Thursday, November 15, 2018

The smoke where I live

The smoke where I live was so light this morning that I could open the windows without smelling any smoke at all. However, by this afternoon and evening once again it was like being in a solar eclipse again with brown air you could see within a block or two and often you could barely see the surrounding hills or ocean wherever we drove today.

We had a late appointment with my wife's physical therapist and I could not believe just how smoky it was as we drove by the nearest airport.

I live in the greater SF Bay Area in Northern California which is about approximately 200 miles from Paradise 90% of which burned down a week ago today this morning. My wife was speaking with me tonight as we prepared to go to sleep. We were talking about how most of the people missing are in their 80s and 90s who would have been the least prepared to survive something like this or to even drive a car or truck to get away. She was thinking and I likely agree with this that there will be between 150 and 300 deaths total in Paradise in the end because of this. And most bodies will never be found simply because they were cremated at very high temperatures, with the winds acting like a blow torch making fires much hotter. So, unless you knew what you were looking at you would never know you were looking at human ashes. And if the wind blew the ashes away you are never going to know. And the wind was blowing Santana high winds still that morning so many or most of their ashes would have been blown away in the winds never to be found. 

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