Columns

100 years ago – October 18, 1917

In the aftermath of the worst firestorm in Sonoma County history last week, local chefs snapped into action doing what they do best: They cooked. They cooked for first responders and the people they saved. They cooked for evacuees. They cooked for volunteers who were helping at local evacuation shelters. The resulting meals included homemade sausages, steak and lasagna. They were adorned with fresh vegetables from local farms, fresh bread from local bakeries and lots of love.

“People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fiber called courage.” Please send any of your news items to IDlewood 3…” at [email protected].

As a native Californian, having spent my youth in the southern part of the state, I have seen and lived through two major fires. I remember watching the planes drop orange retardant on the flames burning a hillside only miles from my home.

It’s only just beginning. Hundreds and hundreds of first-person accounts of both tragedy and loss and heroics and generosity will soon grow into thousands of interwoven threads that will become the history of the firestorm of October 2017. With time, the beginning hours of the wind-whipped firebombs and mass evacuations that started with a spark on Oct. 7 and 8 will be joined in historic texts by countless tales of rescue, relief and recovery.

100 years ago – October 11,1917

For awhile most of the current news will, in some way, concern guns and ammunition. It is nearly impossible not to be consumed with the topic, and a divisive, depressing one it is.

October already. These colder mornings arouse the desire to cook big, deep dishes of food. Even though some days are still pretty warm, the cooler evenings have me cooking beans and stews for the first time in months.

Covering big disaster stories like floods and fires always has presented extra challenges to us local journalists. We not only have to report on the disaster — but we have to live through it, too.

This time it was not a hurricane in Florida or Texas; it was not a tsunami in Japan or an earthquake in Mexico. This time it turned out to be the “next time” we all prayed would never happen. This time it was our time; this Red Flag Alert was meant for us.