The RV park residents had to leave in the middle of the night after they were told to evacuate, reports NBC 7’s Adonis Albright.
A shelter at Cuyamaca College and run by the American Red Cross was set up on Friday for evacuees of the Thousand Trails Pio Pico RV Park on Otay Lakes Road in Jamul, who had to leave their homes suddenly when the Border 2 Fire exploded overnight.
On a rainy Sunday morning, residents were still waiting for word they could go home. By Sunday, officials had canceled all evacuation warnings and most of the evacuation orders.
Border 2 Fire News
"We got a wake-up call at 4 in the morning saying you've got to go now," said Kevin Quinn, who was living at the RV park when officials knocked on his door, telling him to leave.
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"We just grabbed what we could," Quinn said. "I grabbed as much as I could that I thought was valuable, and I had to go, just in my car."
Quinn is one of about 30 evacuees staying at the gymnasium at Cuyamaca College, according to the American Red Cross, which was deployed to the campus to help provide food, water, showers and shelter for evacuees.
"Just living here long enough to see these disasters continuing to happen, I just wanted to be ready," said Aimee Cochran, a Red Cross volunteer who had just arrived at the shelter Sunday morning.
Across from the gym, a parking lot is filled with RVs and their owners, all of whom evacuated Thousand Trails.
"I was thinking: 'It's a warning. Maybe it won't happen,' " said Gigi Severson, who got the alert to evacuate on her phone in the middle of the night.
Severson and her husband have been receiving updates from the RV park's management and Cal Fire officials every day since the fire broke out.
In a statement to NBC 7, the RV park management said that no damage to the property was reported. As of Sunday evening, portions of Otay Lakes Road remain closed and the area remains under mandatory evacuation.
While the evacuees are all neighbors, Severson said that in the time they've spent together at Cuyamaca College, there's been an ethereal sense of community that's come of all this.
"Everybody's helping each other," Severson said. "I mean, that's just the way it is when you're in this community."
The American Red Cross said the shelter will remain open until residents are able to return home.
