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PERSONAL STORIES

The night the fires started, I went to bed and recall that it was so windy that the bedroom door kept blowing open and slamming shut from the winds through the window. After that my husband came in and woke me up, he said "the hills are on fire, wake up!" I looked at my phone and saw a list of NIXEL alerts and text messages piled up. Caroline's message said she was driving from Sacramento. The Red Cross already had two evacuation centers set up. Our friend in Silverado Country Club fled with his cat barely escaping the flames and eventually making it to our house. We stayed up until 5:00am packing our car to evacuate, watching the one news station that was already on scene in the middle of the night, texting with friends and constantly refreshing our Facebook feeds. The whole experience unfolding was very surreal for the next weeks.

We were fortunate that we never had to evacuate. Surprisingly, our two SUVs were not very full. The physical things we were adamant to save were few, my grandmother's wedding ring, laptops so we could continue to work and bins full of photos from before everything was digital. As the weeks unfolded I was volunteering at the evacuation shelter. To see so many people who now have nothing and must start to rebuild was heartbreaking. My hope with this photoshoot is to bring joy to these people during a life changing time and provide them with the start of a new collection of photos. 

LINDSEY

LOVELY DAY EVENTS

I will never forget Josh saying "It's all gone?!" and jumping into our car. At 11 pm on Oct 8th, we were speeding towards Napa. Josh's father and stepmother lived above Silverado. We hugged Josh's father and stepmother that night and we are so thankful that they were safe. The house was all gone. We returned to Silverado Country Club on Monday morning and walked all the way across the golf course up to Westgate to find their house still burning. Everything was gone and all I could do was hug Josh's dad. It was so surreal.

Over the next few days, we got in touch with their neighbors and friends. So many people we knew were either evacuated and or their houses were gone. Out of the 28 homes on their street, 25 were gone. Our lives were forever changed by the Atlas Fire. Josh and I spent the whole week in Napa to help with the process of rebuilding life after a fire and the more stories I heard, the more my heart just hurt.

Of all the things that Josh's parents lost, they were most sad about the family heirlooms and precious photographs. As a photographer, I realized how important family portraits are and how even more important it was for fire families to start their new collection of photographs. It is my dream to provide this personal keepsake for victims of the Wine Country fires. I hope in some small way to honor all of the fire victims. 


CAROLINE

milou & olin photography

The night the fires started, I went to bed and recall that it was so windy that the bedroom door kept blowing open and slamming shut from the winds through the window. After that my husband came in and woke me up, he said "the hills are on fire, wake up!" I looked at my phone and saw a list of NIXEL alerts and text messages piled up. Caroline's message said she was driving from Sacramento. The Red Cross already had two evacuation centers set up. Our friend in Silverado Country Club fled with his cat barely escaping the flames and eventually making it to our house. We stayed up until 5:00am packing our car to evacuate, watching the one news station that was already on scene in the middle of the night, texting with friends and constantly refreshing our Facebook feeds. The whole experience unfolding was very surreal for the next weeks.

We were fortunate that we never had to evacuate. Surprisingly, our two SUVs were not very full. The physical things we were adamant to save were few, my grandmother's wedding ring, laptops so we could continue to work and bins full of photos from before everything was digital. As the weeks unfolded I was volunteering at the evacuation shelter. To see so many people who now have nothing and must start to rebuild was heartbreaking. My hope with this photoshoot is to bring joy to these people during a life changing time and provide them with the start of a new collection of photos. 

LINDSEY

LOVELY DAY EVENTS

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