Kincade fire victims swarm county aid center in Healdsburg

Hundreds of Kincade fire victims looking for help after a massive wildfire, historic evacuations and PG&E's back-to-back blackouts lined up Monday at the Healdsburg Community Center in search of resources assembled by Sonoma County officials to address a wide range of recovery needs.

The center, which has been converted into a county assistance site through at least Wednesday and perhaps longer, served 474 families on its first day of operations, a county spokeswoman said.

The center was crammed with about two dozen tables staffed by an array of state and local government representatives and a handful of nonprofits, ready to address questions about burned property, lost wages, charitable aid and more.

It drew a long line of people impacted by the upheaval of the last 12 days in one way or another, whether struggling to move forward after losing their homes or looking for aid to stabilize their lives in the wake of the fire, the blackouts and the mass evacuations that sent 186,000 people away from homes and businesses in the potential path of the fire.

Ellen Johnson, owner of Johnson's Alexander Valley Wines northeast of Healdsburg, arrived shortly after the center opened at 10 a.m. but found herself near the back of line, which snaked down the sidewalk and along nearby Healdsburg Avenue.

Johnson was grateful she hadn't lost her home to the Kincade fire, which forced her to evacuate and ravaged nearby properties like Soda Rock Winery.

But she lost a cabin and an estimated $250,000 of grapes to the blaze, and is worried about how she'll be able to pay her bills after losing her crop.

“We didn't lose the house to the fire,” Johnson said, “but we could lose it to the bank.”

The fire burned 77,758 acres by Monday and destroyed 374 structures, including at least 174 homes and 11 commercial buildings.

But many who didn't suffer direct losses from the fire will have to cope with its repercussions on the local economy or with the indirect consequences of PG&E's decision to turn off the power to tens of thousands of people in Sonoma County four times in October.

Johnson, for example, said her grapes were ready for harvest but couldn't be processed due to lack of power.

County officials who set up the temporary center anticipated a wide range of needs and brought in a litany of representatives from different agencies, including some that may not seem directly related to wildfires. Supervisor David Rabbitt noted the state Department of Motor Vehicles had a table at the county center in case anyone needed to replace a lost or destroyed driver's license as part of their personal recovery effort.

Also present were reps with the Sonoma County Farm Bureau - high on Johnson's list - and counseling resources for people who suffered the emotional pain of fleeing two major wildfires in as many years. “People are pretty shook up, and there's a lot of trauma around,” Rabbitt said.

The center is scheduled to be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. again on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it may be kept open further into the future if needed.

Rabbitt acknowledged that he thought people might “trickle in” but that Monday morning's queue was “pretty significant.”

“It shows that people want to get back to normal as soon as possible,” he said. “They want to take that first step to find out what they need to do, and the local assistance center is that first step to normalcy.”

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com.