For hours, I stood in the remains of what was once, clearly, a beautiful neighborhood.
Rancho Bernardo, one of the hardest hit sections of San Diego, was a bizarre mix of destruction and survival. Dozens and dozens of homes burned to the ground. Smoke smouldered over the charred remains of personal posessions. A tool box. An ironing board. All completely blackened from searing flames just a day before.
Oddly, some of the homes in Rancho Bernardo stood relatively unscathed. This was partly due to firefighters, they saved the homes they could. But it was also because of the strange way fire hopscotches. So in the end, you have these weird pairings of houses that lived, and others that died, side by side.
As we cranked out the live shots, it was a bit eerie that we saw none of the homeowners. Rancho Bernardo was strictly controlled, and blocked off to residents, a mandatory evacuation still in effect. The only folks we saw were fire crews, police, gas company people, and the media. We eventually realized, that many of the homeowners were probably not sure whether their house had made it through the fire, or not.
So I had a lot of time to just stare at burnt things. Later in the evening, a fire team came to our live shot location, and doused out smoky hotspots with a water tank. It all made me think. You don't really have to live in southern California to be vulnerable to this. Fire can get anyone.
And it occured to me, how ill-prepared I am for that kind of a loss, and that most of these folks are probably in the same boat.
--By Keith Oppenheim, CNN Correspondent
