A Santa Rosa Resident Says Goodbye to His Home

When Robert Attubato arrived at the entrance to Journey’s End Mobile Home Park in Santa Rosa with his family on Monday afternoon, his granddaughter was too scared of the flames to go any further.

So the 82-year-old walked through the rubble by himself — past the lingering flames, past the hollow lawn chairs next to the old community swimming pool — over to unit 26, his home for the past 10 years.

Attubato is hard of hearing, and when he first evacuated his unit early Monday morning, he had to leave behind his hearing aids, his wallet — everything.

“I do have a set [of hearing aids] in the car,” he said, as he approached the remnants of his front yard. “But it looks like everything got destroyed.”

When the flames first hit Journey’s End early Monday morning, Attubato barely made it out alive.

“The police officer got me out just in time,” he said. “He was having trouble breathing. I thought my wallet might be on the ground here, because he pushed me into the car so fast that I dropped my wallet.”

Attubato ducked into the side of what was left of his smoky black-and-gray car to see if he could find his hearing aids. Everything was burnt to a crisp.

He pulled his head out from the car and just barely missed nicking his head on the sharp window frame. “Nothing here, nothing here,” Attubato said. “Looks like nothing survived.”

His wallet wasn’t on the ground either — just ash and a solidified pool of melted metal from the car.

After giving up on finding his wallet and hearing aids, Attubato paused and stared at the remnants of his home, a lifetime of possessions gone in an instant.

Then he left, and walked over to his family.

Back outside Journey’s End, he was greeted by some of his old neighbors. They all stood together, surveying their losses, exchanging contact information and condolences.

“This is not your journey’s end,” Attubato’s neighbor told him. “There’s always a new journey.”