By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Born and raised in Paradise, Calif., Tracy Cahn is starting over in Yachats. Gone is her three-bedroom home in Paradise and everything inside it. Gone is her photography studio in downtown Paradise and all her equipment.
She has her son, Carson, 17, and daughter, Grace, 7. And she has half ownership in a rental house on King Street in Yachats where she hopes to re-start her life.
But everything else disappeared Nov. 8 in the maelstrom that wiped out Paradise, a city of 27,000 people in the dry, windswept hills of northern California.
Cahn, 45, is third-generation Paradise. Her mother and grandparents lived there. And lots of aunts and uncles. Everyone in her family lost their homes that day, escaping ahead of the flames in cars and trucks before the fire burned through 18,000 homes, businesses, schools and everything else. An aunt is one of 86 confirmed fatalities.
Her extended family is now scattered throughout northern California, staying with friends, relatives or living in RVs and motels. It took them a month after the fire to be escorted back to their homes by sheriff’s deputies to pick through ashes and debris for keepsakes.
“I’m very fortunate. I have this,” Cahn says of the Yachats house perched high above the ocean.
THAT MORNING
Fires and the threat of fires are a yearly occurrence in Paradise. The retirement and commuter community sits among trees on a triangular-shaped ridge formed by two canyons.
Each summer or early fall, Cahn says, parts of Paradise are ordered evacuated when wind-whipped fires race through tinder-dry brush or trees.
“We get evacuated every year,” she said. “Usually it’s August or September … but this year it didn’t rain.”
And the morning of Nov. 8 just seemed different.
The fire started in a neighboring community at 6:30 a.m. and driven by strong winds raced at a speed of 300 yards per second toward Paradise.
Cahn awoke to smoke. A cousin called, worried. Outside, embers fell from the sky. Cahn said she could hear the fire in the canyon below.
Cahn is a member of the Jehovah Witness Church.
“We believe we are living in the last stage, that there will be more fires, earthquakes, tragedies – so we’re always being told to prepare,” she said. “So I have a ‘Go’ bag; I’m always ready.”
Luckily, Carson and Grace were still at home. They raced to the car and headed to the other side of town. At 8:30 she called her mother and said “Mom, I’m just going to get off the hill.”
Westbound traffic was light; but the other lane was filled with parents racing back from jobs in nearby Chico to grab kids from school or daycare.
“It was so fast. And so much black smoke – and black smoke means homes,” she said. “It was nothing like I’ve seen before. It was the perfect storm.”
Forty minutes after they raced down the highway, it was engulfed in flames.
Unable to find a motel room in Chico, Cahn and her children spent three nights in Corning. Working from an emergency plan, Jehovah Witness congregations in northern California quickly helped arrange food, housing, counseling and contact with government agencies.
Seven days after the fire they were in Yachats. Churches in Florence and Newport helped stock the house.
“I’ve been very well cared for,” Cahn said.
RETURN HOME
Cahn spent much of December in California filing insurance claims, getting Carson’s senior year of high school figured out, and trying to replace documents lost in the inferno. County, state and federal agencies set up a one-stop center at a vacant shopping mall. They lived with cousins in one of three trailers parked inside a Chico warehouse.
On Dec. 12, more than a month after the fire, she was allowed to return to poke through the ashes of her home.
A Butte County Sheriff’s deputy escorted her into the neighborhood. Because of toxic ash and debris, everyone was dressed head-to-toe in protective coveralls.
A friend had sent her a picture of her ruined house. She was hoping to find family photos and some jewelry in a gun safe that appeared to have survived.
But most of the safe’s contents were burned. She was able to scavenge a box of singed photos, her wedding ring, some other jewelry – and a glass sea star given to her by the Yachats Visitor Center for winning a postcard photography contest several years ago.
“Everything else was incinerated,” she said.
RESTARTING LIFE
The fire is only part of recent tragedies in Cahn’s life and another impetus for a quieter time in Yachats.
Tracy and her husband, Jeffrey Cahn, divorced in early 2017. Then on Sept. 9, 2017, he was struck and killed by a car while standing along a highway near Chico. The driver of the car has been charged with vehicular manslaughter.
His death put their California and Oregon properties into probate – before the Paradise property was wiped out. Cahn has attorneys in both states working through that process. But the fire also incinerated all her legal documents.
For now, Cahn has no plans to rebuild her house, which was insured, in a town that mostly exists in name only.
“Paradise as it was will never be the same,” she said. “People are just gone.
“For younger people and families … they’re rebuilding. Some areas have power but a lot can’t rebuild yet because of the destruction. Until every single property is cleaned up it’s really not going to be a safe environment.”
Carson, a senior at Paradise High School, met with his teachers in December and given school work for the year. Every two weeks he mails it to Paradise. For now, Cahn is home schooling Grace, who is on a waiting list with a group in Yachats. An older son, Joseph, 25, and his wife live in Susanville, Calif.
Once they settle in and insurance claims get resolved, Cahn plans to restart her photography business, focusing on weddings, real estate and family portraits.
She knows she’s more fortunate than most. Her Paradise properties were insured and, for now, she has a house in Yachats. Her mother and stepfather are coming to Yachats this month to look around. Some cousins have already moved to Tillamook.
“I have a little bit of survivors guilt because I have a place to go,” she said. “My family is in trailers and motels and I’m here.”
Cahn says she has six months to recover, recoup and figure out “what I’m supposed to do.”
“I thought I had it figured out and then things come up …” she said. “People ask me what I need. What I need is to find a new place and to see if I can make it work. So for now I’m here and I want to be part of the community.”
More information:
Tracy Cahn can be reached via email at: Tracylynnphoto@gmail.com
The Camp Fire aftermath is causing a crisis in nearby Chico: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/14/685137701/in-the-aftermath-of-the-camp-fire-a-slow-simmering-crisis-in-nearby-chico
Here are two recent stories from the New York Times following up on the November fire in Paradise, Calif:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/26/us/paradise-california-camp-fire.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/business/energy-environment/california-wildfire-electric.html
