Rebuilding Sonoma County: Three families come to crossroads after October wildfires

The first urge is primal - should I stay or should I go?

You wake to the smell of smoke or someone banging on your front door. Flames engulf your entire field of vision. Adrenaline kicks in, and you react without thinking.

That was the nightmare-turned-reality as people awoke in the dead of night on Oct. 8 just one year ago. There was no warning as the Tubbs fire screamed down the canyons from Calistoga to Santa Rosa, where it jumped Highway 101 in a sea of airborne embers. Spurred by the same dry Diablo winds, the Nuns fire ignited in Sonoma Valley, as the Atlas fire spread through Napa. Over the next week, nearly two dozen fires had sparked across Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino and Solano counties. The blanket of smoke was so massive it appeared as ghostly plumes in satellite images taken from space.

When the flames were out a month later, more than 5,300 homes had burned to the ground in Sonoma County, leaving chimneys as tombstones and many victims with little more than what they wore to bed.

A year later, their stories have become our legends. There are the neighbors who stayed to fight the flames armed only with garden hoses. Others fled as fast as they could, leaving pets and valuables behind. But there’s another fight-or-flight decision that comes many months later: Should I stay and rebuild after everything was destroyed? Or cut ties and move away to start all over again in a new town?

Then there are the newcomers, arriving like riders on the storm. They see an opportunity and have moved to a region that many wanted to escape, hoping to help a community in need.

Around every bend, the challenges are daunting: finding temporary housing, negotiating with insurance adjustors, working with a new builder, navigating the permitting process, in some cases even paying for earthquake hazard studies.

Today many are still coming to terms with those decisions. Here’s a look at two families - the Sherwoods and the Leetes - and an outside developer from New York, who chose very different paths at a catastrophic crossroads. Their lives will be forever defined as “before the fire” and “after the fire.” But how they’ve picked themselves up and charted a new course that may prove the most impactful decision of their lives.

BRAD SHERWOOD

Standing where he stood in awe more than nine months ago, Brad Sherwood holds up his cellphone to show the fiery image he snapped just before the Tubbs fire roared through his Larkfield Estates neighborhood after midnight.

A hellish orange glow silhouettes the trees in his neighbor’s yard across the street. Several minutes later, his neighbor’s house would catch fire as he and his family sped away from their home for the last time.

Sherwood flips back a few photos on his phone, and there he is with his wife, Brandy, 8-year-old son, Grant, and 6-year-old daughter, June, picking out pumpkins at Punky’s earlier in the evening of Oct. 8. The electric orange jack-o’-lantern T-shirt he’s wearing is the same one his neighbors would wake up to as he raced from house to house banging on doors in the dark while propane tanks exploded in the distance.

There’s a photo of his kids putting up Halloween decorations, hanging a giant spider in the walnut tree in the front yard. On the lawn, one of the kids chases Henry, the goldendoodle who would later beg for a walk to relieve himself around 11 p.m., alerting Brad to the first smell of smoke.

Today, so much in these images is gone - the 120-year-old walnut tree and the house they moved into five years ago, half of it crumbling into their backyard pool, pushed over by tornado-force southwesterly winds and flames. But the dead silence they returned to only days later has been replaced by the sweet sound of bulldozers and nail guns. All around the neighborhood, the rebuild is in full swing. New houses are being framed. Temporary PG&E lines are in place. Where once there were septic tanks, a new sewer line will be dug.

“There was never any question of if we would rebuild, it was just how,” Sherwood said. “We were dead set on not letting the fire get the best of us.”

Traumatized by the total loss, the Sherwoods nevertheless wanted to stay in Larkfield Estates because “this is the community we fell in love with,” Sherwood said.

It’s where they walked the kids five minutes to school at Riebli Elementary. Brad and Brandy both commuted five minutes to work. Grant learned to ride his bike on the track at nearby Cardinal Newman High School. Every Friday night, they could hear the football crowd cheering from their house. When the circus comes to the Luther Burbank Center every year, they can hear the big-top music and applause. Brad coaches soccer and baseball on nearby fields at Mark West Elementary.

“My wife and I used to joke that we never escaped this 5-mile bubble,” Sherwood said. “Everything we needed has always been here.”

