Trick in his temporary quarters
I guess the story starts last week. Jo Ann, a friend of Cory’s and a friend and mentor to me, left town for the week and asked Cory and me to take care of her horses in case of fire. Jo can’t foresee the future; all horse owners who had to evacuate in last year’s fires got religion on the subject of knowing what you’re going to do if the worst happens. And Jo’s place is about 30 very rural minutes uphill from Santa Cruz – in “upper” Bonny Doon – so when something does happen, she’s far, far away from help.
In any case, reading the paper comes right after brushing our teeth for both Cory and me, and on Thursday morning, the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel featured a half page high picture of an inferno with the headline “Fire in Bonny Doon!” I called Jo to find out if reverse-911 had gotten any instructions to her, etc and she said that there was not a mandatory evac, but asked that we be ready, so Cory and I hopped in our trucks and headed down to get our trailers. Also, Jo had started home and was about three hours away. By the time we got to our barn, the evac was mandatory, so we hooked up and headed out for the staging area.
On the way to the Large Animal Evac Staging Area
We are both members of the Large Animal Rescue team and are on call for any fire. The Emergency Services people actually encourage you to get your friends animals out and into some private facility for care, since you know how to get there, where to take them, and any special requirements they have. That said, before you do so, you have to check in at the staging area that Animal Control runs to make sure that they don’t duplicate efforts, that the roads are open, etc. The staging area has a couple of hams operating and reps from CHP and CDF, to keep everything up to date.
In addition, Jo Ann had updated her info. She owns five horses, so Cory and I were figuring out how we were going to split them up – but, at that point, Jo unburdened herself of the fact that she had *8* horses, including a newly acquired mustang, a student’s horse who had only been trailered once, and her really A-D-D young Arab gelding. (And I say this as an Arab owner.) Cory and I swallowed hard and drove on. While we were driving, though, Jo got in touch with one of the premier local trainers, who is a friend of hers, Deb Cooper, and Deb agreed to take her 4 horse trailer up and help load.
So. We met Deb, checked in and took off, with me leading the way. By this time, the light was getting eerie: all the shadows were crimson. Our Equine Evac ID cards got us through the road blocks and we had smooth sailing to Jo’s. Too smooth, actually: I flew right by her driveway! It was no big deal for Cory and I, but Deb did an impressive job of doing an unnecessary u-turn with a 4 horse trailer while keeping a smile on her face.
We pulled the trailers into Jo’s arena and started bringing down the horses. One of Jo’s students, Lauren, and Lauren’s parents met us there to help; Lauren works with the horses almost every day and knows them well. Jo had been phoning us throughout and telling us which horses kicked, which horses got along, which had never loaded on a ramped trailer, etc., so it was like one of those logic games: Rhomani likes Lacey and Ben, but Lacey kicks so she has to go in front, but Rhomani won’t load if there’s not another horse in the trailer, so he has to go with Kenya because . . . This process had to be sorted through with three trailer and eight horses. Then, once the plan was made, we had to actually get them IN the trailers.
Actually, that was the easiest part. They all walked right in, or went in with a little encouragement, except for the young Arab and the mustang, and Deb handled those. The mustang walked in quietly after verifying that there were other horses and food in the trailer. The young Arab was worried about the ramp, but once he put a foot on it and realized that it was a convenience, and not a horse-trap, he stepped right in.
Oh yeah, about half way through the organization process we were joined by a television camera crew: horses plus twelve year old girls loading them was a killer draw. (We were on Channel 4 on Thursday night.) When we all left, the camera crew stayed with Deb’s trailer: she was on her way with the 12 year old to get two goats and a miniature donkey and put them in her trailer tack room for rescue.
Cory and I headed down to Deb’s ranch, where the horses were going to stay – about a 45 minute drive. Unloading our horses was actually more difficult than loading them. Two of our four horses were not seasoned travelers, so didn’t understand about stepping down out of the trailer, and ALL of them were a little wary of stepping out into a new world. However, they were all get-along horses and, with a little patience, we got them all unloaded with very little drama. We got all the paddocks ready, so when Deb got there with her menagerie, all they had to worry about was where to put the goats.
