Fire Puts a Damper on Honeymoon Plans

They were married on St. Valentine’s Day and spent the first half of their honeymoon aboard an ocean liner bound for Mexico. But when they returned to their Placentia Avenue home in Newport Beach on Sunday afternoon, Justin and Stephanie Zitney got a quick lesson in reality.

“We came back yesterday afternoon at 2-ish, and we saw all the commotion--policemen, police lines, fire trucks,” Justin Zitney, 25, said.

Locked out of their apartment by Sunday’s fire at the nearby Hixson Metal Finishing plant, the newlyweds had little choice but to spend one night of their two-week honeymoon at the home of Stephanie’s parents in Tustin. It was either that or separate cots at the American Red Cross disaster shelter at Whittier School in Costa Mesa.

Emergency officials allowed the Zitneys just 15 minutes Monday afternoon to gather enough clean clothes for the second leg of their honeymoon--a camping trip in the San Diego area during which they were expecting to rough it a bit.

But other residents evacuated from the working class Newport Beach neighborhood--where mobile home parks and apartment buildings coexist with light industry and small businesses--were not so lucky.

Many came back to the neighborhood early Monday in hopes that fire and environmental officials would let them return to their homes. They spent hours in the intermittent rain and chill wind, eating Red Cross hamburgers and pacing.

They complained of irritated skin and eyes and were upset by the lack of information coming from emergency workers.

Jim Voster, 34, a resident of the evacuated Newport Villa apartments, said his eyes were watering and his skin itched.

He saw firefighters strip down and scour chemicals off their bodies Sunday, he said, and he wondered Monday if there were precautions that he should be taking.

“I don’t think they’re telling us anything,” he said. “The (contaminated) water was running full guns down the street for two or three hours before they dammed it up yesterday. I’m no Jacques Cousteau, but if I start seeing dead whales, I’ll really be worried.”