EPICANTHUS

QUALCOMM STADIUM, San Diego, Calif.—If we weren’t here to experience it firsthand, we’ll probably never know what it felt like to receive that “reverse 9-1-1″ call in the middle of the night telling us to flee the flames, and we won’t know what it felt like to wait hours or days to find out if we still had a home or not.

But another week has passed and the fires are nearly out. As the evacuation shelters were closing and the news crews were packing up their equipment, the first real accounts began trickling out of fire-struck areas of San Diego County. The tiny, family-owned, National City, Calif.-based weekly San Diego Asian Journal deserves a Pulitzer (I’m not kidding) for their reporting, commentary and community service during the inferno that swept through its community during the Great Southern California Wildfires of 2007.

“I always thought that San Diego, California, my adoptive hometown for the past 25 years, is Paradise.”

Simeon G. Silverio, Jr.

Columnist Silverio writes of his initial disbelief that catastrophe could come so close to home.

“My wife, Genny, had suggested that we start preparing for the worst, but I thought it would be much ado about nothing.”

The writer tells of being glued to his TV set throughout the night:

“It was about one o’clock in the morning and I became increasingly concerned. <snip> One announcer reported that if the strong wind continued, the worst fears could happen. The fire could cross Spring Valley and into the golf course of Bonita and its neighborhood. That was the last straw for me, because we are just beside Bonita.”

Read the entirety of Silverio’s A Personal Account: Hell in Paradise here.

Genevieve Silverio is managing editor of the S.D. Asian Journal. She reports on the outpouring of community volunteerism and assistance and the rapid state government response to the disaster.

“The stories of the families whose plight have made the headlines have now become our own. Even the deserted goats that survived in their pen next to one house that burned down in Ramona have become our pets.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ms. Silverio writes, performed well throughout the disaster.

“There is the image of the governor of California coming down from Sacramento in a Black Hawk helicopter. The California leader, whom we simply labeled in our minds as the ‘Terminator,’ had completely surprised the most cynical of us in the midst of the crisis. We had underestimated the man.”

Read all of Genevieve Silverio’s eyewitness commentary Everyone Left Their Ego at the Door here.

Ethnic media aggregators at the New America Media blog produced an overview of how ethnic media in the fire zones covered the disaster.

Anh Do, editor at the Vietnamese vernacular Nguoi Viet reported that although his community was not impacted by the firestorms as much as Pilipino or Korean homeowners. He said the wildfires exposed a lack of disaster preparedness among his readers.

NAM revealed how the various Asian American communities gave aid to those needing it. Koreans, for instance, relied nearly exclusively on Korean churches adjacent the fire zone. While Pilipinos tended to look to extended family for basic early assistance.

Read NAM’s entire ethnic media overview here.

Finally, The Huffington Report reported Oct. 27 that an anti-immigrant group used a fake website and a fake CNN story to blame Hispanics for setting Southern California’s wildfires. The attempted hoax has been linked to a firm in Nashville, Tennessee. Read Katharine Zaleski’s entire story here. Scroll down for reader’s comments.

More linkage:

• The Unseen Victim’s of California’s Wildfires, NAM
• “Project Happy Feet,” Student-Run Program, Collects Shoes for California Fire Victims, PRWire