We called the Staging Area and they said they were still really swamped so we went back up. When we got there, they didn’t have a job for us, so we called Judy, who ran the barn where Cory and I both used to board. Judy had been trying unsuccessfully to get through to Animal Control to request help, so when we called her, she said, “Come on up!” So we did told the dispatcher where we were going and took off.
Following Cory up Bonny Doon Road
Since I had led us astray on the way to Jo’s, Cory led this time. We went up to Empire Grade, then dropped down to Judy’s place in “lower” Bonny Doon. It was very scary: it looked like we were driving into the center of the fire.
When we got to Judy’s, we discovered that she had 11 head of horses – all the neighbors who had horses but no trailers brought their horses to Judy’s as a central evac point. One of her boarders was there with his straight-load trailer, so we could take six horses down in one load. Again, all the horses loaded like champs – even Mister, who had to go in a straight-load for the first time in his life. Cory took her horses to a place in Aptos and unloaded – I’ve heard the story and that sounds like fodder for a whole post in itself. Tim, the boarder with the straight-load, and I headed for Jade’s Ranch, where Judy had made arrangements to keep the horses.
View from the coast near Santa Cruz
Jade’s Ranch is a beautiful facility on the uphill side of Hwy 1, just outside of Santa Cruz – the picture above is what the fire looked like from there as we arrived, just at sunset. The manager at Jade’s Ranch, Rich, had set up paddocks for all the horses, so all we had to do was unload them and put them away.
It all went well until we had to unload Mister from the straight-load: he just couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do. Tim got in the trailer and tried to push him back, no luck. Then he got into the tack room and tried to push from there. No luck. Finally, I got Shivani’s MaryBeth Weifels SuperStick and tapped just in front of his feet. He moved his left front an inch. I stopped for 30 seconds. I tapped again. He moved his right foot. I stopped tapping. I tapped again and he backed out of the trailer. Whoo Hoo! Pressure and release and the value of having the Right Tool!!!
After we got them all set, Tim headed for home; he still had to evacuate his wife and daughter! Cathy, another former-boarder at Judy’s, hooked up her trailer and followed me back up. Judy had hooked up her rig in the meantime, so we loaded the other five horses and 4 bales of hay and came back down to Jade’s Ranch with them, having cleared Judy’s of horses. Whew! Now all she has to worry about is her husband, son, daughter-in-law, two granddaughters, home, stable, garden, and rat terriers.
On Friday, I was asked to stay at the Staging Area from 3 to dinner, which I did, but there were no calls for evac. Today, Saturday, there’s no staging area set up. If the fire moves, they’ll move it to Felton, or Scott’s Valley, probably.
Also, while I was driving around, I kept my ham radio on the Emergency Resource Net for the fire. Sheesh! One call was to rescue *40* unattended alpacas! Another one was from a woman who didn’t realize she was in the evac zone who suddenly saw the fire – she had 14 Arabs at the end of a half mile dirt road!
The things that Cory and Idid were time consuming, but really easy because both Jo and Judy had prepared for the possibility. All the horses loaded like champs, all of them had halters and kits, Judy had lists of special requirements (like meds for the older horses, special diet needs, etc), and even had a slush fund to pay Cory and me for our fuel. On Saturday, when the other people were telling war stories about the problems loading, I just had to keep my mouth shut – an perfect state of affairs.
Today, the fire is no closer to either Jo or Judy’s places, but it continues to burn. The CDF focus has shifted to Bonny Doon from Swanton, so it’s good that they have the resources devoted to the area, but it seems bad that CDF thinks they need them.
Oh yeah, when the fire’s over, all those animals have to get back to where then belong – which can be a bigger job than getting them out because they’ve learned that (a) riding in a trailer is no fun and (b) the place at the end of the trailer ride may not be that pleasant, either.
If there are questions I can answer, let me know. If anything else happens, I’ll update this post.
