Evacuation!

In late July, I went to Young Life’s high school camp, Washington Family Ranch at Canyon in Central Oregon. The prior week, campers had been sent home early because of the nearby Cram Fire.  That fire didn’t really threaten the camp directly, but they evacuated as a precaution.  We campers knew about the evacuation, but assumed things were OK because - Here we are! They let us come!  Although the air was hazy and smoky, we thought it must be OK.

On the third day of camp, around 8 or 9 pm, our small group was meeting in the Leaders Lounge with Ali, our leader. Suddenly we noticed three cars speeding past the window heading towards the camp exit.  Weird.

Maybe 10 minutes later we noticed a young man running by the window, holding his phone to his ear and looking distressed.  What???  Then we saw more people rushing about.  We started getting nervous.

We went outside and asked one guy, “What’s going on?”

He said, “I might be the first person to know, nobody else knows yet, but we’re gonna evacuate the camp, so you’re gonna have to pack up your stuff, or just leave it at the camp - right now.”

“Are you serious???”  And we're looking around at the other small groups in their little circles doing their thing.

He says, “Okay, we need to be quiet because, nobody else knows yet, we can't freak everyone out all at once.”

We ARE freaking out!!!  And have to stay quiet about it??!

We shared a cabin with about 18 girls, not only from Redmond, but other places around North Lake – Lake Washington, Juanita – plus Capernaum.  I’m pretty sure we ended up telling them, but only our cabin knew.

So we frantically packed our duffels and suitcases.  One girl said she spent four days packing for camp and in 10 minutes she was packed up to evacuate!  We’re thinking, if we are truly being evacuated, that means – this is super dangerous!!

One of the leaders told us, “there’s a chance that you won’t be able to bring any of your stuff.” What???

It almost felt like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.  Tensions were high.  People were super stressed, even angry.  People were asking, “can you take my stuff in your bag?”  But everyone was really worried about their own stuff!

Then the loudspeaker came on and we were all called to the central meeting place.  Most kids had no idea what might be happening.  They thought it was just some crazy late-night game!

The camp director told everyone, “we have to evacuate camp.”

A little later, we all gathered at the main parking lot.  How are we going to get home?  Some of us came on big buses, some on church vans, some were brought by parents.  Our Redmond group was nine hours away from home!  People were sitting in circles on the ground, praying and holding hands.  The night was pitch black, shrouded in smoke.

Finally, it was announced that we were headed to the town of Madras.  Jefferson County Middle School could house us safely until the next phase was figured out.  But that too was wild.  The fires were very near the road. At one point we had to stop, just plain stop in the road for an hour, because there was fire on both sides of the road up ahead!

At the middle school, we carefully exited the buses one by one, so staff knew exactly who and how many we were.  Some of us tried to sleep on the concrete or hardwood floors with no padding, and no pillows.  Others played Uno or wandered, but we couldn’t wander far.  My friends and I shared two sheets beneath us and a couple of blankets over us.

Sometime between midnight and 1AM, we learned that the bus for the North Lake area wasn't going to come until 1PM the next day. 12 hours to wait! Would we even have anything to eat???

One of the hardest things was that we had no phones, no way to communicate with our parents or friends.  At the beginning of camp our phones were collected and stowed away.  We hoped that the phones also left camp somehow on the buses, but we didn’t know.

Think of being close to a giant fire and not knowing where it is.  You can’t check the news without a phone.  Here you are in a crisis, and you can’t reach your family! Even if you could, they can’t rescue you.  Does anybody even know that we're out here in the middle of nowhere?

Morning finally arrived.  We were feeling a kind of grief, and so tired.  But we got our phones back and of course we all immediately contacted our families.  Such a relief!  It turns out that the camp had been communicating with parents by email from the very beginning of the evacuation.

Camp staff had brought some apples and cereal cups, a tiny breakfast.  Once we had our phones, we ordered Starbucks through DoorDash.  And then someone brought Domino’s pizza for all the campers.  That gave us needed food and nutrition, and comfort too, after the stressful night sleeping on the floor!

Finally, buses arrived.  And my dad and Peder came in person to bring us home.  We could see smoke billowing over the hills and were so relieved to be on our way out of the danger zone. Once home, I went straight to bed.  I don’t even know if I changed my clothes.

This experience made me think about people in refugee situations.  I will remember this all my life.  It was something you see on the news or in movies, but now it’s real to me. I’ve experienced it.