Fire evacuees wonder if they can go home and rebuild
BEN LOMOND, Santa Cruz County — The last thing Leonardo La Placa did before fleeing the CZU Lightning Complex fires looming over Ben Lomond was make bolognese sauce in his family bakery.
La Placa moved his family from Sicily five years ago and grew the La Placa Family Bakery into a local fixture in the tiny town tucked away in the Santa Cruz Mountains. As they were evacuating on Aug. 19, their friend Allen Strong made them a promise: He wasn’t leaving, and he would do his best to make sure their livelihood survived.
Eight days later, on Thursday afternoon, Strong was still sitting guard at a table on the bakery’s front porch, smoking a cigarette near his blind 10yearold dog, Anna. But the La Placa family hasn’t been able to return, despite Leonardo La Placa’s daily efforts to get past closed roads, and they were getting antsy as evacuation orders stretched more than a week.
“Everybody just wants to go back home,” said daughter Debora La Placa on a video call from a Sunnyvale hotel where her family of
five has been staying. “We try to keep positive. If you cry all the time, it’s not going to figure out nothing. We are a family, we’re all together, we support each other.”
This week, firefighters have contained a quarter of the lightningsparked fires that tore, uncontrolled, through the Santa Cruz Mountains. But even as Cal Fire lifted evacuation orders in Scotts Valley on Thursday, those who live to the north along Highway 9 in Ben Lomond, Brookdale, Boulder Creek and into Bonny Doon are still waiting anxiously to go home.
The fire, which destroyed dozens of homes in the closeknit communities, also downed power lines, took out guardrails on winding roads and destroyed water infrastructure. Big Basin Water Co. said it lost plants, tanks and collection lines, and all pipelines between two of San Lorenzo Valley Water District’s tanks were destroyed, draining 4 million gallons of water. Cal Fire said Thursday it is working on getting people back in as soon as possible, but it’s a concerted effort between utility companies to make sure it’s safe to repopulate the area.
While some evacuated families said they’re considering moving away, fearing they can never return to the way it was, most were eager to get home. Some are worried about looters. Others are staying in cramped spaces. For many, being evacuated for more than a week has been exhausting and expensive.
The La Placa family has spent at least $1,000 on housing — first in a seedy motel in Santa Cruz for two nights, then at a hotel discounted for evacuees in Sunnyvale. On Thursday, they finally secured free shelter at a hotel in Milpitas through the Red Cross. But they’re worried about their business and want to return, despite the harrowing past week.
On Aug. 18, as the fire engulfed the forests and small towns west of Highway 9, evacuation orders pushed the family’s oldest son, Davide La Placa, from his house in Boulder Creek to the family home in Ben Lomond. But within a day, Davide, along with his sister Debora La Placa, parents Leonardo and Antonella La Placa, and 15yearold brother Gabriele had to leave. Debora La Placa only had time to grab their dogs and cats, clothes and a necklace with a pendant from her aunt who died last year.
“We’ve never been through something like this. Working in this place for four years, we didn’t start with a lot of money, we built a reputation, then we were thinking we’re going to lose it,” Debora La Placa said. “It’s scary because, what is the future?
“We don’t know, when we come back, how people are going to react, and how’s the economy. It’s a lot to rebuild right now,” she added.
Some residents feared they couldn’t return for the foreseeable future — if ever.
“It’s one of those hurry up
“We don’t know, when we come back, how people are going to react, and how’s the economy. It’s a lot to rebuild right now.”
Debora La Placa of Ben Lomond
and wait situations,” said Kelly Smith, who evacuated Boulder Creek with her husband and 5yearold daughter on Aug. 18. Smith has been staying with her parents in Santa Cruz, and her family is looking at renting in the area because she fears they won’t get running water in Boulder Creek for months.
“It breaks my heart,” she said. “This is just catastrophic for the San Lorenzo Valley. Everyone’s family up there, if you need something, hundreds of people are there for you, but in this situation, we can’t help each other because nobody knows anything.”
Still, residents are pulling together to support one another, with generationslong homeowners determined to return. Ben Lomond native Veronica Grace persuaded her parents and neighbor, who has leukemia, to flee before the mandatory evacuation orders. To Grace’s knowledge on Thursday, her home was still standing, but she knows friends who lost everything.
Debora La Placa described how locals frequented the family bakery, lingering to talk over coffee. Her father, a baker since he was 12, was locally famous for his Italian donuts with ricotta cheese or Nutella, traditional Sicilian almond cookies, pizza and gelato — still sitting cold in the fridge on Thursday.
“Honestly, we love that place a lot,” she said about Ben Lomond. “The community is amazing.”
Strong, who used to come to the bakery every morning for a mocha, has now been sleeping on an air mattress in it for a week. He’s kept a lookout for looters, who he said tried to steal the outside heaters from the restaurant across the street but only made it a mile down the road. On Thursday, the fire was still raging west of town, but there was power, water and leftovers — macaroni and cheese, corn beef and cookies.
And a day after he arrived, his friend of 40 years, Brent White, showed up. He, too, had defied evacuation orders.
“We’re doing it for our hometown,” White said on Thursday. “I know each one of them, so I want to make sure I stay and pray for them.
“It’s a giant family,” he added.