All right, now we're recording. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
My name is Robin, I work for Asante Hospice, and our office, for Jackson County, is in Talent.
Could you tell us your story of your experiences of the fire?
Monday was a holiday, I guess I wasn't working the first day, the day that the fire started….in the office but we have through our phones, we have like a medical system where we can get messages that are confidential messages. We get a lot of messages during the day and I actually got some messages saying that there was a fire in Ashland on a street, whatever the street was and to stay away from that area. Part of what we do, our work, we go to people's homes. So, if there's a car wreck or our road is closed or anything like that, we always get a notice. So that we know where to drive, we get notices but we certainly don't, usually, get notices about fire. It just said there was a small fire and to stay out of that area, not to use that exit. In an hour, we got other notices and they kept getting more accelerated. Then, of course, we got notices that the office was being evacuated. Like everyone else, and you got your personal notice about whether or not to go. Actually, our office was closed, so I asked employees to do whatever they needed to do. One of our employees was in Talent but he was at somebody's home, kind of out of the area, outside of the immediate area. When you're in someone's home, you usually turn the volume off your phone so it doesn't interrupt. He didn't get the notice until a little later and he lost his home. He didn't have a chance to go get anything, he just couldn't go back home. Everyone left the office or was asked to take care of themselves. Then the next day, our supervisors kind of divided up the list, because it was about the employees. They divided up the list to see where some people were. They wanted to call people and they wanted to find out which people were able to come to work because we work with, usually, elderly people, many of the mobile home parks and more senior living. All of those areas are places we get to our patients, and they were evacuated for the next couple of weeks. We couldn't go back to our office so they got another building that they set up for us and they moved supplies. Again, most of our work is outside of the office, so our supervisors had to spend a lot of time trying to find out where people were and if there were people that had been evacuated from the area. If they didn't have family that we could contact then, of course, other nursing homes upstate, for example. So, for the next couple of weeks we were really busy trying to find people and we had a few nurses that couldn't come back because they had been evacuated. For a little while, it was trying to make sure that everybody was safe. Next was to make sure that we could still go see our patients. Like, I had a patient that lived in Jacksonville. His daughter took him to live with her and somebody had to transfer all of his records, his medicine and get him connected to services in Klamath Falls. Particularly, as supervisors, we were really busy doing that for the first few weeks.
Did you lose your house or any belongings in the fire, or did you know anyone that did?
I did not lose my house. I had one friend who lost everything and a husband, wife and two children lost their home. We certainly knew of people who lost everything. Personally, I was very lucky I didn't lose anything. I was able to come home, two days after, the air was cleared and I could come back.
How did you end up evacuating during the fire and if you did, how long did you evacuate for?
Where I live…I remember my neighbors and I were just down the street in front of our houses. Everybody was trying to get alerts to notify each other. The first time my daughter and her family were evacuated, they went to another friend's house and stayed for a little while. We looked at reports and how the fire was spreading. We decided we shouldn't hide, we should leave in case she got evacuating. We thought about, which way to go and I called a friend in Roseburg. We thought about going up there and they were happy to have us, they were. They weren't being evacuated, but they were under a level one alert. They just wanted us to know that we were welcome, and we thought about it because Sanjay Hospice is in Grants Pass. We were actually able to stop in Valley Park then we were given permission to come home the next afternoon.
What were your thoughts when the fire started?
When it first started, when I got the first notice, it was just a small brush fire. I was in a state of shock to see how fast my street…You couldn't see it, then you could certainly see it. It took a long time for the Emergency Alert System but I was getting updates on mine. Then my neighbors were all coming, everybody was knocking on each other’s doors, to say, “hey we're on alert.” The neighbors and everybody were trying to pack things to put in their cars and get ready to go. We were exchanging phone numbers, so we could notify each other. It was just…it was unbelievable. It was shocking. I remember thinking, well, what should I bring? It was great to have time to prepare important papers, passports, you know, some money. You look at your house and go, what is most important? Passports, some pictures, food and a few things like that, for overnight. It was just unbelievable that kind of shocking. Maybe six o'clock the next morning, that's when I started getting notices and started looking at some people displaced and what the fire did to their homes. We were getting notices from work about what really happened. It was like a warzone that had happened, unbelievable to me.
I think that just about wraps up. Well, thank you for your time.
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.