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Mindstates
Trial by Fire
by Patricia Alfano
Their frail bodies lay prone on the gymnasium floor, like ripples on a sand dune. Two people had already died and a few others looked like they might not survive. Holding one elderly woman up to lift a cup of water to her parched lips risked doing physical damage but I had to put my fears aside and try to quench her thirst.
It was October and my third year of living in San Diego, CA, when a wall of fire blazed from the Southern California hills towards the ocean, destroying almost everything in its path. Gut-wrenching images flashed across the television screen as the inferno continued all night into the early morning hours. When a plea went out over the airwaves for volunteers to assist with a nursing home evacuation at a local gymnasium, I packed what food, blankets and provisions I could muster, and headed to the site.
Before this time, I had seriously contemplated leaving San Diego. I was disillusioned with what I perceived to be a wealthy and uncaring population that held different values than I did when it came to looking after those less fortunate. What I didn’t know was that the wildfires and the compassion they evoked would change my mind.
The early morning sun was choked out by a thick cloud of smoke that hung in the air. I held a scarf over my mouth to filter the pollution as I stepped inside the evacuation site and surveyed the surroundings. Like combat troops in the midst of war, a handful of young volunteers from a local college worked diligently to create a makeshift hospital for the patients that needed medical attention.
An older gentleman directed the students. Dwaine (not his real name) was a short, muscular, African-American man dressed in camouflage with an Australian bush hat and a whistle tied to a string around his neck. Blowing the whistle and waving his hands, he directed a precision-like ballet of volunteers who organized supplies and settled waves of evacuees.
“Start setting up the air mattresses!” he shouted, looking at me and nodding his head in the direction of a pile of deflated plastic.
I ran to join the students as we performed an air-pumping rendition of Riverdance that brought the mattresses to life. Although the choreography sometimes failed in our haste, we leapt between the mattresses and the elderly and got everyone comfortably settled.
Like weary foot soldiers at the end of battle, many of the disoriented patients searched for relief in this strange place filled with unfamiliar faces. I took the paper-thin hand of one woman and looked into her vacant eyes, trying to conjure the right words to ease her confusion. I must have found them because in the middle of my sentence, she quietly fell asleep.
It was noon when Dwaine blew the whistle for what seemed to be the millionth time. I had become like one of Pavlov’s dogs, coming to attention at the recognition of the high-pitched sound piercing the air. Incoming vehicles delivering donated supplies needed to be unloaded.
The sun was relentless as sweat poured down my face and dripped onto my shirt. I assisted the first car: a luxury vehicle with an equally luxurious-looking woman behind the wheel. As the car came to halt, the woman pointed a well-manicured nail in the direction of the back seat.
“I was evacuated,” she said. “I’ve been told my house is gone. This is all I have left.”
I peered inside the car at the stacks of neatly packed boxes. Thinking she would only part with a small box or two, I was stunned when she added, “You can have it all. These folks need it more than I do.”
A few cars later, I heard the whistle again and snapped to attention.
“Bucket brigade on the hill! Bucket brigade on the hill! All hands!” Dwain was organizing a line of volunteers, which by now had grown exponentially, to unload a huge commercial truck containing cots.
I had no idea what a bucket brigade was or the fact that buckets were not necessarily involved in the brigade. But I trudged up the hill anyway and joined the others in a line that was a microcosm of humanity. As I looked around, I noticed people from every walk of life—every age, race, religion and sexual—orientation, all working together for a common cause. Nothing mattered to us except helping those vulnerable souls lying on the gymnasium floor.
The massive door of the truck swung open and cots flew through the air. They were passed from one person to the next until they reached the final person who carried them into the gym. I never saw so many cots in my life, or realized how incredibly heavy they were when held in mid air.
Local companies donated their inventories. One donation contained bags of ice. I liked being put on the ice detail. It felt good to press my skin against the cold plastic bags. I was also proud of the fact that I could lift the bags without falling over and having to join the elderly inside for medical care.
The sun was going down and a gauzy orange haze covered the sky when the whistle blew again. I smiled to myself thinking about what I might do with that whistle under different circumstances.
Outside again, we gathered around Dwain as he explained that another eldercare facility had agreed to take in the evacuees and would be sending a bus for our precious cargo. Everything would be torn down and dispersed to other shelters.
People who were willing to give all of the material possessions they had remaining in their lives were now helping with the redistribution—and giving something much more valuable: themselves.
In the late night hours, I finally dragged myself home. My body ached, but my heart danced with joy. What I had witnessed that day was nothing short of a miracle—the miracle that still lives in the human spirit.
Patricia Alfano lives in beautiful Ocean Beach, California and works at a local university. Contact her at pat_alfano@hotmail.com or visit her blog at www.bohemianopus.com.