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| Cerro Grande |
May 16, 2000 |
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Dear Friends,
Last Sunday evening a friend from Los Alamos called me at home. He was supposed to be at a Monday morning meeting at my office in Albuquerque but he didn`t think he would be able to come. They were evacuating his neighborhood in the west end of Los Alamos because of the fire. He had to go up to Los Alamos to get his dog and a few possessions and move them down to his parents` home in White Rock.
Then, on Wednesday, the winds came, and the cars streamed off of the hill as an inferno engulfed parts of the town and much of the forest. By dawn the next morning, White Rock had also been evacuated.
We have all ridden the rollercoaster ride of emotions as we watched events unfold in northern New Mexico over the last week -- horror and fear and saddness. . . the soothing warmth of friendship and the sturdy bonds of community. There are as many stories as there are people. And while the stories are born of disaster, I have to say, I am proud to be a New Mexican today. We pulled together and we cared for each other. We still are.
There were some "Washington" things we did on Wednesday and Thursday, but I felt so much better on Friday when I could come home and be with people.
I stopped by 1st State Bank where they had set up an account for the victims. They collected $34,000 in 6 hours.
At the parking lot at Raley`s UNM ROTC instructors and Air Force guys from Kirtland and just regular volunteers were taking supplies out of a continuous stream of cars and packing them into a Mayflower semi to head north.
At the Red Cross people were walking in and openning their wallets. I met one woman waiting for a van to go to Santa Fe. She decided what she had most of was time, so she joined the Red Cross to help.
The smoke in Los Alamos on friday afternoon lingered while the activity at the Elks Lodge warmed my heart. A woman in a pick-up truck from Santa Clara pueblo and her son were driving supplies to all of the trail heads, even though Santa Clara itself was at risk from the fire that afternoon. The deputy head of the Red Cross for Rio Arriba county was there, giving out "Disaster Relief" signs for trucks and cars. He and his family had been evacuated from White Rock, so he just chose to stay working in Los Alamos.
On Saturday morning my good husband got called to active duty with the Air Guard. It has been 30 years since the Air Guard has been called up for in-state duty. The Air Guard would take the families who wanted to go back up the hill to where their homes had been.
It was a long weekend for all New Mexicans.
This morning we passed a House Concurrent Resolution which expresses the sense of the Congress that the federal government is responsible for the fire and should compensate the victims for their losses. It passed 404 to 0 with six members voting present.
As a Congressional delegation, we have much to do yet. We must set in place an expedited claims process and the funds to compensate the victims; we have to make sure the funds are in place to continue to monitor the air and soil for health and safety; we have to get an immediate plan for the stabilization of the soil and the restoration of the forest; we must review the facilities and the lessons learned at the lab and make any improvements needed for health and safety; we must ensure there are adequate funds to meet immediate emergency needs and compensate the city and the county for the costs of this disaster.
We`ll move as quickly as we can. People are depending on us and I don`t want to let them down.
I saw my friend from Los Alamos on Yesterday when I was at the Emergency Operations Center in Santa Fe. He`s okay and, miraculously, so is his house. He still can`t go home yet. But he will be able to go home. I wish that were true for all of the citizens of Los Alamos.
Thanks to all of you who helped and donated and prayed. In the face of disaster, we reached out to our friends. That says a lot about us as New Mexicans.
Wish you were here,
Heather |
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