Former Liverpool resident helps during California wildfires

Hundreds of thousands of acres and nearly 3,000 structures, including over 2,000 homes, were lost. Hundreds of thousands were evacuated and a small number of deaths and numerous injuries were attributed to the wildfires.

The fires prevented him from going to work. He said the whole situation was “somewhat scary. They were saying that in some spots the fire wall ended up being 200 feet high.”

Kelley explained hot and dry air comes down out of the mountains each year in the form of the Santa Ana winds.

“What happens is things dry out and usually start some small fires but we also had a drought this year.”

He was returning by airplane to his home in San Diego after attending a friend’s wedding, when he passed over one of the large fires.

At the airport, he said, “It was like a dense fog. Everything was dark grey and you couldn’t see that far.”

This was on Oct. 21.

He checked his email and discovered the company he works for, DivX, Inc. had set up a chat line that included information about persons who needed a place to stay.

“We helped them evacuate and some actually stayed at my apartment for a few days.” Because of the smoke, most hadn’t seen the fire until they looked at the mountains from his balcony.

“You could actually see the fire climb down the mountains,” he said.

The office was closed because the information technology company best known for its popular video compression Codec couldn’t run the air-conditioning system and allow smoke into the building, which would have ruined the sensitive equipment inside.

Kelley lives in downtown San Diego, which wasn’t evacuated.

At this point, he signed up to volunteer with the American Red Cross. Because he is Canadian, the subsequent background check took four days, he added with a laugh.

He was approved and took disaster training. However, over 3,000 others from San Diego County also volunteered so he was put on a waiting list. “They said be ready.”

Most went to work at shelters, Kelley said. “In total, over 300,000 San Diegans got displaced by the fires.” He added the evacuations were well organized and included a reverse 911 notification system.

He went to 2-1-1, an information service, to volunteer. He expected to man the information lines but, instead, was asked to help solve information technology problems linked to the flood of calls and visits over the fires to 2-1-1’s telephone lines and web site. The information line was getting over 30,000 calls per day, for example.

2-1-1 also connected people to shelters plus carried out such regular duties as linking people with various community services and resources and, in this case, insurance companies and federal assistance programs.

Additional lines and a call centre were added and he and personnel from a telephone company were able to bring the website back to life, “which they were extremely grateful for,” Kelley said.

In the end, DivX allowed him to volunteer for a few extra days. The office opened late in the week.

He said his co-workers stated it was “surreal” to see most houses in their neighbourhoods in perfect condition after they returned home while others were burned to the ground.

“The embers would just land randomly and firefighters would come to make sure a house wouldn’t fall on the neighbouring houses.”

He continued. “One of my co-workers bought a house on Friday and ended up being evacuated on Sunday. Luckily, nothing happened to it.”

The fires, however, led to something unexpected. He renewed some old friendships from Liverpool.

He set up a Facebook site and, “a bunch of friends started sending messages. Many were people I haven’t seen in years. It was kind of nice.”

Kelley graduated from Liverpool Regional High School in 1999.

He then earned a Computer Science Degree and started a “few” companies, including a video game company while he was still attending Dalhousie University.

“I ran it for four years but it wasn’t successful,” he said.

In 2005, however, one of his business partners in California contacted him to say DivX was interested in what they did in terms of building a community platform because they were discussing creating a community website based on on-line video using DivX instead of Flash.

“They ended up buying the company and bringing us in.”

Kelley added, “I really like San Diego. Growing up in Liverpool, I couldn’t bring myself to live somewhere that wasn’t by the sea.”

He said he has learned to surf and scuba dive and, with a short drive, he can also ski.

His parents, Robert and Charlotte Kelley, along with a friend from Halifax, visited him in September.

Charlotte Kelley said she was a bit frightened at first because she couldn’t reach her son on his cellular phone because so many calls were being made during the emergency.

She added she is proud he chose to help people during the tragedy.