Not hyperbole thiz time. Schools are closed through the bay area. It’s rare to have people die in urban/suburban fires. 25 dead and 250 plus missing. I used to live there. It’s only 3% contained with no rain until end of next week.
Puddles of boiling wine. So bizarre.
Continued thoughts and prayers out to our Freepers and everyone else on the West Coast.
Here is a “feel better” story...and fundraiser with 100% going to those in need. Seems like a nice guy!
Former A’s player Jonny Gomes stands next to the military truck he’ll be using to help with relief efforts in Wine Country this weekend. Photo: Courtesy Jonny Gomes And C& Equipment
Gomes, 36, is shipping his 2 1/2-ton M35 military truck to his hometown and he told The Chronicle that he’ll be driving it around to help move burned out vehicles and clear roadways in the wake of the Wine Country fires. He’s also planning to help keep a watch out for looters in evacuated neighborhoods.
“It’s pretty simple,” Gomes said by phone from his home in Arizona. “I’ve never had anything hit so close to home. We donate to cancer research, to support the troops, all sorts of causes, but when 1,000 people in your life are affected by one thing, it really hits you. I’ve got buddies who left their houses at 4 a.m. and realized that what they had in their pockets and in their car was 100 percent all they had left, and their homes were vaporized. It’s crazy, man, just brutal.”
Gomes’ older brother, Joey, was evacuated from his Santa Rosa home in the early hours Monday and he and his family have not been allowed to return. “Their place might be there, and it might not be,” Jonny Gomes said.
Gomes, who attended Casa Grande High School and Santa Rosa Junior College, has started a GoFundMe.com page to raise funds to help victims of the fires in the affected counties at www.gofundme.com/707Relief.
“There’s no overhead and the money will 100 percent be going to people in need,” Gomes said. “And I’ll be there to see how I can help. I’ve heard there are 5,000 cars that need to get hauled out and there aren’t enough tow trucks because so many of them burned.