A neighbor across the street often brought over apple pies she baked from fruit harvested from a Gravenstein tree in her backyard (which didn’t survive the fire). Another neighbor often left bags of vine-ripe tomatoes from her garden on their doorstep. There was the neighbor who would warn them of any suspicious activity. And another who kept beehives in their yard.

“Even without the houses, you can’t take away the people,” Sherwood said.

When the Sherwoods hosted “the first annual Larkfield Estates Rebuild Barbecue” at their lot on a Thursday in early August, more than 100 neighbors showed up, along with the Rincon Valley Fire District crew that responded the night of Oct. 8.

If permitting goes to plan, their new foundation will be poured in a few weeks. But getting to this point has been a daily grind, forcing Brad and Brandy to take on roles they’ve never played: negotiators, block captains, homebuilders and trauma psychologists.

After more than six months of contentious, drawn-out negotiations with their insurance adjustors, all that remains is compiling the final contents list.

“We were definitely underinsured,” says Brad, who works as a spokesman for the Sonoma County Water Agency. “We were so loud and vocal that they had a full customer crisis team come meet with us. I always had them meet us at our lot. They asked us to come to their tent (a temporary site at the Airport Business Center), and I said, ‘No, you’re coming to our lot.’ I wanted them to see the damage firsthand every time.”

They quickly learned the importance of keeping a paper trail and a written record of interactions with insurance agents.

“I’ve been telling all my neighbors to write letters, write emails. Don’t talk on the phone. Don’t communicate verbally. Put it in writing. Because the more you write it down, there’s more of a trail of evidence showing their lack of response, and they don’t like that.”

In the end, they got full dwelling coverage and 20 percent overage for the rebuild.

After helping reunite their neighborhood under the banner “Larkfield Strong,” the Sherwoods teamed up with 14 other neighbors for a discounted group rebuild with Stonefield Homes, a father-and-son crew out of Orange County. To get the discount, they all had to agree on the same floor plan, give or take a few minor modifications.

When he talks about rebuilding, there is of course talk of dollars and cents and floor-plan dimensions, but transcending all numbers is the rebuilding of family.

“We haven’t slowed down at all since the fire,” Sherwood said. “I think part of that is a coping mechanism just to keep busy. There’s not a day goes by that the mental trauma isn’t still there.”

The Sherwoods were lucky to land a three-bedroom rental house in Windsor, but stress and upheaval still lie just under the surface. Brad and Brandy don’t sleep well anymore. If they’re watching a movie with baby animals, June will start crying, thinking of their chickens Heihei and Roxy and box turtle Raphael, who were left behind. The pain of seeing a toy they once owned at the store is often too much.

Brad still gets choked up as he talks about how Grant has looked after his younger sister since the fires. Even though their rental has three bedrooms, the kids insist on sleeping in the same room.

In February, the Sherwoods took a spontaneous trip to Mexico just to “get away from it all.” They splurged on things “we probably never would have paid for,” Sherwood said, which means they not only swam with the dolphins, but also bought the video to remind them.

Along the way, they’ve tried to preserve reminders of a time before the fire, mementos that won’t get lost in the mad dash to rebuild. The only monuments left standing after the fire were a wrought-iron gate and the chimney. The towering walnut tree burned and had to be cut down - but they saved the wood and are working with an artist to repurpose it as a new dining-room table, a buffet table and a fireplace mantel.

Brad plans to replant a foot-high walnut seedling that sprung to life from ashes in the front yard. And, before the lot was cleared, he pried loose a piece of concrete, part of a walkway he built from the driveway to the backyard a year after they moved in. You can still see where the kids pressed their hands in the wet cement.

“I don’t know where yet, but we’ll find a place for it in the new house,” he said.

For now it’s in a storage unit, along with boxes of photo albums and a bird cage they crammed in the car before escaping the fire. Nearby are several dirty buckets filled with charred jewelry, Grant’s rock collection and the barrel of Brad’s grandfather’s 12-gauge shotgun - all treasures they found while sifting through the ruins. Brad hasn’t told the kids their handprints survived. But just knowing they did gives him hope. It will be a surprise to present once they move in, hopefully by spring of 2019.

