Fire survivor, resident with home intact wrestle with guilt
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Residents who evacuated from wildfires raging in California’s wine country are thankful they survived or kept their homes, but gnawed by guilt about the fate of their neighbours.
Jeremy Adams said Thursday that shifting winds, a little water from his hose and some luck spared his home in Santa Rosa from the inferno. Most of the other homes in the area were destroyed.
Drive past his corner house, and nothing remains for almost a mile.
“That first night it was just a horrible feeling. Like why me?” Adams said. “I still feel that. That guilty feeling. Why do we get spared and them not? To see them come back to what they have, or don’t have, was pretty horrifying.”