I want to do something to help, but not get in the way at the same time. While driving into the office (Rancho Bernardo - San Diego) this morning, I heard a County Supervisor from the Harbison Canyon area -- and most or the rural parts of the East County -- say that the communities have expressed interest to her to begin the clean up operations. I live in Riverside County but our local fire - the Mountain Fire between Temecula and Hemet - was relatively small by comparison, and the clean up needs are not nearly so great, nor is the devistation so wide. Yes, the devistation is great on a family by family basis, but the sheer magnatude of the disaster is much greater in San Diego.
As we all know, many families own multiple cars and trucks, and when these families are evacuated, some of the cars and trucks get left behind to burn along with the homes. These cars and trucks must be removed from properties all over the community. This need has sparked an interest in me, and I need some guys to show up and help out. My idea is to make contact with the County Supervisor and offer our services to relocate these cars and trucks from the variety of properties where they currently are, and drag them to a central location for easier removal by the tow truck services. My thinking is that the number of tow trucks and other equipment needed for the clean up operations will be so large that they may have difficulty navigating the communities, we can get into tight places and pull the burned out cars and trucks to open areas, say at the end of the street or wherever.
I understand that there must be coodination to get the vehicles from the current owner to the junkyards, and that sort of thing, but this is mostly a logistical issue in the chain of ownership that can be kept organized with a little forethought and planning.
I plan on calling the County Supervisor to volunteer the Jeep community from around San Diego County to come out on Saturday to help out with this effort. I would like to get as many people as I can to form up several teams of three or four Jeeps that can go around and collect these cars and trucks and take them to a central location within the community where the vehicle owners can then arrange for the removal and take care of the insurance issues and so on.
Everybody from the Jeep community that would like to help out, please stay tuned here. Come back here to let me know if you can help out, and we can exchange phone numbers, etc. offline via regular emails.
If you want to help, I would ask that you have tow hooks on both ends of your Jeep, tow straps with loops sewn in the ends, and a length of safety chain. When I have worked to recover abandoned vehicles from the local watershed areas, I found that the vehicles frequently needed to have the safety chain secured to the frame, then the tow strap connected to the chain. The problem is the tow straps tied directly to the frame often encountered sharp edges that cut the straps. Safety chains are generally frowned upon in a recovery operation, but I think that they can safely be employed here because the loads will be relatively low in most cases. I am thinking that each team will need a safety chain of about 4 to 6 ft in length, and a couple of good fasteners (D rings, etc.) to tie around the frame of the vehicles that will provide a rounded edge for the tow straps to tie-off on. Each Jeep should have a CB radio, but at least one Jeep in each team is all that really needs a radio. I don't know how well the cell phones will work where the fires have gone through.
It would be really cool if somebody among us has the logistical skills to set up the storage lot and keep the vehicles organized so the owners can keep track of their property that we will be moving about.
As of this moment, this is a plan that might not come together, but I would ask that you pencil it onto your calendars, and then be prepared to ink it at the drop of a hat. The clean up area that we will be going into will be the rural areas south and east of El Cajon. Astually, the areas we wil be needed is really up to the County Supervisor, and other higher level planners. I have heard that Harbison Canyon is in need of clean up, certainly there are other areas too.
At this point, all I am needing is a list of names that might be able to help out if I can get us into the areas where we can be used.