Greetings Jeff, I grew up in Cupertino and Saratoga. I spent most of my summers when I was a teen in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We used to hitch hike from Saratoga to Los Gatos and then to Santa Cruz to enjoy the beaches. Camped in all sorts of places in the Santa Cruz Mountains that were not actually campgrounds, but just places where we wouldn't get caught. Also Big Basin and Henry Cowell state parks. Now there are all these fires in your area. It's making me heartsick. I hope you are OK. Sincererly, Eric
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Thanks for asking. I'm ok and my house in Ben Lomond is ok. The fire burned to within 1500 ft of my house. My house is the blue marker: I haven't seen it yet. I expect everything to be covered with a thin layer of ash. The area is being slowly "repopulated". I expect to be back home in a few days.
Most of Big Basin Redwoods State Park and Little Basin were destroyed. None the historic buildings are left. Henry Cowell Park is untouched. The nearby Fall Creek Park is mostly burned over. See my collections of info links. Some spotty areas survived, but none of the fire maps offer sufficient detail to show them. If you're interested in a particular address or area, try: for damage inspection results:
Presently, I've been evacuated. I setup housekeeping in my formerly palatial office in Santa Cruz. I had given the landlord notice and was scheduled to be out of the office on Monday, so the office was almost empty when I arrived. I've been spending most of my time keeping track of the fire, posting explanations of how things work to neighbors on Nexdoor.com, acting as self appointed public info officer, and making some rather bad predictions. Some accumulated info links at: Water might be a problem. Too soon to tell:
My office is next to the San Lorenzo River. At one point, it was decided that the fire might enter the city via the brush growing in the river. Unlikely, but possible if the winds and very hot weather continued. It was therefore possible that the area around my office would be evacuated. That meant that I had my car loaded and packed for a quick escape to parts unknown with minimal notice. At one point, the fog trapped the smoke from the fire in the adjacent river canyon. It was awful, so I went to Costco and bought a Winix C535 air purifier. That helped.
I managed to squeeze in a few computer repairs. All were unsuccessful because all my tools, software, and spare parts were in my house in Ben Lomond. It didn't help that I was also a nearly sleepless and a rather nervous wreck, while the computer owners were no better.
Drivel: It's amazing that a large number of residents didn't think of calling their home telephone answering machine to see if their house still had phone and power service, which is a good indication that the house is likely to be intact. I had to repeat this suggestion many times.
Also, I was into "car camping" when I was a teenager in Smog Angeles. Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead were my hangouts. I liked it so much that when I finally decided to buy a house, it was in an area that looked much likg Big Bear.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
When/if you get a new roof you may want to consider a metal one - if you don't already have that...and clear all brush around your home.
A friend of mine lives in the mountains of BC and is a fire warden for his area along with other residents. They all have metal roofs on their homes, but with so much timber it may be pointless extra protection..
Glad you are OK.
John :-#)#
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Part of my house has a flat roof. Corrugated metal roofs don't work very well with a low slope roof line. Also, I lived in a trailer with a metal roof for a time. I really didn't enjoy trying to sleep in the rain, which sounded like loud banging inside a drum. However, a metal roof is the standard recommendation for fire proofing a house in the forest. There are also financial considerations which I don't want to discuss.
As for brush, there is plenty around me. The house is on a steep 45 degree slope. The idea behind defensible space is so the fire fighters can being in equipment put out a fire. It gives them room to work. That's not going to happen on a steep slope. I'll probably do a better job of brush removal, but that's not going to be even close to the recommended 100 ft defensible space. incidentally, my lot is about 50 x 85ft. With such small lots, 100ft of defensible space is ludicrous because it would require a 2 acre lot to fit a typical 1500 sq-ft house.
I have redwood decks located around the outside of the house in various locations. Should I switch to synthetic decking or more likely, a concrete patio? Maybe corrugated metal decking or diamond plate? No thanks.
I'm ok for now, but there are big problems on the horizon. For example, I had planned to finance my retirement with a reverse mortgage, which uses the value of the house for collateral on a loan. The problem is no loan company or bank is going to loan me money unless I pay for 100% replacement cost insurance on the house. If I fail to pay, or the insurance company cancels, they foreclose on the loan. So much for my retirement. I'll probably end up working until I drop dead just to support my various insurance policies.
When I bought the house in 1973(?), I knew about the risk of fire. Actually, earthquake was considered to be a greater risk at the time. We've had a few local brush fires, but the redwoods lived up to their reputation of being almost fireproof. However, the current fire had
100F temperatures and far too much forest floor debris, which caused the redwood to burn quite easily. There are were also 300+ lightning fires scattered all over the state. The odds of that happening simultaneously again are very small and might be sufficient to justify living with the risk.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
How many people still have home answering machines instead of using the telco's voicemail service? Many like me don't even have a landline. (In the last few years all it got was wrong numbers because everyone calls the cell.)
