Fallbrook on the world map!

One of the most amazing outcomes of the Rice Canyon Fire is the world response to our plight.

Within two days of the evacuation, our answering machine was full with frantic calls from England, Germany, Canada and even one from Namibia in darkest Africa, where an English friend had been vacationing! Those who had visited us knew exactly where Fallbrook was: in the thick of the Rice Canyon Fire.

It was a wonderful comfort to us, evacuated as we were like many others to Orange County, to get these calls and e-mail communiqués.

My long-lost brother living near London (the one who rediscovered me a year ago through an earlier letter to the Village News!) went straight to a Google Earth map and identified exactly where our Fallbrook Golf Club house was in relation to the fire – nerve-wrackingly close!

Orange County news media had little information for us as we sweated it out for five days. Thanks to Internet access via our host family’s computer, we checked in daily with the Village News and North County Times Web sites. They helped dispel some of the worst rumors.

But it was TheGameFish.com blog site, set up by Brian Chupp, which really kept us current on how friends and neighbors were faring.

Another valuable communicator was Fiona Kennelly, “messenger” for the Daughters of the British Empire (DBE) Excalibur Chapter. By group e-mail from her Bonsall farm – which, luckily, did not have to evacuate – she kept all 50-plus Fallbrook Brits apprised of each others’ whereabouts.

Talk about the power of the Internet and the World Wide Web! We learned, for instance, that one of our Canadian members, out-of-touch in Murrieta, had contacted her aunt in British Columbia, who in turn called a cousin in Liverpool, England, who was able to confirm via Internet that their house on Citrus Drive above Pala Mesa was safe!

Welcome back, everyone. We owe a big thank you to all the dedicated communicators of the world.

Sue Thorne