Ramona refugee grabs her Chuckie doll on way out

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Johnnie ‘Snake’ Stewart, 49 , and her son Scooter, 23, arrived at the shelter at Escondido High on Sunday night from their apartment at the Canyon Crest complex on La Brea Street in Ramona. They started packing their rusted-out ’63 Chevy pickup when they saw TV reports about the Witch Creek fire. They took off about 10 p.m. when a neighbor came knocking after getting a reverse 911 evacuation alert.

Aside from the obvious (like their long-haired chihuahua, Mollie), they took the following items -- because ‘you just grab what you can, the sentimental stuff,’ Johnnie said:

-- 2-foot-tall Bride of Chuckie doll (because it was a Christmas gift from Scooter to his mom)

-- Bubba, a small stuffed monkey wearing sunglasses; Scooter has had it since he was 10 and ‘he goes everywhere with us,’ Johnnie said.

-- Two books from the Ramona public library, ‘Mother of Lies’ by Dave Duncan and ‘Cat in a Red Hot Rage’ by Carole Nelson Douglas.

‘Its embarrassing. I’ve read better books. I just grabbed these in a hurry. I didn’t want to have to pay for them,’ said Johnnie, who survives on disability after ‘too many years riding Harley Davidsons.’

What she forgot, and hopes survives: Scooter’s photos and awards from the time he was enlisted in the Army and stationed at Ft. Bliss in El Paso.

‘As you can tell, I love my son. So luckily I did grab a lot of pictures of him,’ Johnnie said.

-- Christine Hanley