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David Charp
Catastrophes happen far away, no closer than an anonymous newspaper article. That is, not until catastrophe arrives ar your doorstep. On the night of Oct. 8, after years of drought and days of excessive heat, low humidity and sudden winds of 70 MPH, the mountains twelve miles away from my city of Santa Rosa caught fire. In just four hours, approaching from different directions, fire breached our city. At 2:00 A.M. my son awakened from a tree branch banging against his bedroom window. In the dark, with no electricity, he saw from his front window the roof across his street on fire. He gathered my daughter in law, two toddlers, two dogs, and in their nightclothes but with no shoes, escaped in their car. They couldn't find their three kittens, and they would perish. In one hour, the entire street was abalze and soon gone. My house and my daughter's home remained on the evacuation line for two more days, but stayed safe. We took in two familes. My neighbor took in a total of 45 people. Within 36 hours, 11,000 firefighters from about 360 fire districts in the western U.S. and Australia were on the fire line, backed by 1,000 California National Guard and police from everywhere. It would be the worst fire in U.S. history in lives lost (44) and economic damage to one city (9 billion), with 5100 houses and 900 businesses lost and 100,000 people at its height evacuated from their homes. Two children died who got separated from their escaping familes. I lost a long time patient, a very good man, and I'm sure Dan died trying to help somebody else. We lost one of our main high schools, and 2 of our 3 hospitals evacuated all their patients. 200 of the 1000 doctors in and around our city lost their homes.Our Free Medical Clinic continues to work overtime, manned by some volunteer doctors who themselves have no home. My wife Gail and I have a California Licensed "Comfort Dog," who has been in helicopters and fire engines, taken to scenes of catastrophe. For three weeks we took her everyday to grammar schools to be with little kids who lost their home or family pet. We took her to the firefighters campgrounds, and you would see big strong and very dirty and tired men and women coming off the fire line after 24 hours and roll on the ground, laugh and play with out Lab. Under one foot of ashes at my son's home we pulled out the heavy metal frame of our 35 year old beautiful grand piano, cleaned it up, and brought it to our front lawn. My wife devised a sign "Sonoma Is Strong," placed it next to the upright frame for all to see. A picture of it was put center on the stage at one of our city's commemorative events. I have been overwhelmed by the heroism that occurred and by the volunteerism and resiliency of our people. For instance, in one of our many charities, about $30 million dollars has been raised by about 30,000 people, the money to be given to whomever needs it. The streets of our beautiful but bruised city are lined with flags of determination, the Stars and Stripes, the Great Flag of the State of California, the battle flag of the California National Guard and in the nearby hillsides between the burnt vineyards and majestic redwoods there are now new green shoots. Rebirth. We forget how much we need each other. We are tough people. We proved it. It's just that we don't want to have to prove it again. David Charp
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Your humulity won't allow you, but I will go there and give your classmates a "heads up" and congratulate 
both you and Roy for both being inducted to the upcoming 2018 APHS Distinguished Hall of Fame on May 10, 2018 at the Shadowbrook in Shrewsbury.
