“They barricaded everything”: Living inside an evacuation zone

Yeah, I usually go out in the morning, walk the streets, make sure everyone’s okay, make sure everyone has water. I’ve grown up here since I was a little kid, born and raised, and I don’t even know these streets. Everyone must evacuate. But I was still here. Next thing you know it was cherry red all around us. Then my nephew appeared. I was saying let’s get up here and start pouring water on the houses. So we started flooding the house next door. Out of nowhere, the fire department appeared. Fortunately, between the five of us, we were able to pull it off. I’m one of the lucky ones, fortunately, but they’re my neighbors, man. It feels like this is huge. How are we doing guys? They barricaded everything, and then they discussed with us – “Hey, guys, you can’t go out or in anymore.” All they did was tell us, if you cross the line, you can’t come back. They talk a lot about it. We’ve got our stove in there. We’re going to make coffee right now. We have a number of generators if we want. Our children, our family, our nieces, our nephew. Everyone just comes to us. I think it’s about 12, and it’s getting pretty dark in here. So, at night, I come up here around midnight, pack myself up, go upstairs, sit in the chair and watch the light bulbs. At that point, you call the sheriff and ask them to come out and take a look. All you can do is lock everything down and just pray.