TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110491/1104101.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 24

THE AFTERMATH

How Do You Rebuild a Dream?


The Harrisons had a lovely life at 535 Mountain Boulevard, but
now they must start all over again

By PAUL A. WITTEMAN/OAKLAND


    Think of it as your neighborhood. Your neighbors. Thirty
years ago, that's what 12-year-old John Harrison had in his mind
as he pedaled his bicycle from the gritty flatlands of north
Oakland uphill to Lake Temescal. Nestled in a gentle curve of
hills and shaded by fragrant eucalyptus, many of the well-tended
homes offered postcard views of San Francisco Bay. To Harrison
and thousands of others, the enclaves -- Upper Rockridge,
Montclair, Broadway Terrace, Hiller Highlands -- were about as
close to heaven as anyone could get and still be earthbound.

    Nine years ago, Harrison achieved his dream and moved into
535 Mountain Boulevard, a three-bedroom brick-and-stucco house.
At that point the law firm he helped found was four years old
and starting to prosper. Harrison and his wife Joy began
thinking about raising a family. "I was absolutely thrilled to
be here," he says.

    Last Thursday morning John and Joy, accompanied by two
policemen, sifted through the ashes for vestiges of their once
comfortable life. The chimney, built to withstand as well as
nurture fire, stood as a charred sentinel above the remains of
the living room. Bending down, Joy retrieved two small vases
that her six-year-old twins had made in a pottery class with her
mother. The tears came quickly as she cradled the pieces of
ceramic. "How could this happen?" she asked.

    On that tragic Sunday morning, Joy had been in the
backyard fixing the hair of five-year-old Montez. The twins,
Earnestine and Adia, were running around in their bathing suits.
Young John, at two the baby of the family, was riding the swing.
His dad, a deacon at the Allen Temple Baptist Church, had
decided to miss morning services and worship in the afternoon.
Reading the newspaper in bed, John focused on one story in
particular: an account of a brush fire that had erupted the day
before in the nearby hills and that fire officials said had been
extinguished.

    But then the sound of sirens shattered the Sunday peace.
Joy moved to the front yard, where she was joined by neighbors
and then by John, all of them craning their neck and looking
for the fire. "This smoke was different from Saturday's," says
John. "It was dark and thick. But I still thought it was no big
deal." At noon John took a shower, thinking for the first time
that he might have to take action. "Let me get some clothes on
the kids," he said to himself. "Let me get my credit cards,
just in case." Joy ran up the hill to neighbors to help them
hose down their house. "I can't stand here and cry," she
thought. "I've got to do something."

    By 1 p.m. John was on their own roof with the garden hose.
The view across the canyon to Hiller Highlands was unnerving.
One by one, houses exploded in flames. A neighbor yelled that
they were surrounded by fire. "We're the hole in the doughnut,"
he shouted. John shivered. "At this point I was still halfway
rational," he remembers. He got the kids into their tennis
shoes, backed the station wagon and the Mercedes sedan out of
the garage, put the kids in the cars and left the engines
running. At 2 p.m. the fire crested the hill above the Harrison
house with a terrible roar and danced down the slope. Joy
belatedly began trying to collect valuables. She found the
savings bonds and the photo albums. "I got an armful of suits
and two pair of shoes," recalls John. The kids, watching from
the station wagon, began screaming.

    As Joy scrambled for a few last items, the fire sent a
final warning, one that the Harrisons interpreted as a biblical
omen. Directly behind John at the edge of the carefully
manicured lawn, an ember arced slowly down into a bush.
Instantly the shrub flashed into flames. "Let's go," John
yelled. Joy resisted. There was so much more to save. "I was
going to bop her and carry her out," John remembers. It was not
necessary. Over the howl of the wind Joy heard the scream of
Earnestine from the car. "I don't want to die," she wailed. Joy
ran down the steps to the car and her children. As they drove
downhill, John called his mother-in-law on the car phone to tell
her they were coming. "The house is gone," he told her,
realizing that he was also telling the unthinkable to himself.

    Down in the flatlands John stopped to buy a can of soda.
A shabbily dressed woman asked him for money. "Hey, I'm homeless
too," he snapped. The woman looked at his Mercedes and said to
John, "Oh, you must be one of those rich people who got burned
out up on the hill. Maybe you'll have more compassion for us
now." The stinging rebuke gave John pause. "It made me realize
that this is not as bad as I thought. Our children are safe.
The material part of your life you can do without if you have
to." Besides, unlike the homeless woman in the parking lot,
Harrison thought, "we're only going to be homeless for a
minute."

    For the Harrisons and the 5,000 others displaced by the
fire, the minutes will stretch into months, perhaps years. The
fire stripped the steep slopes of the vegetation necessary to
prevent erosion. Already there is fear of mud slides once the
rains of winter come to the Oakland hills. Many older residents,
hearts and spirits broken, may choose to take their insurance
money and move on. Not John Harrison. "The location is so
great," he says. "We'll rebuild. Definitely." But then he thinks
for a few seconds. "How long," he asks quietly, "does it take
to grow a tree?"