An Unusually Warm Welcome to Herriman

Obviously, there are many ways to get to know a new area or neighbors when one moves to a new home, some being more pleasant than others.  Several weeks ago, we moved to Herriman, Utah, and when we weren’t at our family reunion in Bear Lake, Utah, we were unpacking and sorting over 25,000 pounds of household goods, nearly 1/2 of which felt like were books (very heavy), and the other half food supply (very, very heavy). 

Just last Friday morning, Mom and Dad had to leave for home after visiting us for awhile after the reunion.  After helping them load their car and getting their bird safely situated where he couldn’t attack the little trees Mom was taking home, they took off.  It turned out to be good timing.  That afternoon,. I woke up from a short nap, looked out the front window and saw this:

Minutes later, the phone rang and it was Jim calling as he was leaving work in Salt Lake.  He said he could see smoke down in the valley somewhere.  I told him it was actually across the street from us.  A minute later, Marci called from their youth conference boating trip and said she’d just heard that there was a fire in our subdivision and that we were being evacuated. Nathan was with me and thought to run around and close all the windows and shut all the blinds, hoping to keep the heat down should the fire get that close as he also ran suitcases and loaded baskets out to the car—all the while telling me how little time we had and we had to leave NOW.  What do you take when you have just minutes and one small minivan?  I doubt any one would be too surprised that the first thing I took was a few pictures of the house, just in case I never saw it again.,

 

I then grabbed our binder of birth certificates and passport stuff, a shelf full of our journals, then started stuffing suitcases with some clothes and toiletries for myself, Jim and the girls.

It was just a weird feeling to look outside and see everyone else doing the same thing.  We passed a policeman at the entrance to our street and I wanted to ask questions, but he kept us moving on and out.  We drove down the block to the pond and saw that many people had stopped there and were watching what was happening from the higher vantage point.  I pulled in to a parking spot, grabbed my camera, and we hopped out.  I looked around and didn’t know anyone.  I had never yet felt panicky, but at this point it was a lonely feeling to not be able to go and talk with friends about what we were going through.  It was a great opportunity to meet people, and I actually went and met quite a few, first asking where they lived.  Since our ward is mostly only two long streets, Long Ridge and Fox Creek, I knew very quickly if they were in our ward boundaries or not.  It was nice to meet the high priest group leader, the ward clerk, and others there. 

Not long after we arrived at the pond, the police went through the neighborhood, using the bullhorn and getting everyone out that was still in.  They then blocked off the roads and no one else was allowed to enter – which actually, was a good a thing since there had been two young men loitering around our house when Nathan went out with a load of stuff to the car the first time.  I appreciated the protection of the police.

We are standing on the far side of the pond, looking west, and watching the houses on the hill just to the west of our house..

We watched the bushes around this house burst into flame and watched as the flame circled around the massive propane tank outside the house.

It was amazing to see the plane come through and drop the fire retardant making a direct hit.

The helicopters repeatedly came in for water out of the pond, filled their 200-plus gallon containers, then went and dumped it on the places that were burning the worst.

 

 

 

We watched them circle around in a pattern, taking turns dipping and filling, then heading off.

Looking just a little north of the fire a few feet, you can see our stake center and chapel where we attend church.

It was a terrifying feeling to look out and see flames in the middle of our neighborhood.  So far, all the flames had been a couple blocks away.  But the winds were blowing from the south, behind the fire, toward us to the north.  Just one of these houses in the neighborhood catching fire would send it racing through the rest of them.

Nathan and I watched from the pond for hours, waiting for Jim to make it from Salt Lake, and the girls to make it in from their youth conference.  Once we drove out, we would not be allowed back in, and we wanted to see what happened.  No one wanted to leave.  In this picture, Nathan is the guy in red, and he has just looked across the pond and seen Jim and Marci and Jamie walk up.

Thank goodness for cell phones.  It was the only way we were able to reunite.  The police had blocked off the roads at 6400 West and 134th, so Jim had quite a hike to make it to the park.  The girls had to be dropped off at Smith’s Grocery, 3 miles away.  Somehow, Jim connected with them, and they walked in together.

It became very tense as the fire was all around our houses and the wind was blowing it closer.  All of a sudden, the wind shifted and started blowing from the north and the fire began going backward up the hill to the south away from us.

The police eventually came and evacuated the pond area.  The helicopter pilots were understandably nervous that one of their filled water containers would malfunction, and since we were all standing underneath them part of the time, they said it would be like getting hit by a semi if that much water dropped out and hit you.

The Red Cross had set up a Disaster Relief site at the new Herriman High School.  Many of us went there, and were fed dinner by different local businesses, including Chick Fill-A and Café Rio.  Also tons of hot pizza were there along with all kinds of snacks and treats from stores like Wal Mart and Smiths.  People were incredibly nice,  We took naps on the cots set up in the gym where there were donated new blankets and pillows, hygiene kits (Marci had been brushing her teeth with her fingers), and just about anything you could need.  We had hourly updates from city, fire, and police officials.  We had no idea how long we would be evacuated from our homes.

Friday night, Rhonda and Art graciously offered us the use of a hotel room of their friend’s that had been offered them, so we had more comfortable accommodations than many there.  The Red Cross was there with food for every meal until the evacuation was lifted at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

 

Jim and I walked around the neighborhood after church today.  It was amazing to see how the fire came up to the houses two blocks away from ours, melted the fence and just stopped.  It also ran around and in between these houses.  The stake president came today, and Fast and Testimony Meeting was the only meeting we had.  It ran over an hour and a half as member after member, including children, recounted their experience and testimony and as our stake president testified -- the feeling that guardian angels had been surrounding the area and keeping us safe.  Three homes farther up the canyon were lost, and one outbuilding, but it truly was a miracle that it didn’t just sweep down through the whole subdivision and take us all out. 

 

 

We still can’t understand how this little packet of homes up the canyon that were surrounded by flames are still there.

This family had had a load of wood chips delivered several weeks ago to spread around on their property.  They caught fire in the heat, and the fire fighters would try to put it out, but it would keep bursting into flame.  They sent the plane with the red fire retardant to hit it.  You can see how accurate these pilots were.  All the red on the house, roof, concrete is the retardant.  Direct hit and it put out the fire which would have started up the neighborhood houses. Below, you can see the trail of red from the street in front of the house going across the fence and right to that pile of woodchips behind it.

 

I got a text while we were at the pond watching the fire that a neighbor in our ward that I didn’t even know, had gone to our house and turned off the gas and the air conditioning.  Two years ago when the military target practice had started a fire on the mountain to the other side of our neighborhood and “The Cove” had been evacuated the first time, it was the air conditioning that had brought all the smoke from the outside to the inside of the houses that had done so much damage.  I was so relieved and so grateful for his thoughtfulness.

This is the last picture I took today.  This is the main street that runs up the middle of our subdivision.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of firefighters and God’s tender mercies, it is still a beautiful place to walk every night.