Update: A Couple Months After the Fires

It's been about two months since the destructive Wine County fires. Currently the damages are estimated at a staggering $9 billion. Destroyed or damaged were thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses. About two dozen wineries had damage with a handful having significant or total destruction.

Within a few days while smoke was still in the air some local businesses were saying, "Hey, we're open. Don't cancel your visit." Well, that was a little premature. And there were lots of cancellations in the immediate aftermath as you would expect.

Business seems pretty much back to normal as wineries are seeing guests, restaurants are busy with the holidays approaching, and hotels are nearly full. On the hotel part however, a few were lost in the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa plus some rooms are still being used by displaced families until they find permanent housing. That means the number of guest bookings isn't really as high as you might think. It appears visitor traffic was down about a third in the weeks after the fires.

We now have a similar disaster hitting SoCal. Stay safe down there!