When the phone rang at 5:36 a.m. on Wednesday, September 24, I immediately thought, Who died? No deaths other than the school day at Moorpark College. The Ventura County College District's Emergency Alert System was in full swing on my landline and cell phone.
The Guiberson Fire was burning hills way above the campus, so officials thought it best not to take chances. Can't blame them. Evacuating a campus of 11,000 students and about 1,500 staff and faculty would be a difficult task.
My department chair, in fact, never even got notified by the Emergency Alert System. She drove all the way to campus from Newbury Park and had to turn around again.
Since I don't teach at Moorpark on Wednesday, it was business as usual for me at Pierce College. Because of the calm winds, I knew the fire would never reach the campus, unlike the frightening situation back in 2003. The Simi Hills Fire stopped across the street from campus. Very close. For the rest of that fall semester, the smoky smell always reeked the air.
Regardless, fire is common around Southern California. We learn to live with it. At least no home or lives have not been lost this time, but many citrus and avocado orchards have. Not good for several local farmers.
Oddly, neither my students nor I received messages that the campus would reopen on Thursday. That bothered us. Apparently, that news wasn't worth a wake-up call.
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