During the Columbia Gorge fires, preschool director Suzanne Haidri and Stevenson library staffer Jeanean Burgon teamed up on story times for kids in an evacuation shelter.
Their collaboration has a pretty good story of its own. It mostly has a happy ending, except for two pet stick bugs that didn’t survive the evacuation.
“A singular, unfortunate and tragic story,” was how Haidri described the bug chapter of the saga.
As families endangered by the Eagle Creek Fire were moving into the Skamania County Fairgrounds earlier this month, Burgon suggested scheduling story-time sessions for kids at the Hegewald Center. Tina Smith, librarian at the Stevenson and North Bonneville branches, approved the proposal.
Haidri, who lives in Cascade Locks, Ore., was among those who were ordered to leave their homes.
“The knock on the door came at 4 a.m. by the sheriff. He told us to get ready; then we were upgraded to evacuation level 3,” at 6 a.m., said Haidri, director of Eaglets Preschool in Cascade Locks.
As part of leaving home, she and her husband loaded up their two cats, as well as the preschool’s classroom animals.
Haidri is a member of Stevenson United Methodist Church. Their pastor, Karen Ashley, invited them to move into her mother’s home, which was empty at the time.
The house doesn’t have Wi-Fi, so “I took my iPad to the Stevenson library, and in the course of our conversation, Jeanean mentioned she was reading to the children the following day and she welcomed me to join her,” Haidri said.
Ashley does double duty in the community as a veterinarian, and her welcome included Haidri’s animals.
“She brought the cats and the mice to the clinic. But she forgot the bugs were in the truck,” Ashley said, and their container “was buried under stuff.”
The stick bugs didn’t survive the hot weather.
Haidri wanted to commend all the people who helped the evacuees and their pets.
“One person had a dog that ate cottage cheese,” Haidri said. “A Red Cross volunteer bought cottage cheese for the dog.”
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