SDSU Responds
The San Diego wildfires spurred the campus community to action, as faculty, staff and students helped county cope with crisis.
For thousands of San Diegans, 2007 will be remembered as the year they lost their home to wildfire. Others, who were more fortunate, will not soon forget the displacement and uncertainty of evacuation.
Nine fires from the southernmost to the northernmost points of the county have already charred more than 300,000 acres, destroyed 1,400-plus homes, and forced more than 500,000 people to flee their homes and businesses.
Although SDSU escaped damage, the fires disrupted the lives of faculty, staff, and students. But they pushed back.
Throughout the week, faculty helped map the fire's path using the most advanced imaging techniques; students delivered meals to evacuees at QUALCOMM Stadium; staff cleaned the debris from campus and set up facilities for displaced families in Peterson Gym. In dozens of ways, the crisis spurred the San Diego State community to individual and collective action.
"In crises like this, we sometimes go into sympathetic overload – the fight-or-flight response," said SDSU traumatic stress specialist Robert Bray.
And fight they did.
Behind the scenes
On Sunday evening, hours after the fires ignited, Eric Frost, Bob Welty and their team at the Immersive Visualization Center were gathering data from sources like NASA and Google and imaging it in ways that helped emergency responders identify hotspots.
"When we heard the fire reports, we self-deployed," Frost said.
The variety of visual information available on the wildfires is the result of established relationships with the military, regional and national homeland security agencies and other entities that regularly rely on Frost and his team for imaging work.
While the center became the place to go for emergency responders, a reliable source of information for the San Diego community suddenly faced shutdown. As fire cut power to KPBS's transmitter on top of Mount San Miguel early Monday morning, KPBS Radio 89.5 FM dropped off the air but maintained continuous fire coverage via Web transmission.
One of only two radio news teams in San Diego, the station had become a critical source of information for the county. Programming director John Decker worked the phones for hours before securing an agreement with alternative rock station FM 94.9 to carry the KPBS signal and get them back on air.
As the fires raged on, SDSU's Geographic Information Systems group created static and animated maps to track the fire's status.
The site, which ranks first in a Google search of "San Diego wildfire," has received more than 300,000 hits to date.
Shelter and volunteers
SDSU converted Peterson Gym into an evacuation center for students, faculty and staff. Assisted by students and staff, Lauren Cooper, interim director of facilities management, set up cots and provided bathroom facilities.
Aztec Shops donated food while students, staff and faculty spent their own money to provide everything from pillows to toilet paper. In all, 10 people, two dogs, two cats and a rabbit took shelter at Peterson.
Aztecs were also visible at QUALCOMM Stadium, where more than 10,000 evacuees waited out the fires. Monday afternoon, SDSU student-athletes headed to the stadium, where they helped meet some of the evacuees' basic needs by setting up water and unloading food donations.
On Monday night, Amy Halter, residence hall coordinator for Chapultepec Residence Hall, and her husband Joe, assistant coordinator for student organizations in the Office of Student Activities and Campus Life, drove to QUALCOMM with a truckload of supplies donated by Chapultepec residents.
Later that day, SDSU Dining Services, assembled and deliverd meals to evacuees at the stadium and Mira Mesa High School. Over two days, about 3,000 meals were donated.
Dining Services is accustomed to feeding 35,000 people a day on campus. However, with staff diminished because of the closed campus, assembling and boxing meals to deliver was a special challenge.
Robert Isner, associate director of residential dining and production, pulled personnel from other departments into the kitchen. Rory Levine, general manager of the campus' quick serve restaurants, was one of those who took up the gauntlet.
Far from over
As the extent of San Diego State's contributions became apparent, SDSU President Stephen L. Weber congratulated students, staff and faculty for their response to the crisis.
"I'm learning about countless other examples of SDSU's response by the hour," he said.
Though the SDSU community came out swinging in the face of crisis, this has been a dark time for many San Diegans. It won't end with the reopening of campus, the extinguishing of the fires, or even with the start of the rebuilding process.
"Everybody wants to rush out and help," said Bray, who volunteers regularly with the American Red Cross and spent two days counseling evacuees at QUALCOMM. "But the folks who got burned out are going to need help over the long term."