We still have a landline, with a Panasonic system consisting of wireless handsets and an answering machine. Several reasons:
a) It's cheap - incremental cost of $20/month as part of a package. b) Everyone, past and present, knows it - the number is 42 years old. c) And, please check it out, in some cases, the lack of a landline can affect credit-rating, and a very old landline number has a positive effect.
We have one of those Panasonic multi-handset systems that also serves as an intercom system.
Our "landline" number was ported from AT&T to "T-Mobile@Home" add-on (no longer available) to our cell-phone service, and then to Google Voice and connects to that Panasonic system via an Obihai box.
We switched our cell-phone service from T-Mobile to Google Fi, which works fine for us but is not cost-effective for everyone.
Among the people I know, anyone with a cordless phone. The base station usually includes an answering machine feature. The main draw is that with an answering machine, you don't have to pay the phone company extra for the voice mail service. However, that applies only to people with POTS (plain old telephone service) lines. Those who use VoIP service, rarely have answering machines because the voicemail feature is usually bundled with the VoIP service. Also, I don't think anyone makes a SIP phone instrument with a built in answering machine.
I closed my office (note the change in the .signature) on Sept 1, and am now working from home. I now have a VoIP line for the business (future-nine.com), AT&T POTS for the house, several computers, and a Roku 3 streaming player, all sharing a single 1.5Mbit/sec DSL line. Overloaded would be a good description and I obviously need more bandwidth. Having the POTS line has some financial advantages. I'll need to make some changes fairly soon, possibly including the removal of the answering machine.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
I run an Asterisk PC based PBX. I have an AT&T copper line, and a VoIP line. And I have an AT&T cordless/answering machine for the AT&T phone line. Everything, including the LAN is backed up for at least 24 hours on batteries. I use predominately Digium D40 phones, but have several analog phones and two FAX machines.
*laughs* Like you, I love to over complicate things.
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It looks like the POTS would get with the program. They usually charge extra for many things that are 'free' with other services.
My POTS was over $ 40 a month by the time the 911 long distance and a few other basic services. I did not have caller ID or any other preamium service.
I switched to the phone with internet service for $ 19 a month. I got caller ID, free long distance, it even rings my cell phone at the same time. Not sure what else as I do not use the phone much. I would be better off with a pay phone and paying 25 cents a call.
I can see where someone that has a business has different needs,but for the ordanry service, the POTS is putting their selves out of business.
I have both. The cordless phone came with answering machine functionality. The VOIP from Sonic comes with voicemail service.
There are two humans who regularly call the house number, both are over
70 years old. The house number is also the one that regularly gets given out for all things "needing" a phone number. San Francisco Unified School District and politicians in voting season both robocall it. The SFUSD calls are usually not junk. The political ones always are. It's somewhat easy to screen calls both with caller ID and with listening to the message someone has started to leave. With telco voicemail only caller ID can be used for that.
The telco voicemail answers when calls come in while the phone is in use, and the cordless phone displays a "new voicemail" message afterwards. This happens about twice a year. I consistently have to look up how to check the telco voicemail.
Elijah
------ has now saved the voicemail instructions in an easy-to-find file
I was a visitor there for many weeks ~5 years ago and periodically since.
I only got up 9 as far as CalFire for a meeting with them there. But was regularly up Eureka Canyon to Summit and along it.
Did Roaring Camp survive?
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Yes. Roaring Camp is still operating. There was no fire damage. Roaring Camp should be in the middle of this fire map: Roaring Camp is limiting access to the central area to ticket holders only due to Covid-19 concerns.
Nearby Henry Cowell State Park just re-opened after the fire: Nearby Fall Creek State Park is a mess and will probably not re-open until after a major cleanup. Some of my collected links and info on the fire:
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
handsets and an answering machine. Several reasons:
fect credit-rating, and a very old landline number has a positive effect.
There is no landline service to my street, since Hurricane Irma. It took ou t a power pole at the end of the street, along with a Centurylink pedestal. The pole was replaced. The pedestal wasn't. Apparenntly the wires were bur ied since there was no DC on the line after the utilites were 'restored'. I had that number for about 15 years. The Hughesnet Satellite Internet doesn 't work with the Magic Jack number that I've had for 10 years. There is no cell service inside the house. I have to go outside and hunt for a spot to make a call. That died a few days ago, so I'm waiting fo a new cellphone to be delivered. The LG Tribute 2 had a 29% charge. A few minutes later it sh owed 1%, I bought it just before Irma, but the cell towers were so overloa ded that it was useless from the county's shelter for the disabled.
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