area.

“It’s numbing,” she said about not knowing whether her animals and home survived. “You have to help everybody that is around you - you have to stay focused.”

Yet others are saved

Virgine Richard, owner of Rincon Valley’s Mark West Stables, already had hauled her competition horses to safety when she bolted toward Healdsburg to help another equestrian center. Highway 101 was closed, but Fulton Road remained open at the time. As she headed north, southbound traffic was bumper to bumper. Meanwhile, the hills glowed on the east side of the highway.

“It was straight out of a bad movie,” Richard said while checking on her horses at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

She kept 26 horses there, while other Sonoma County residents dropped off chickens, donkeys, goats, llamas and miniature horses. One volunteer estimated 250 animals had been dropped off by Monday afternoon.

Getting priorities straight

Suni Levi was relieved to get her chocolate Morgan horse, Annie, out of harm’s way. After dropping her horse at the fairgrounds stable at 2:30 a.m., the Bennett Ridge resident raced to Kenwood to rescue the horses at Terra de Belos Cavalos, a charitable equine therapy organization.

“He’s just really old and ?kind of frail,” she said while ?petting a 36-year-old thoroughbred named Bearcat. “But he did well. He went right into the trailer.”

Heliodoro, a young Lusitano, put up more of a fight. Levi, 62, said he had to be sedated. Once at the stable, the horse anxiously searched for its mother, who was split in the move. Levi tried to calm him as she looked for a way to move his mother closer to him.

“I’m relieved that they are all here,” said Levi, who spent most of the day at the stables, watching over the animals rather than worrying about her home. “A house is a house. What was important to me was getting people and animals out alive.”