HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE >> They could be called the Valley Fire refugees that time forgot.
They live in tents and RVs, some sleeping on the cold ground at night, and while some have hope for a better future, others despair that their forced homeless plight will continue indefinitely.
They are the nearly 150 people and about 75 dogs and cats that have taken up residence in the Hidden Valley Lake Campground, displaced by the devastating Valley Fire that destroyed 1,280 homes and 27 multi-family structures, including apartment buildings, in September.
They say they have nowhere else to go and that time is running out on them. Their biggest adversaries are the weather and the in-fighting that has plagued many of the relief efforts to help survivors of the Rocky, Jerusalem and Valley fires this summer.
The campground abuts a creek that is currently gently-flowing that fire refugees fear could turn into a raging river that overflows into the campground with the coming winter rains. With climatologists certain that California is facing a potentially record-setting winter rainfall, thanks to a potent El Nino in the eastern Pacific, campground residents are worried for their safety.
That concern is on the mind of Casey Morgan, formerly of Cobb, who is the unofficial leader of the encampment. She started it “four to six weeks ago” after leaving another local campground with her travel trailer. The other residents have nicknamed her “Mama” since she is the go-to person when someone needs something.
“How are we going to deal with the rain?” she said Monday afternoon while sitting at a picnic table in her scooter. “We’re right next to the creek.”
A walk through the campgrounds with Morgan reveals a small village where residents are helping each other and are being helped by donations from individuals in Lake County, including residents of the gated community of Hidden Valley Lake. The problems they face include shortages of food and drinking water, sanitation, waste management, security and the lack of everyday necessities.
Yet most of the problems seem to be getting solved with one exception: the need for better housing, either temporary or permanent.
The campground is a near-equal mix of tents and recreational vehicles but the residents are almost entirely former renters who lost their rental houses, mobile homes or apartments to the Valley Fire. They come primarily from Middletown, Cobb and Hidden Valley Lake (HVL).
Doug and Kelly Harsha of Clearlake have been at the campground about a week with their two teenage sons. They said they had to leave the house they were living in because the owner needed it to house relatives who lost their residence in the fire.
“We go out every day looking for rentals and we can’t find any,” Kelly Harsha said. “Our only need is a place to live.”
Other former renters expressed the same concern: that they want to stay in Lake County, often to be close to their workplace, but are either unable to find a rental that they can afford or any rental at all.
Some worry that the Valley Fire will become Lake County’s Hurricane Katrina in that many fire survivors will end up moving out of the county and never come back.
“People don’t want to leave this area but there are no rentals available in Lake County,” Morgan said. “I think I see a Katrina situation developing here.”
Some of the residents, like Morgan, have been in the campground for more than a month, others are new arrivals.
“We just got here today,” said Carolyn Danning, formerly of Cobb. She arrived at the camp with her son and daughter-in-law, Jayson and Laurie Danning. They were awaiting the arrival of their trailer donated to them by the Moose Lodge. The family lost their manufactured home in Cobb to the fire.
Sandra Rivera has been living in four tents in the campground for about a month with her family of seven. The family lost their Middletown apartment to the inferno.
She said she is worried about the projected rain for the county this week and later in the season, especially since her campsite is alongside the creek. Rivera said she is also concerned about her family’s future.
“We have heard nothing about what is going to happen to us,” she said Monday afternoon. “We lost everything in the fire and are just getting by on donations.”
Phil Tallman of Middletown has been driving past the campground almost daily since it became a refuge for fire survivors and has seen it grow from a handful of people to more than 50 tents and RVs. Monday he stopped and talked with Morgan and other camp residents.
“I just came by to see if these people needed any help,” he said. Later that day he returned with a pickup truck of much-needed lumber.
Regarding the in-fighting surrounding the relief efforts by government and non-profit agencies, one only needs to look at the explosion of posts on social media sites such as Facebook to know there is a lot of anger and resentment directed at several agencies, most notably the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Moose Lodge’s relief center in Clearlake Oaks and county agencies.
Whether or not the criticism is justified, some of the bad feelings were readily apparent among the fire refugees and others, with the Red Cross and FEMA taking the brunt of the criticism.
“We have been pretty much ignored by everyone most of the time,” Morgan said. “The Moose Lodge has helped us and the Salvation Army has helped feed us. The Red Cross gave a couple of hundred bucks to each evacuated person and that was it.” She said since the campground was first occupied by Valley Fire refugees, the Red Cross has come by twice with sandwiches. After a call to them on Sunday by Morgan, a Red Cross vehicle with several volunteers came to the camp Monday afternoon to assess the residents’ needs and promised to return with needed supplies on Tuesday, Morgan added.
“My main concern is that I read all the news articles about the money donated to fire victims but where is it going?” Tallman asked. “Why has none of it come here? People are asking the government for help and the government says they are helping but they’re not.”
Despite a lot of smoldering anger, some of the campground’s fire refugees found things to be grateful for. Many give credit to FEMA and other aid organizations for their efforts.
“We lost our home in Cobb,” Carolyn Danning said. “We lost everything but we gained so much. We’ve met a lot of people here (at the campground) and made a lot of friends.”
The Dannings plan on staying in the campground about four weeks, the campground’s limit. “By then we hope to get back on our feet and be self-sufficient.”
Prior to coming to the HVL campground, the family pitched their tents for three weeks at the Cache Creek Campgrounds east of Clearlake Oaks.
“Everything we have, including the clothes we’re wearing, have been donated to us, much of it by the Moose Lodge. Without the kindness of strangers, we would not have made it” Carolyn Danning said. “But I’m so optimistic, I can’t believe it. We don’t let this get us down. We’re survivors.”
Alejandra Lopez, 17, has been at the camp about three weeks with three others, including her mother and 11-year-old brother. She praised both the Red Cross and FEMA, saying both agencies have helped her family.
“We’re here until we can get some nearby housing,” Lopez said as she prepared dinner over a single-burner camp stove. The family has pitched four tents at their camp site next to the creek.
The camp started with six to eight people and the remainder “trickled in” over the next few weeks. “When they shut down the shelters, a lot of people came here,” Morgan said.
The campground has only four showers and no laundry facilities. A local woman has been coming by the camp daily to collect dirty laundry and deliver clean laundry. While it has electrical hookups, the campground has no propane.
Morgan said the campground families’ immediate needs include clean drinking water, mattresses to get people off of sleeping on the ground, drop lights, outdoor lighting, heavy duty long extension cords, and a wi-fi source.
The future of the camp is uncertain, Morgan said, calling it a “day to day” situation. “We worry every day that we will get kicked out.”
She added, half joking, “I guess we’ll be here until the creek rises and washes everyone out.”
