Disaster Relief

Abstract

As I watched the California fires on TV, all I could think of was our avicultural friends and what they must be facing at that time. As Chair of the American Federation of Aviculture, lnc:S (AFA) Ad Hoc Disaster Relief Committee, I immediately began putting together a relief team to deal with this new disaster. The team initiated the relief effort by attempting to contact aviculturists in the fire areas of Southern California, to determine their needs and how we could be most effective in addressing these needs.

To further assess the needs, I scheduled two 'town hall' type meetings where those affected could meet directly with us. I believed this would enable us to determine their needs as well as give them the opportunity to present ideas as to how we could improve future disaster relief efforts. The first meeting was held in Fallbrook, California on Monday evening of November 5, 2007. This meeting was held at the Hidden Forest Art Gallery, hosted by Lisa and Gamini Ratnavira. The second meeting was held on Wednesday November 7, 2007 at the Denny's Restaurant in San Diego, California. AFA President Jim Hawley joined me in California and attended the Wednesday meeting. I really appreciated his support as we sought to help those in need. The AFA Store donated a number of l-shirts that we gave to anyone in the fire areas, many of whom had lost everything.

There were some amazing stories describing how birds had been saved from the fires, but there were also tragic accounts from people who lost most, if not all of their possessions. However, as one person put it, "Everything we had in our homes wasjust'stuff. We saved our most prized possessions, our family. The stuff can always be replaced, but our family cannot:' Though some birds losttheirbattlewith those terrible fires, there were hundreds more that are safe and have returned to their own 'living quarters' and are enjoying the beautiful California weather once again.

It was evident that most of the aviculturists had an evacuation plan in place and, for the most part, these plans worked. Every disaster I have worked on behalf of AFA has been different and unpredictable. The same was true here. I was told these fires were different from those just a few years ago. The fires were driven by unrelenting Santa Ana winds that were clocked at times in excess of 90 miles per houri "When the Aames are blowing horizontal and at such great speeds, no evacuation plan will work", stated one victim. "There was no time to save even the little things that mean so much to us, such as family photo's, etc:'

Another person recounted, "There was no time to remove our birds, so we turned the cages upside down to keep the birds out of the smoke and fire. It's all we could do. The fires were raging so high and fast that by putting the cages on the ground, the fires sped right over them and the birds were saved''. Yet another person observed that if they had turned the birds loose, they would have flown to the highest trees and perished. "We did what we could to save them and it worked''.

As I noted above, the fires were unpredictable. One aviculturist stated that the fires could be seen two mountains away, so they were certain they had time to collect their belongings. Then, within minutes, they were 'running for their lives'. When the flames reached the top of the mountain, a spark would be 'thrown' across the canyon to the next mountain and start another fire. Some thought they were safe as the fires were moving past them only to have the winds shift direction ever so slightly, such that they found themselves directly in the path of a raging fire.

 

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