Westmont College Takes a Beating

The fire in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, inflicted some serious damage on the small Christian private school, Westmont College:

Reporting from Montecito -- The Westmont College gym was itchy hot and getting hotter. Eye-burning smoke seeped inside, despite the blue duct tape covering the cracks between the double doors.

As campus officials repeatedly assured about 800 students and faculty that this sturdy, cinder-block gym was the safest place to be, some evacuees formed prayer circles on the wooden floor.

Others made frantic cellphone calls to family and friends. One played a guitar and sang. A few burst into tears, and more joined them when a voice on the public-address system announced that some of the dorms were engulfed in flames. What was to come of them? Of the laptops they had left behind? Of the leafy campus of the small Christian liberal arts college tucked into the hills of Montecito?

Freshman Megan Reed tried to hold it together. Thursday was her 19th birthday. What was supposed to have been an evening of celebration with friends at a popular Italian restaurant on Santa Barbara's State Street had turned into a long, sweaty night in the gymnasium.

"Just keep breathing," she said to herself, "but not too deeply." The air was thick with smoke. A confetti of ash began drifting down from the ceiling vents.

"A lot of the girls started freaking out," Reed said afterward. "It made me uncomfortable." She said she felt a surge of panic before taking comfort from her roommate, Codi Dennstedt. The picture of calm, Dennstedt, 18, had been forced to evacuate her home when she was in high school and wildfires raged through her hometown of Fallbrook, in northern San Diego County.

Amid the crying and the rising tension, Westmont President Gayle D. Beebe took to the PA system to reassure evacuees that they were in the safest place on campus.

The anxiety inside the building paled against the maelstrom outside, where tornadoes of fire and smoke skittered across the campus, igniting trees, buildings and the lawn.

After midnight, the worst had passed. Daylight revealed the toll: at least 14 of the 41 faculty homes, the physics building, the old math building, a pair of Quonset huts and four of the 17 buildings that make up Clark and Bauder halls were gone. One of those buildings was the home of the resident director and his family.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the story was that the same night the fire broke out a number of high school students were spending the night at the campus as part of a student visitation. I saw one poor dad interviewed who had driven his daughter there from Northridge and got home just in time to learn about the fire. He drove back to the area but couldn't get to the school and ended up spending his night sleeping in his car down by the beach. He was able to reconnect with his daughter on Friday morning. She certainly had an experience she'll never forget.

I really feel for the kids that lost dorm rooms. With my daughter away at school in Northern California, I can't imagine what all we'd have to do if she lost her dorm. When I see her next week we're going to talk about the stuff she needs to be sure and take with her in an evacuation (mainly her laptop and her musical instruments).

If you'd like more information on the damage at Westmont or how you can help, you can check their website or make an online donation here.