As deadly flames approached, she called her daughters to say goodbye

November 26, 2018 1:26 AM

There is much to say when death encroaches. But when you only have a moment, you just say the truth.
posted by gryftir (15 comments total)

Alternative link for LATimes GDPR-non-compliance reasons.
posted by pompomtom at 1:49 AM on November 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

Well, I teared up a bit.
posted by Telf at 2:13 AM on November 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

How to do that if you ever have to do that.
posted by ckridge at 5:34 AM on November 26, 2018

Oh god. Now I’m crying at 6 am.
posted by greermahoney at 6:23 AM on November 26, 2018

Well, GDPR has done it's job for Europeans....
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 6:35 AM on November 26, 2018

Damn.
posted by widdershins at 7:08 AM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had heard her story before so I knew she survived, which is the only reason I could read this. The details here made me tear up. I do not believe in a god. Some will want to call this a miracle, I can't. I think it is even more amazing. Without magical divine intervention, well-trained people stayed calm in the face of a nightmare scenario and did what they needed to do to survive and help those in their care survive. That fire fighter did the equivalent of running back into a burning building in order to help. All credit to them.

The folks who didn't survive bear no blame. This was a horrific fast-moving disaster. There are plenty of others who sit comfortably in their offices outside the danger zone who will carry that burden for the rest of their lives.
posted by agatha_magatha at 7:21 AM on November 26, 2018 [14 favorites]

Some will want to call this a miracle, I can't.

Me either - I can't deal with the deity saying, somewhere - these 200,000+ people in the way of the tsunami, fuck them especially, but these folks in trouble from wildfire, they're all right.
posted by thelonius at 7:40 AM on November 26, 2018 [8 favorites]

I think the power of such events is not in the individuals rescued, but rather in the ability to look and say, hope is never totally lost. There is always a chance. It was right for her to make her peace with death - but also right to fight it all the same.
posted by corb at 7:51 AM on November 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

pompomtom: The alternative link you supplied has some problems. The first and last sentences ("This is how I die" / "This is how I live") are missing, as are several (non-caption) sentences that appear after each picture in the original article:

"They are trapped within a ring of fire."

"There is much to say when death encroaches. But when you only have a moment, you just say the truth."

"The first call is to Clarissa, her eldest at 24. The second call is to Savannah, whose 22nd birthday is days away."

Instead of those sentences, the image caption ("An ambulance that caught fire...") appears, without the accompanying image.
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:56 AM on November 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

The ambulance ahead that burned? The new mother who was in that ambulance lived.

Earlier story from the viewpoint of the homeowners.
posted by jointhedance at 8:06 AM on November 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

A less confusing and more complete alternative link.
posted by tiger tiger at 9:37 AM on November 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

Some will want to call this a miracle
To clarify, the article itself is free of divine intervention of any kind and instead focuses on brave human actions under unthinkable conditions. But don't expand the comments.
posted by sageleaf at 11:26 AM on November 26, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ta crazy_yeti, that's good to know. I couldn't make that comparison (without fiddling with proxies at least).
posted by pompomtom at 1:43 PM on November 26, 2018

Throughout it seemed as though she would die. Am I the only one feeling bamboozled?

There's a bunch of content from Tamara's thoughts during the fire that couldn't have been written (at least in a responsible journalistic way) without talking to her, so it seemed pretty clear that she made it, but the way the story is written without the use of direct quotes makes it hard to understand what was actually from Tamara and what was authorial license.
posted by phoenixy at 11:45 PM on November 26, 2018 [1 favorite]