b'AUGUST 2020Wildfires Bring Evacuations Claudia Torres (whose name has been changed) remembers the sound of the truck bursting into flames mere feet from her RV home on the night of August 16, 2020. The CZU Fire Complex forced Torres, her husband and their 10-year-old son to flee in the darkness with just a few possessions. It was the last time any of them saw their home, which the flames devoured. Her mother and daughter lost their RV as well. At the evacuation center, Torres and her family joined more than a thousand other evacuees seeking temporary shelter via hotel room vouchers. Most families went home after a week or two, but theirs Puente staff and volunteers at a shift at the CZU fire evacuation center in Halfstayed behind because they had no other place to go. Moon Bay. On the South Coast, housing is hard to find and very Personal de Puente y voluntarios en unexpensive when available. For the next four months, turno en el centro de evacuacin en HalfPuente and San Mateo County assisted the family by Moon Bay por los incendios de CZU. covering the cost of their hotel stay until December 2020. A community member living out of state, rented them her home through July of 2021, until they found something permanent. I think I stayed hopeful all that time mostly because of my son. He still has a sense of dread about whats going to happen next, says Torres.502 With the generous contributions from individualhouseholds were assisted donors and foundations, Puente raised anat the evacuation center. unprecedented one million dollars for fire relief. 6'