Victims Respond With Tears, Gallows Humor

Pat Schaitel grabbed her husband’s golf clubs, some clothes, the dog and the cat--not necessarily in that order--before dashing from her Normal Heights home as the flames danced ever closer toward her door on Sunday.

Her husband, Dan, was only partially pleased by his spouse’s selection of rescued items: In her haste, Pat forgot the six cases of beer that Dan had purchased for the July 4th weekend.

The Schaitels, both 63-year-old retirees, chuckled about the brew and reflected good-naturedly on their fate Monday morning as they surveyed the still-smoldering ruins of the tidy stucco house on Panama Place where they had lived for 25 years. The only thing left standing was the mailbox and a hedge.

“The kitchen was too small and I always hated that hedge anyway,” said Pat. “You win some and you lose some.”

Theirs was a fairly typical mood Monday morning along the quiet streets and cul-de-sacs of Normal Heights, where many victims of Sunday’s massive fire were finally allowed to cross police lines and return to their residences. Sixty-four homeowners discovered that their cherished residences and life’s possessions had been reduced to worthless ash heaps.

There were only a few tears. Instead, most who had been victimized by the worst fire in San Diego’s history displayed a sort of gallows humor tinged by fatalistic resolve.

A faint, sticky haze smelling of scorched plaster hung over the neighborhood as the sun dawned orange and hot Monday, but it was roses that the newly homeless seemed to be smelling.

They poked in the ashes that hours before had been their living rooms and whooped victoriously when they discovered unbroken knickknacks.

Neighbors who had rarely exchanged greetings in years of living next door or around the corner now hugged and slapped each other on the back in a mutual celebration of survival. They thanked God and luck and themselves that no one was seriously injured in the inferno.

They whistled “Que Sera, Sera” and marveled at how the fire skipped some abodes while incinerating others. They also discussed rebuilding, and appeared casually concerned about immediate needs--like finding a change of clothing.

Some emergency workers said they thought many of those who lost their homes were in shock Monday, not fully realizing the significance of their losses.

“Many are caught up in the excitement of the moment right now,” said Pat Sutton, who is coordinating relief activities for the local chapter of the American Red Cross. “Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, the world is going to fall apart for some of them.”

Lou Perez, a sixth-grade teacher whose house on Panama Place fell to the flames, scratched his head when asked if he was in shock. “I wish I were,” he said.

Perez, 47, who was at the beach Sunday when the fire struck, returned to his neighborhood Monday morning wearing only sandals and a pair of shorts, bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t even a T-shirt.

“I had a million T-shirts and now I don’t have one,” he said. “I guess I’ll go back to the beach.”

Like his neighbors, the Schaitels, Perez found humor in misfortune.

“I didn’t know I had this much space,” he joked as he picked his way across the charred foundation of his house. “The scary thing is that I had about 20 library books in here. I wonder what the library’s going to do to me now.”

Others who discovered that their houses were gone made it a point to call their insurance representatives the first thing Monday morning. Not the pragmatic Perez. He called a newspaper to cancel his home delivery.

George and Alberta Richter on Cromwell Court didn’t have to wait until Monday morning to learn that their canyon-view home of 32 years had been destroyed. After being evacuated, the Richters watched on a relative’s television set as the house went up in smoke.

When they returned at 4:15 a.m. Monday, all that was left to save were four singed photo albums --pictures of hummingbirds, river rapids and cacti taken by the couple on their vacations. The Richters were able to grab some financial records and an armful of family photos before fleeing the blaze.

“The wife said, ‘Let’s take the money, get a motor home and be wanderers,’ ” said George Richter, 70, a retired plumbing supply salesman. “We just might.”

While the Richters took comfort from the knowledge that their insurance policy would, in large measure, cover their damages, others who were not insured suddenly found themselves in a financial bind.

Charles Graham and Lori Hicks, two laboratory technicians who shared a rented house overlooking San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on Ellison Place, lost everything in the fire except the television set and photos that they carried with them during Sunday’s evacuation.

Their possessions were uninsured. Perhaps a bigger loss for Graham, 32, were the five years’ worth of notes and drafts he had written for his uncompleted master’s thesis in invertebrate zoology.

“I thought I’d come out here and take a picture--you know, for ‘before and after’ pictures,” Graham said. “Then it occurred to me that all of my ‘before’ pictures were burned up. That’s life, I suppose.”

The couple returned Monday morning to search for their cat, Valentino, and ponder the three good years they spent on the now-blackened canyon.

Some residents were allowed to return to the neighborhood as early as 11 p.m. Sunday, after city officials decided they could no longer keep them out.

“We evacuated a lot of people whose homes were not burned,” said Assistant Police Chief Robert Burgreen. “A lot of people didn’t know whether their homes had been destroyed.”

Many residents who expected to find their homes burned to the ground discovered that the structures were standing and in perfect order. Orla Hoffer, who lives on Mountain View Drive, was among them.

Even though the houses around him had burned to the ground, Hoffer’s place was in the same immaculate condition as when he grabbed his two young grandchildren and fled 12 hours earlier.

“When I saw a roof explode two doors down, I ran back in the house, got the car keys and took off,” said Hoffer, who bought his house overlooking the canyon in 1947. “We didn’t think our house would be here.”

Joe Martinez’s house wasn’t. The four-bedroom residence in which he had lived for 25 years was among 20 destroyed on Mountain View.

As a television camera crew provided light, Martinez walked through the remains of the house in an unsuccessful search for his daughter’s poodle, Fudgee.

Martinez carried out a bicycle with a charred rear wheel, a small wooden rocking chair and some work clothes. The rest of his possessions were torched, including a ’78 Chevrolet Camaro, souvenirs from a recent trip to Europe, and pictures of his five children and nine grandchildren.

As he walked away, Martinez noticed that a water tap was still running underneath the smoldering ruins of his house.

“They could charge me for a big water bill,” he said, smiling, as he turned off the tap.

Many residents of Mountain

View Drive were not at home when the fire started Sunday. Joan Yotiv was at a friend’s house in Pacific Beach when her roommate called at 11 p.m. to say that her room no longer existed.

Twenty minutes later, Yotiv was on her knees on the lawn in front of a pair of bright Volvo headlights as she sifted through a wet, charred pile of papers for her insurance policy. Friends who had seen her house on fire on television had arrived to help in the search for valuables.

Although police and city officials have reported no instances of looting, Yotiv’s roommate, Cindy Price, said that several pieces of jewelry, including a gold championship volleyball ring from San Diego State University, had been stolen. A neighbor reported that strangers had been through Price’s house earlier in the day.

Price said that, when police blocked off the neighborhood, she ran to her house to grab a change of clothes.

“I said (to myself), ‘If I can do this, anyone can,’ ” Price recalled. “They’re not going to know if someone is in here rummaging.”

However, residents for the most part applauded the efforts of outsiders who entered their neighborhood and helped fight the fire.

Mary Romano and Irene Smigielski said their houses opposite the canyon on Mountain View Drive would have burned if it hadn’t been for three curious teen-agers.

“The broke through all the (police) barriers, came through the back and stayed up on the roof through thick and thin,” Romano said. “It was the kids who saved our homes, not the firefighters.”

Romano said that she was in such a state of shock when she came home from church and saw her house on fire that she forgot to get the names of the youths who used hoses to fight back the fire.

“So, there are still some good kids on earth,” Romano said. “We showed our respect and paid them money.”

The reward for saving the house--$10.