Thanks to reader George L. McAlister, Systems Librarian for Spokane County Medical Society, who sent this interesting e-mail:

For some local flavor on the San Diego wildfires, I’ve been having an interesting experience with my children, Erin and Brett, who were forced to evacuate their home threatened by fire. They were given notice to evacuate on Monday by a reverse 911 call, they quickly gathered a few things together, and left with my 4 year old grandchild in 2 cars.

The problem was that there are only 2 north-south freeways in the San Diego area, and Interstate 15, the freeway next to their home, was closed due to fire (the fire had jumped the freeway just a mile or so north in Rancho Bernardo). Their grandmother has a house about an hour’s drive north of San Diego, so they decided to go there.

They began the few minutes drive toward the coast and Interstate 5 but traffic suddenly stopped. They decided to call me here in Spokane to give them directions, and I quickly got on the Internet. I pulled up “real time” traffic conditions for the area, and an emergency map showing where the fire was burning, and began directing them out of the area. They couldn’t take the east-west freeway to the coast (it was closed), so they began navigating surface streets. As I lived in the area for 20 years prior to returning to Spokane (I was born here), I knew the area.

Watching traffic patterns I was able to navigate them to Interstate 5. The problem was I-5 was jammed both directions as 250,000 people were trying to get out of the area. When they were finally able to find an alternate freeway heading northeast toward their destination (Hwy 78), it suddenly closed as the fire began sweeping into that area (I was able to see this real time on the Internet). I then directed them to the next possible route up the coast (Hwy 76), but then it closed due to fire. Finally, they were able to move in the right direction on Hwy 74, but during their passage, they experienced 50-60 mph winds on an isolated, two lane road. Needless to say, it took six hours for them to go 50 miles.

They were often unreachable by cell phone because of the high volume of calls in the area, but they were still able to receive my directions by text messaging. After they arrived, my daughter was worried about her classes (she’s in nursing school and they had finals scheduled this week), so I was able to check her email and the school website about school closure information). Through the Internet, I was also able to watch local television for up to date reports, and check emergency websites for fire damage. Their home is still OK.

Just thought it was interesting how the evolution of Internet/cell phones/text messaging made it possible for them to escape the fire area safely.