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2007 California Wildfires

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By Scott Goldwriter 
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El Cajon:

Frustrated with a lack of answers from law enforcement officials, many evacuees have developed a new trick for checking -- maybe -- whether their home survived. They call their house every hour or so, and as long as they get the answering machine, they assume it’s still standing. It’s a simple ploy that refugees have passed through word of mouth.

‘It’s a good sign, right?’ said Linda Stillwell, who evacuated from Ramona on Monday night and is staying with her husband, Bob Stillwell, and her dog, Gidget, at a hotel in El Cajon. ‘So I just keep on calling.’

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-- Scott Gold

2007 California Wildfires
Scott Gold

Scott Gold is a former senior writer at the Los Angeles Times. Scott grew up in Charlottesville, Va., then graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism and a concentration in anthropology. He wrote for newspapers in North Carolina and Florida before joining The Times in 1999. Since then, he has covered a series of national news events, including the Bush-Gore recount in 2000, the terrorist attacks in 2001, the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He left The Times in 2015.

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