“It’s so crappy that something horrible like this had to happen to us, but man does humanity win in the end. We’re going to take advantage of this horrible situation to make something good out of it.”

RON FERRARO

Ron Ferraro still remembers the insurance scam artists who moved in weeks after Hurricane Sandy nearly destroyed his Long Island home in 2012. Unaware that he was a local developer, they tried to talk him into signing quick contracts to elevate his house and prevent future flooding.

“They wanted to see my insurance policy and see how much I was covered for,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Goodbye, there’s the door.’?”

Armed with a thick New York accent and rapid-fire delivery, he knows that’s exactly how he would come across if he went from neighborhood to neighborhood chatting up families looking to rebuild after the Sonoma County fires.

“That’s why I’m not going out there soliciting business,” Ferraro said. “You hear about these contractors going out and signing up 100 people to rebuild. I can see it now - who’s this guy from New York coming in here trying to take our money?”

It’s an age-old scenario: Opportunists seizing the moment after catastrophic events, from the carpetbaggers heading south after the Civil War to the outside contractors looking to profit after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Instead of going door to door, Ferraro’s plan is to buy lots, build from the ground up, and put them on the market. So far, he’s purchased seven lots in Fountaingrove, ranging from around $250,000 to $300,000. He just got his first building permit, and will start building at 1912 Fountainview Circle. While he’s waiting on permitting for the rest of the lots, he’s finishing a rebuild on Franz Valley Road, just east of Safari West.

When he first arrived in Sonoma County in 2015, Ferraro was looking to invest in the emerging cannabis market. Renting a house on South Fitch Mountain Road in Healdsburg, he commuted from coast to coast, typically staying about two weeks in Sonoma County and then three or four weeks back in Long Island, where his fiancée lives. A year later, he founded Banger Distribution, which invested in local farmers, helping them build four marijuana gardens and grow facilities in Sonoma County. In return, Ferraro distributes their product to dispensaries around the state.

It was a challenging new business model for a guy who started out in the Long Island granite business in his early 20s and began buying up foreclosed houses on the cheap in 2012 and flipping them. After about 40 flips, he moved on to building new houses under his company, Sunset Developers.

On Oct. 8, the night of the Tubbs fire, Ferraro found himself racing to one of the marijuana farms to rescue workers in his van. Soon after the wrenching events of that week, he began to formulate a plan to move Sunset Developers to the West Coast and see how he could help rebuild Sonoma County.

“I saw what happened with Sandy and I saw how the community came together,” he said. “Everyone helped each other out. And that’s the same thing happening here now, and I want to be a part of it. I think I have something to add to it.”

Since then, he’s relocated nearly 40 workers from Long Island. Some he puts up in rental housing. Others live in temporary work-site housing he imported from China. He’s paid to move his right-hand man and general contractor and his family to the region. His foundation guy is relocating once they get through the first round of permitting.

“I was looking at the insurance thing (the idea of approaching victims with insurance claim settlements). But I said, ‘We’re not doing that.’ We’re gonna build. We’ll take the clients through afterward. I want to have four different houses. In every one I’m gonna do a different kitchen, so I can show the homeowners - you want this cabinet? You want that cabinet?”

The way Ferraro explains it comes across with all the confidence and personality of an HGTV show host (think “Flip or Flop: Long Island”). A natural-born networker, he said he’s always been driven to look for the next business venture. If his plans work out, he’s hoping to put down roots as he builds dozens of homes over the next five years.

“I’m injecting a lot of money into this community because I believe in it,” he said. “I love this place - it’s where I want to live.”

GARY LEETE

Long before the Tubbs fire last year, one of Gary Leete’s darkest memories was of “walking point” in the Vietnam War. It involved walking out in front of a combat patrol in the jungle with a scout dog, exposed, looking for booby traps and landmines.

“Well, this fire hit me harder than my Vietnam experience,” Leete said. “One thing is fear, the other is total loss. The loss of refuge to me was the biggest thing.”

His sanctuary for more than 30 years was perched on a Wikiup hillside, where he and his wife, Brooks, raised their two sons. In recent years, Brooks had fully remodeled the house, totally refurbishing the kitchen, adding an art studio, and redecorating with her family’s heirloom antique furniture.

