By DEAN REA/Correspondent/The Herald — “When I awoke, I couldn’t breathe because of the smoke,” Audrey Henthorne said as she related leaving Oakridge where forest fires threaten the city and its residents.
The 54-year-old newcomer to Oregon and her two special-needs daughters checked into the Red Cross evacuation center at Pleasant Hill High School early Thursday morning, the first guests since it opened Tuesday night.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” she said during an interview. She has no local family members and had been unable to contact her church and other resources.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do with the girls so I can go back to work,” she said. Her 17- and 22-year-old daughters have special needs but can care for themselves with the help of neighbors while Audrey works two jobs. Her immediate target is to return to work at Jerry’s in Springfield. She also works for the Springfield School District.
Eventually, Audrey hopes the family can return to the house they purchased two years ago in Oakridge. She has been the only breadwinner since her husband, a litigation specialist, died in California 14 years ago.
Audrey said she had money enough to stay in a Springfield hotel Wednesday night, then called the Red Cross and learned about the Pleasant Hill evacuation center.
Rather than stay in the gymnasium, which can accommodate as many as 50 cots, the women were moved into the “cooler” cafeteria where a private space was created for them and for their possessions. Occupants are fed meals as well as provided cots and other personal needs.
“The Red Cross has been amazingly nice to my family,” Audrey said. “We were given masks to wear, and they put our blankets up for privacy in an air-conditioned room.” There’s adequate space for her eldest daughter’s dog, an Australian shepherd border collie whose full name is Batman’s Krypto Wolfdog’s Butler Alfred’s Doggish Creation.
Meanwhile, Audrey remains optimistic about the future, saying, “We’re confident that they will stop the fires and that we will return home.”
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