• El Niño Sandbag Event 2.0

At the last El Niño sandbag prep day (November 14th) a lot was learned about  how to keep the lines short/moving, and it was incorporated into today's sandbag-a-thon.

Click to enlarge images. 

First thing the city did differently is that they prepped 500 bags the night before. Second, the volunteers were there filling, lugging, sorting or loading bags in allotments of 5 rows by 5 columns (that's 25 for those a bit slow on the uptick) irrespective to the number of autos in line. Last time it seemed that bags were being filled as they were needed, but not this time. ☺

As you can see from the photos above, the first large pile of sand was completely eliminated before lunch. There was a very diligent group of workers (three donated by PV Maintenance) and volunteers. Most of the volunteers were from Elsinore High School, along with some parents and another student from David A Brown middle school. Others were from the local LDS church. I met one missionary whose home country is Costa Rica.

A different angle of the lines of pre-filled bags seen in the panoramic photo above.

When a truck, or car, arrived they checked in with CERT Member Paul Bakeman (had to make sure they were from Wildomar).

Then they would drive up to the appropriate group of bags, and volunteers... which included Wildomar Mayor Ben Benoit and Mayor Pro-Tem Bridgette Moore, would load the bags in under a minute. The latter worked WAY TOO HARD, *IMN2BHO, from before the opening bell to well past lunch when I skedaddled out of there.

Wildomar residents, the Dave Masters family, brought a couple of dozen sandwiches of various types, cookies, oranges and water bottles for the volunteers. Pretty cool indeed.

Starbucks coffee, waters and pizza (at lunch) were provided by the city. I was hearing chatter that there may be another of these sandbag events early next year —depending on how the unpredictable El Niño treats Wildomar.

By the time I left, with more than 3 hours left for bag pickup, more than 80 residents had taken advantage of this program.

*IMN2BHO (In My Never To Be Humble Opinion)

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“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.” 

― C.G. Jung

Wildomar Rap tip of the day: If you're 50 years old, stop pretending that your body can still do what it did when it was 30 years old.

• Wildomar Residents Line Up For Sandbags

Today was part one of a two part event. Sandbags and sand were available at the cemetery today for those that proved residency. Keith Ross, head of Wildomar's code enforcement team, was there checking in those that came. Which numbered 85 cars as of 12:30pm. A couple of cars from other cities had to be turned away.

The line up started before the official start time of 8:00am and there wasn't a break until approaching 1:00pm.

In the photos above you can see some of the volunteers. They were missionaries from the LDS Church and other than during their shift change, when the morning crew left and the afternoon crew came in, there were always at least six there ready to help fill bags or load them into vehicles.

There were 34 tons of material and each resident could take up to 25 bags, which weighed in the 25 to 40 pound range depending on who filled them. Basic math tells you that as many as 2,100 bags were filled and carted off.

This is what was left of the sand pile at noon. It started more than four feet tall.

Also on hand from the city was Mayor Pro-Tem Bridgette Moore. She wasn't just there for a photo op, she worked filling bags and helping lug them to cars for hours... in addition to going out and getting water and pizza for the volunteers.

I showed up just to take some pictures and found myself helping out a few ladies that lived off of Union Street, which morphed into helping in general until close to 1:00pm. It was a great morning for it, though I'm sure my back will remind me about it later on.

If you missed this chance to get sandbags, they are still available at the cemetery during the week. It's best to contact Les Chapman first, and make arrangements with him on times, etc.

Les Chapman

Phone: 951-677-7751

Municipal Services

Email: lchapman@cityofwildomar.org

Saturday December 5th will be another event like today, where volunteers will help you. 

Key word is help → you. 

Unless you're on the disabled list, then please be ready to work with the volunteers that are on hand.

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I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.― Ed Helms as Andy Bernard

Wildomar Rap is more into sand castles at the beach than sand bags at the cemetery, but you can't have chocolate ice cream for breakfast everyday... right?