They lost it all in the fire.

Afterward, the Leetes were able to stay at a friend’s summer vacation house outside Calistoga. Months passed before Gary Leete felt ready to consider their options and plan for the future.

“It took a while to regain confidence and start making decisions and moving forward,” said Leete, 72, who retired several years ago as deputy director of the California Department of Rehabilitation.

The night of the Tubbs fire on Oct. 8, they knew nothing about its origins in Calistoga. “I woke up to a roar,” he said. “We sleep with the French doors open, and I looked out and saw the orange glow and saw our neighbor’s house behind us on fire.”

They had just returned from Vancouver, British Columbia, that weekend and were able to rescue Lulu, their pit bull mix, Leete’s briefcase, which contained their passports, and his wife’s computer bag before they heard someone on a bullhorn yelling, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Our initial response like most people was to rebuild,” he said. They even met with Lindal Homes, a builder of modular cedar homes. They were drawn to the sleek and simple architectural lines, but more importantly the short assembly and build time.

At first they felt lucky to have updated their insurance four months before the fires. But they still had to battle with adjustors, going back and forth on numbers before eventually settling most of their insurance claim five months later. They’re still compiling the contents list.

One of the biggest setbacks came in March, when they learned the county was requiring earthquake hazard studies before homes near fault lines, including Leete’s, were rebuilt. In a letter, Permit Sonoma Director Tennis Wick said the requirement applied to those living in what is known as a Geologic Hazard Combining District, which mandates “specific geological studies before development to avoid active fault areas.”

“We couldn’t even move toward rebuilding until they gave their approval,” Leete said. “And that’s when we moved to try to battle this requirement as we learned more about it.”

Leete and other neighbors met with Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore’s staff to see if the county might suspend the requirement in order to streamline rebuilding efforts.

“It really was arbitrary, and from a geological standpoint a number of geologists will tell you it’s not even applicable to that area. It’s not the kind of (earthquake) faulting they’re even talking about.”

Earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors agreed to come up with a way for fire survivors to rebuild without the expensive studies. But it came too late for the Leetes. After going round and round with the county, the Leetes began to realize it might be at least three years before they could move into a new home.

“The real frustrating part is you keep hearing ‘Sonoma Strong,’ ‘Sonoma Strong.’ But at some point you just get into these mindless platitudes, and it kind of drives me crazy. I was at the point of referring to the county, and the permitting people, and this geological survey as ‘Sonoma Wrong’ because it was ticking me off so much.”

That’s when the Leetes began to think about moving. Before the fires, they’d entertained the idea, as recent retirees with grown children. They even thought about relocating as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland. But after weighing the logistics of relocating to a foreign country, they dropped that idea.

On vacation in late March, in Leete’s home state of Montana, they rented a cabin near Red Lodge and began looking at the local real estate market. Five days later, they put in an offer on a secluded house at the end of a long, winding driveway, surrounded by cottonwood, birch and aspen trees. They looked at a half-dozen other houses from the outside, but this was this only one they entered.

“It was really a leap of faith,” Leete said.

By May 1, they were moving to the picturesque mountain town with a population of 2,237. The house they bought is worth just a little more than the appraised value of their Wikiup house. In July, they sold their Wikiup lot, providing full disclosure of county-required earthquake hazard studies.

Now they have a creek running through their backyard in Montana, where Leete likes to fly-fish. At an elevation above 5,000 feet, three of their favorite pastimes - downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, and rafting - are only minutes away.

But their new home is not without its own set of challenges. A few weeks ago, after going into town, the couple and Lulu the dog returned home to find a mama bear and cub ransacking their house. The scavengers took an apple off the kitchen table and broke into the dog food in the pantry.

“We’ve definitely learned to shut the windows before we leave now,” Leete said, with a laugh.

In early summer, he was still looking forward to catching his first trout in the 1,000 feet of creek that run through his backyard.

“I’ve already located a place where I think I’ll catch a fish once the water slows down. I fully plan to barbecue it and have a ceremony here with my wife, and we’ll celebrate with some Sonoma wine.”