Any word from friends in San Diego

[David_Layton]

Those of us who are members of the League have a couple of firends in San Diego, Howard Fischer and Pete Fedders.

Pete recently moved to La Jolla from St. Louis. Howard lives NE of downtown San Diego, possible near the fires.

Hope both are doing ok.

[Barrett]

FWIW, I had an egram from a retired naval aviator who works in Scripps Ranch, just north of NAS Miramar. Several homes in that area were ordered evacuated as of a couple days ago, and the fire bombers were flying regularly. However, owing to fairly recent structural failures in two C-130s (and another bird), the number and variety of "borate bombers" has been seriously limited. At one point in the Pacific NW this summer I was told that only 5 of 25 certified were operational, pending inspections.
There's no doubt that many of the fires were set by arsonists. Rumo(u)r Control has attributed some to environmentalist wackos; others to terroristas. Take your pick...an awful lot of innocent folks have suffered. As of Tuesday at least 16 had died.

[Gregvan]

Hi All,

I spoke with Howard Fisher tonight, and he's fine, his house and family are OK as well. The San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park was well away from the fires, but their auxiliary airport site was closer to the action - but everything is safe. The S.D. Museum collection burned once, years ago - another loss would have been that much more tragic.

Howard compared Sunday morning to Pompeii - the sky was black with soot falling like snow. He says the national media under-reported the seriousness and damage, if anything.

Sorry, I don't know anything about Peter Fedders. I hope he and his people are safe as well. God bless all the folks out there...

Greg VanWyngarden

[David_Layton]

Pompeii?

The image of Howard in a toga on the patio watch Vesuvius (sp) erupt ....