Alyssa Lamb interview on the 2017 Tubbs Fire, April 18, 2023

All right, this is so, um, I am interviewing Hannah today. Thank you for participating in this research project. Um I'll be asking questions about high school students uh, during the 2017 tubs fire and first off Hannah, um I'm going to start off, um, what grade level

and age were you during the situation? I'm pretty sure I was either a freshman or a sophomore in high school, probably like 15, maybe 16. Ok. And what school or area were you living at the time? I was living in Middletown in Valley where the fire

had already hit previously to that. Ok. And what was your living living situation looking like before the fires? Um, we had just been able to get back into our hometown where the Valley fire hit before the fire and because we were evacuated for like almost a

month from our town. So we had just gotten back into Valley and everything with smoke damage going on and stuff like that. And did this affect your living situation after the fire as well? Um, yeah, we had smoke damage to our house and going back to

school was rough too. Um, staying on track and everything. And um how do you learn about this fire? Did you learn from like alerts? Uh Did you receive any text messages? So did you see on social media? So it was actually around my birthday and I

was out in Santa Rosa at a haunted house. Um I'm pretty sure it was like in October, we were driving back home through Salena Mountain and that's when the fire really started to pick up, like October 8th and we had to drive through the flames and

everything to get back up to Middletown because it was through Calistoga. Ok. And, um, what were your feelings and emotions like during this, uh, situations when you were finding about finding out about the alerts and updates through, like, throughout the fires? Honestly, I was just kind

of numb. I was like, oh, boy, here we go. Another fire that I have to, you know, do whatever for, like, you don't really have control of the situation, you know, you just kind of have to go with it. Yeah. And shifting on to the more

academic side. Um, what kind of student were you before? The fire? How was your sleep schedule, academic engagement and grades? I was a straight a student and I played like, 3 to 4 sports. I still held that throughout the fires because the school kind of was

a little bit easier on us just because, like, we did miss almost like a month of school? Yeah. So, like, they struggled also getting on track while we were just kind of like, there, I guess. But, like, my grades didn't go bad just because, like, everyone

kind of understood, like, there's no good thing that we could, like, do about it, you know? Yeah. And how was it, like, going back to class after the fires? Was there any damage to the school around the surrounding area? Oh, yeah. There's our field, part of

our field burn down our football field. A lot of our posters and signs were gone. There was ashes and smoke damage all across the school. Um You didn't see half of the school even there because most of them, their houses were gone. So it was like,

where's blah, blah, where's this and that? Like, it was very weird and like weird feeling that kind of didn't really feel real. It kind of just felt like a little check in and like, oh, you guys are good and then yeah, and how did your academic

engagement uh suffer from the fire? If so? And um did this affect your success in school? Your sleep? Did it cause any emotional distress, any long term displacement or any effects to your mental health at all? Um Not being able to see like my friends and

be able to play sports and be able to work out like did really affect me, especially like working out because I'm a very like, I'm going to. So I like, like to stay conditioned. That was very hard for me. But my grades were fine. I was

still stressing about turning stuff in, of course. But like, then again, like, the school didn't really give anything for us to turn in because they all knew that it was kind of like it was, you know, like it wasn't gonna happen if you tried to put

an assignment down. Um, did the teacher staff or other school personnel help make this process easier? And were they understanding the situation, the majority of them were? But there was a couple of them that were like, oh, like here's this moving on to the next, like,

you know, type thing that, like, didn't really care when, like, half of my friends lost their house. So it was kind of like, it was like, you know, like, weird because, like, half of us had to stay in, like, campsites or like trailers or, you know,

like there were some that were in there some that wasn't it? Yeah. Um, how are your peer relationships? Um, what were your friends experience? Um, how do you think they impacted your experience in coping with, uh, your own stressors? Um, a lot of my friends and

my own cousins lost their house. So it's like, it did impact me a lot. Like, seeing them go through that and not be able to really do anything but, like, I remember I made my mom take me to the mall because I wanted to buy some

