Oakland Reunion Turns Into Living Hell

I was driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge toward my father’s house Sunday when I noticed a massive black cloud, looming on the horizon.

Strange. I didn’t remember hearing anything about rain in the forecast. But as I got closer, I could tell that this was no thunderstorm.

I tuned the radio to a special news report. A brush fire was raging out of control in the Oakland Hills. Fifty homes had been destroyed. Thousands of people were being evacuated.

As I approached the turn-off to my father’s house, I encountered two police cruisers parked side by side, blocking the on-ramp. I got out, and told them I had to get through.

“Highway 13 is closed because of the fire,” one replied stoically. “No one’s allowed in.”

Shaken, I tried to remember alternate routes. I drove to Moraga, a narrow road that winds up into the hills. A row of orange construction cones and unwavering police officers sealed off the intersection. Mountain Boulevard--the same.

Charred debris was raining down like black snow. Caravans of ambulances, fire engines and police cars were racing through intersections, sirens blaring. People were rushing down the street, clutching pet-carrying cases, suitcases and small children.

A Honda Prelude zoomed by with an Oriental carpet sticking out of the sunroof.

“Oh my God,” I prayed aloud. “Please let everyone be OK.”

I found a phone booth and dialed my father’s number. No answer. I called his office. No answer there.

I headed for a friend’s apartment near the UC Berkeley campus. Her TV was tuned to live footage of a chaotic procession of cars driving through flames. There were unfathomable images of homes reduced to ash within minutes. A disoriented television reporter was in shock over the loss of her own home.

Struggling to remain calm, I checked in with my newspaper in Los Angeles. Suddenly, a familiar face flashed across the television screen. My father’s longtime companion, a television reporter, was giving a fire update.

She was at the Rockridge BART station.

But where were my father and brother?

I called the house again. No answer. The phone wouldn’t ring if the house had burned down, or would it?

I headed for the BART station a few blocks up the road. I found the Channel 2 news team where my father’s companion was reporting the fire from the roof of a three-story house across the street.

My brother, an intern for the TV station, was running film back and forth across the fire line on his motorcycle, she said. She had not heard from my father.

The Montclair district where they live had been evacuated.

“I hope the house is OK, darling,” she said, hugging me.

Together, we stood on the roof and witnessed one of the most horrifying sights I have ever seen: Less than a quarter of a mile away, flames were shooting hundreds of feet into the air. Entire sections of homes collapsed from their foundations in a fiery mess. Dozens of people stood on the roofs of surrounding homes, frantically watering the shingles with garden hoses. It was a nightmare that seemed to go on forever.

My brother arrived on his motorcycle.

“Want to get a closer look?” he asked.

I hopped on the back and we weaved through traffic to the fire line. A crowd of onlookers was gathered in the street, mesmerized by the amazing spectacle. Some wore gas masks. Others draped scarves across their noses and mouths. Some toted binoculars and video cameras.

I was beginning to feel queasy.

I told my brother I had seen enough. I found a phone booth and called my father’s house again.

“Hello,” he answered.

“What are you doing there?” I asked, my relief turning to anger.

“I wasn’t going to leave my house,” he said, laughing nervously.

The police had allowed him to park his car at the entrance to the barricade 2 miles away and walk up to his house.

We made plans to meet at a gas station near the roadblock. It would take him 45 minutes to hike down.

I sat on a bench at a bus stop and waited. Motorcycle police were patrolling the area in search of looters. Dozens of cars were lined up bumper to bumper. Countless people were hiking down the street carting their possessions.

When my father finally came trudging down the hill, it was almost comical. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Indiana Jones-type hat, a bag slung over his arm like he was about to head off on safari.

“I decided the only thing I couldn’t do without is my recording equipment,” he said, explaining the pack on his shoulder.

He wanted to have dinner and check into a hotel. “I figured I wouldn’t get any sleep at home because I would keep getting up to go look out the window,” he said.

We drove downtown to the Parc Oakland Hotel, which was steadily filling up with other refugees from the flames. The lobby of this former Hyatt had been transformed into a virtual menagerie. Because of the fire, the hotel management was allowing people to check in with their dogs and cats.

Since the animals weren’t permitted inside the restaurants, the hotel had prepared box meals so evacuees with pets could eat in their rooms.

I had a short dinner, kissed my dad goodby and left the hotel.

I had to catch a flight back to Los Angeles the next day. On the way to the airport, I swung by the freeway exit to my father’s house. The barricades were still up. Police officers were not allowing any cars through.

With just minutes to spare before my flight, I reluctantly drove on to the airport.

When I landed, I called my father.

Everything was fine, he said. The fire had been stopped six blocks from his house. There was no hot water. But other than that, he felt he’d been pretty lucky.

My prayers are with the thousands of others who weren’t.