Fire Victims in Laguna Beach Didn’t Lose Their Will to Vote

The frustrations, loss and life upheavals brought by the Laguna Beach fire may have been unimaginable before last week, but that didn’t keep many residents from turning out Tuesday to vote.

Voters had to pass by ashen timber piles and blackened houses on their way to some of the county’s polling places, where talk centered on the blazes that claimed no lives but gutted hundreds of homes.

“We’ve had people come in here with tears in their eyes,” said Chris Soto, a precinct worker at the Laguna Beach Unified School District near downtown Laguna Beach. “People who have lost their homes are coming in to vote and a lot of them are very quiet and pale and trying to be very brave. We can’t believe it.”

Some people have had to make due with whatever the fires spared. A cooler became a makeshift refrigerator for Allan Kawatani, 33, who pulled out a soda in front of the polling place and reflected on casting his ballot.

“I guess we have a responsibility to vote that doesn’t end because of what happened,” Kawatani said. He first got word his home was burning as he was battling a fire near the Pageant of the Masters grounds where he works, he added.

Others escaped with less than Kawatani. When Emerald Bay resident Kay Roberts evacuated her home, all she took were voting booths and polling equipment. When her house burned to the ground, the 30-year precinct inspector had little left.

As her neighbors filed into the Emerald Bay precinct to vote and offer support and consolation, Roberts remained stoic.

“I take this job to heart, I guess it’s just the Irish in me,” she said.

Emotions overwhelmed her shortly afterward, though, as her eyes filled with tears at a few words of comfort from a fellow fire survivor. “Yes, this has been hard,” she admitted.

Some said the elections came at a time that interfered with grieving and recuperation.

“It’s an unfortunate day to have an election,” said Betty Brannen, who has worked the Emerald Bay precinct with Roberts for 30 years. “We need the time to be doing other things. There just hasn’t been time to recover.”

To help those hurt by the fires, Gov. Pete Wilson late Tuesday ordered that polls in certain fire-affected areas remain open until 10 p.m. No Orange County polling sites were affected by the governor’s emergency order, however, said Donald Tanney, the Orange County registrar of voters.

“Right now, as far as I know, no fires have caused people to move (polling sites) or have stopped people from getting to voting booths,” Tanney said.

Times correspondent Frank Messina and staff writer Eric Young contributed to this report.