Jim Wilkins: thank you, many times over, for all your postings and helping people who want to learn, about the importance of evacuating, the character and movement of fire, administrative overview/action, and debriefing. As a former emergency response person on the ground, and administrator, who has been part of teams fighting too many kinds of disasters, I am continually amazed when people think they can "fight nature" in these circumstances. Your explanation of a crown fire, and mention that the fire temp is 1500 degrees was excellent. As a citizen, I will do everything I can to make sure people in my community who need assistance because they are unaware of the emergency, or due to disability or age, get out of harm's way. But I have no patience with people who take up a first responder's time, energy, and focus by voluntarily or antagonistically getting in the way of the major task at hand.
I was very pleased to see that the Snowline School District acted so quickly to ensure that the safely of the students and staff were foremost at WW Elementary. It's my understanding the campus was completely vacated by 2:15pm. Hats off to Administration at all levels, and the teachers. Well done.
I am, however, deeply disturbed at the response of the SB Co Library who refused to release the employees of the WW Library until after WW was under mandatory evacuation...well after 4pm...and will be making a formal compliant to the agency and County about this matter. Both CERT team leaders, Patrick and Virginia Martin, and myself...and perhaps others, went to the library personally to make sure the librarians knew about the road closures and mandatory evac of W. Cajon Valley. I even stood and watched the Robin Cornett, Lead Librarian call down to administration to obtain permission to close down, or at least let one librarian who lives in Hesperia leave. Library Admin refused to let her go. I called down to the library two more times before I evacuated and still they were to remain on the job. This is deplorable.
The Director of the SB Co. Library needs to be called to task for this inappropriate and dangerous response and unnecessarily risking his employees lives. Librarians are non-essential personnel in these circumstances: they need to be protected. The proper procedure is to shut down the bldg so emergency responders do not have to be concerned about the personnel. At the same time the employees need to pack up, heed the mandatory evacuation order, and head for safety. When speaking of debriefing, hopefully this is an inter-agency venture.
As you know, Jim, you are doing a stellar job at educating the people who want to understand more by taking the time to post here. Again, thank you for your continued voice of reason and experience. Perhaps you could do some training for SB Co. Library administrative personnel and for other dept's whose employees are out in the field. Respectfully submitted, Sagespirit