clothes for my friend who lost her house up in. So I went to the mall and I just, like, handed out a couple, like t shirts and I asked them what size as they were and stuff, like I knew it wasn't much but, like, I tried

to help them as much as I could even though I was like a high school student. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Difficult times just being there for one and each other. And did this affect your daily routine after the impact of the fire? Any fears of the

fire coming back? Any paranoia regarding the fires? Honestly, I didn't have any fear of the fire coming back our way just because my whole town was already burnt, like, to ashes, like all the trees, all the bushes, everything you could see, it looked like a war

zone and my mom cried when we came back into town because nothing looked the same, like at all. It just looked like burn like black, like the clouds were still smoky. Uh, some of my clothes still had smoke damage on it. So it's like getting up.

I, like, didn't really know what to wear. So I have to wear like the same thing and wash it the next day type thing. But like I'd say pretty much that. And did this affect your family financially? Your parents work, um, any rent issues? Um, groceries

or how does this affect your stress levels as well? Oh, yeah. My parents, for sure. My mom and dad worked well. My dad's a painter so he worked kind of wherever he definitely, like, didn't really have to work. He had maybe one job he could go

to in Guyville at the time. But my mom also worked at ST Rose at the hospital. So it's like she, there was no one really to take care of us, but she had to, like, stay at home and stuff. So like, that affects like buying things

and stuff. And then, um, sometimes she went to work when she could, when we had someone to watch us, like, like our cousins or something like that or aunties. Um, but financially, yeah, it did have an impact because not everyone has insurance and I don't even

remember if we had insurance and we had to pay for the whole smoke damage thing on our house. And after this event of the fires, have you set a disaster plan or safety preparedness in place if this were to happen again? Oh, yeah. My mom, like,

wouldn't take anything out of like the boxes, like all of her pictures and like handwritten notes and like things my brother and I made when we were kids in elementary school, she still hasn't boxes. Like she's just now starting to put like pictures back up on

the wall because she's so scared that the fire is just going to come back because she doesn't want to lose all that stuff. Yeah. It's been a rough couple of years with the fires. It feels like it was a reoccurring thing at one point. Yeah. Um,

let's see here. What was the hardest part of, what was the hardest part about this disaster and why? And if you had to relive the disaster, what would you do different differently if so what, you know, like, I kind of, when it was all happening, it

didn't really feel real and I was just kind of numb and I was just like, ok, like we're driving through a fire right now and I know it sounds weird but like, it just was, it is what it is, you know, like type thing. But one

of the hardest parts was having a dog, a cat and three little kittens in the car smooshed with me, my brother, my best friend and my mom and we had to leave my dad behind in his truck. So it's like smushing all up in there and

getting like, attacked by all the cats and like the dog, like, my dog didn't get along with the cat. Like, that was probably one of the hard things and then, like, being able to find like a certain exit route because that's where everyone was trying to

go. It was kind of hard, something I would do differently. And, you know, you can't, really can't really like plan everything. It just happened so quick. I think maybe just having more of my stuff ready. I didn't fully grab everything that I would have like, cared

about if my house did burn down. And like I realized that after the fact when I was out like, evacuating for two weeks. But yeah, and my last question is um what did you learn from the fire? I learned that our community was actually really, really

like close like family, you know, like we did everything in our power to get back to normal and everyone was so helpful and giving and like we would be built like care packages for one another. My cousin still was in a trailer for a year after

that because she can find a house to live in and like just buying her groceries and food and like helping her out just like being there for one another. It was like really big noticeable because like, you know, you don't really realize, oh the town cares

about you, but then the town does care about you. Yeah, it took a lot for the community to be hit to really know how, how close everyone could be, which was kind of wild, you know, anyhow. Um That's all the questions I have for this interview.

Thank you again, Hannah for participating in this research project is much appreciated.