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Los Angeles, Feb 15 (IANS) Hollywood star Mandy Moore feels her life was saved by a phone call on the night her family fled their home as the California wildfires approached as the official evacuation order wasn't given.
Moore has revealed she and her husband Taylor Goldsmith took their three kids and their pets into their car following a phone call from her brother-in-law hours before the official evacuation order for the area of Altadena was given.
She has now reflected on the call that saved their lives in a candid post on Instagram, writing: "We never got an evacuation notice. Sometimes in the quieter moments of processing the last month, I play the game of what would have happened if I didn’t have my phone next to me, playing my typical 'piano for deep sleep' mix as I nursed (baby daughter) Lou before bed, so I could answer the call from my brother-in-law?
"It was 6:45 p.m. and he told me he, his wife, and our niece were evacuating, grabbing my in-laws (his parents) and getting the heck out of Dodge and we should do the same."
The actress said the call prompted her to get her family out of the house and seek shelter with friends.
She went on: "I calmly walked downstairs and relayed this to my husband and without skipping a beat, we promptly packed up the kids (in their pjs), our dog, and scrambled to find our 3 cats as the power went out.
"I’ll never forget Taylor trying to figure out how to manually open our two little garage doors (they’d just finished construction around Thanksgiving and we’d just started using them) in the harrowing 60 mph winds, as the sky glowed a dark red and ash started to fall all around us.
"We raced across town amidst fallen trees on the freeway to the safety of our dear friend’s place ... "
The actress added that she spent the rest of the night refreshing an app on her phone to see when her area was given an evacuation order and it didn't come until the early hours of the morning.
She wrote: "(I was) impulsively refreshing the watch duty app over and over. As we did all night. Over and over. Watching the evacuation zone narrow in on our little 8-block radius.
"It took until 4 a.m. for it to turn red. All the while, tossing and turning with a stomach-churning anxiety I’ve never experienced before, both boys passed out between us in bed. Lou slept on the floor in a travel crib, and the dog curled up protectively by the door."
The family's home was devastated by the fire and Mandy revealed they lost all of their possession and need to start the rebuilding process as it will be a "very long time" before they will be able to return, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
She added: "While our house is still standing ... the content of our home are a near total loss. Clothes, furniture, pretty much everything will have to be disposed of ... maybe even the walls too. Won't be there for a very long time ... as the rebuilding starts."
However, Moore concluded by insisting she feels "grateful" and "lucky" to have escaped and they have now found somewhere else to live while they attempt to rebuild their home.
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