Stepping up to help Montecito fire victims

Coping with the city's most destructive fire in nearly 20 years, Santa Barbara organizations have stepped forward to help in some distinctive ways. Santa Barbara Bank & Trust Co. has announced that it will pay hotel bills tonight through Sunday night for people displaced by the blaze.

"Business is gangbusters -- I'm sorry to tell you," said George Leis, the bank's chief executive. By midday, the bank had booked 130 rooms, many at the waterfront Hotel Mar Monte, and planned to issue dinner vouchers at Los Arroyos restaurants. A team of 10 employees was busy fielding calls at the bank's headquarters in downtown Santa Barbara.

"Some of our customers have lost their homes. Some of our employees have lost their homes," said Leis, who added that the bank would offer its customers emergency lines of credit and cash advances. Direct Relief International, a locally based aid group that works abroad in 59 countries, was handing out face masks from a table shaded by sycamore trees in a Santa Barbara park.

The organization has about 10,000 of the protective masks available and expects another shipment, spokesman Jim Prosser said. For 60 years, he said, it has helped out at a grim string of California disasters, including the 1990 Painted Cave fire that destroyed some 500 Santa Barbara homes.

Leaving with a two-pack of masks, Diane Stevens said she was on her way to help her boss, an executive at a nonprofit called Santa Barbara Beautiful, pack her valuables and keepsakes -- just in case.

As ash wafted through the air, Stevens said she was grateful to live in a place where neighborly gestures during hard times are commonplace.

"That's what we do," she said. "That's what we're about. We're a town."

-- Steve Chawkins

Comments

[chez buonaparte]

well no one is helping me in the way I need help from the arson
fire that was set on 03-27-09 in my garage which only added
to the damages the very same fire dept. did to my property along
with the help of building & safety in Los Angeles I can't believe that the city told that arson is not a violent crime that they can help
with, one of the reasons said was they have no money, but they
had the money to force complience & leave the property unprotected. no one will ever be able to undo my ongoing damages & has left me with HATEING JUST ABOUT EVERYONE IN LOS ANGELES. for contributing to stealing years away from my life.

[Greg]

I assume they will be able to take care of themselves quite capably without my help, or any assistance from the government or the taxpayer. After all, isn't that what the Conservative ideology professes to be all about. Or perhaps not.

[Tana J]

It is great how the communities take care of one another! Cover Your Assets is in Burbank and they are giving their software to fire victims to assist in the inventory process. They are also offering their post disaster inventory workshops to communities to utililize. www.itstime2cya.com I found it on.