Checkpoint. I don’t like the sound of that. It makes me
think of military tension and conflict: Americans guarding the Green Zone in Baghdad; Israelis
controlling the Palestinian border; the Taliban and Al Qaida terrorizing towns
with their makeshift roadblocks. My concern is even more heightened with the
recent revelations that the government has been collecting and storing the
communication records of ordinary U. S. citizens and creating a
database on us. This is a dangerous thing in and of itself, but in the hands of
a president who is an ego-driven radical ideologue it is terrifying.
Uh…would my good friends at the NSA please overlook that
last sentence?
So, yes, I just discovered today when I read in the
Fairbanks Daily News Miner that checkpoints had been set along Chena Hot
Springs Road it put me on edge. However, these checkpoints are not manned by
the military but by the Alaska State Troopers. These checkpoints were set up
“for informational purposes only” I was told when I called the Troopers office.
I needed to go through one in order to get to town and I wanted to make dang sure they were going to let me back home. A voluntary evacuation had been
issued between mileposts 18-34, but since I was at 14 mile it wasn’t supposed
to apply to me. Somewhat reassured by the woman on the other end of the line, I
left home with 8 dog boxes stacked in the back of my truck – inside the empty
dog box ‘topper’ - while pulling my old 13’ travel trailer that I originally
hauled to Alaska from Colorado in October of
2001. The license plate and tags still reflected this fact. I didn’t
care. Nor did I care that the trailer didn’t have any electrical hooked up to
it and therefore no signal or brake lights. Under the circumstances no cop was
going to pull me over. They had better not or their evacuation notice would be
thrown right back in their faces. Still, for safety reasons I was very aware of
not having any trailer lights and therefore drove with appropriate caution.
Taking the side roads as much as possible I went through Fairbanks and reached my potential
evacuation location without mishap. The building is located a few miles south
of town and has abundant property, so I found a place for the trailer behind
the building and dropped and secured it. I then unloaded the dog boxes and made
my way back home. I might not be in the evacuation zone at this moment, but
that could change at any time and I wanted to be ready. The closer I approached
home the worse it looked. From several miles away it seemed like my neighborhood
could be burning up. The smoke haze inundated everything, but the visibility
was still good. A huge plume looked very threatening and intimidating as it
hovered high in the sky before us, and due to the terrain I could easily
believe it was now on the north side of the river and engulfing houses. I got
nervous as I approached the “information only” checkpoint at 6 mile. The
vehicles ahead of me were not going through. I had resolved that no matter what
I would. I knew that even in a worse case scenario the fire could not have
advanced so quickly in the short time I was gone to be at my doorstep, even if
it looked like it could be from that distance. I was not about to let anyone
turn me away from rescuing my dogs if that time had come. A woman associated
with the Troopers approached my truck She said that there were rumors that the
fire had jumped the Chena
River at mile 28, and
asked where I was going.
“14 Mile.”
That was fine, but I was warned that if I tried to go past
16 mile there was another checkpoint and they were keeping people out.
No problem. I was just glad that I didn’t need to blow
through this checkpoint and be chased by cops on the way to my abode.
Once I arrived home the world seemed to be much more at
peace again. All the trees that surround my property not only kept the haze to
a minimum but also hid the smoke plumes and any other sign of the fire. When I
was on the road I was almost convinced that it was just a matter of time before
an inferno arrived at my doorstep, but once on the property I had to motivate
myself to take a potential evacuation seriously and not become complacent.
Fires can grow and change direction very quickly… as this one did over the past
few days…and if I get the word to GET OUT NOW I want to feel relatively secure
that I packed up as best I could under the circumstances the most important items.
So…am I ready? Yes and no. The dividers are all back in the
truck separating out individual compartments for the dogs (complete with straw
bedding), my chainsaw and most of my hand power tools are packed up, and
various boxes and other items are in the cabin ready to be loaded, but I know
full well that I would quickly regret forgetting or leaving other things
behind. How can one really be ready for an evacuation? Some things are
irreplaceable: old photos, heirlooms, etc., but I think the only thing that
probably really matters are living beings. In my case that would be Webby,
Severan, Bru, Aura, Bori, TyBo, Ash, Janoon, River, Lilly, Yuri, Kalu, and
Buster. As long as I safely remove these thirteen canines from harms way then
that will be enough.
That and not forgetting the $1.5 million I have in small bills under my mattress.
[Update: The blog was written on Sunday, July 7. By 3pm
Monday the evacuation was rescinded and Chena Hot Springs Road is back to a
status of “evacuation watch”. Here are photos from a CA crew fighting the blaze.]
