The Santa Barbara Fires

I was called Friday night by my show, because the 'celeb-community' of Montecito was now threatened by the heinous Santa Barbara fire, that had already taken out (at this point) more than 70 homes -- it grew to more than 80. Anyway, Oprah's home, Rob Lowe's Kathy Ireland's homes were in serious danger, and they were either close to or at the point of evacuation.

The last thing I wanted to do was run up to Santa Barbara for work... I thought I had left my days of chasing fire trucks and police cars when I stopped doing local news years and years ago, but celebrities were now involved, or potentially involved, and so, being one of the frontmen of an entertainment news show, I had to go.

I'm so glad I did. Not just because of the celebrity angle. Just seeing, and being THAT close to destruction, makes one so thankful and grateful... by the grace of God go all of us... While visiting an evacuation center, and seeing people's lives reduced to one cot, with a child's teddy bear, and coloring book as their most prized possessions, makes one see things more clearly.

I had the opportunity to interview Rob Lowe and Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, who teamed up, because Rob lives in Montecito with his wife and family, and the Gov of course was there since he had declared Santa Barbara Co. a disaster zone. They didn't just posture and spew forth the 'we're famous and we're here to make a statement' mentality. Rob was THIS close to the fire, at one point, being able to clearly see it moving closer and closer to his home. Both Rob and the Governor actually comforted the evacuees who were holed up on the UCSB campus gym. Rows and rows of cots of people just waiting to be told they could go home... not sure what they would find, however, when they did so.

We were there when they were given the 'all clear' -- the expressions of joy, the gasps of excitement from those who had been there for days, were memorable, to say the least.

Talking our way (my crew and producer and myself) into the burned out zone was a feat unto itself. But we did so, because we felt the need to show the destruction, the burned out homes, and it left me feeling sad, and confused as to how the fire could burn one home, then skip four others and burn another... The most vivid image seared into my brain, is that of a statue of the Virgin Mary, charred, yet still standing in what was the front yard of a burned out home.

I am left depleted, and still very inspired by the human spirit that seems to thrive during a natural disaster such as this.