NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) – Garden County Sheriff Randy Ross is used to knocking on doors with evacuation notices. Late last week, he found himself on the other side of that warning.
Ross, his wife, Jenna, and their three children fled their home as the Morrill Fire pushed into the area, leaving behind what Ross described as a scramble to grab what mattered most.
“I told the kids, I’m like, grab whatever you can, get your suitcases and just grab whatever you can fit in them,” Jenna Ross said.
He had spent the day evacuating others, he said, but never pictured needing to do it himself.
“You never really thought to put that into perspective — what if it was me that had to grab things and get going?” Randy Ross said. “It was just crazy just to think, what do you take? What’s more important to you?”
As they tried to get out, the Ross family said they encountered thick smoke, darkness and flames on both sides of the road.
“We got into a spot where the fire had jumped the road, so we had fire on both sides of us,” Randy Ross said. “It’s dark. You can’t see anything — smoke. All you can see is smoke and fire.”
Ross said the smoke became so dense that both he and Jenna briefly lost the road.
“I did in my patrol car,” he said. “I lost the road and struck a fence with it. And actually, as I was coming back onto the road, Jenna said she didn’t see me and I didn’t see her, but I actually sideswiped her.”
Jenna Ross said that moment is when panic set in.
“At that point when we did collide, I thought we were done for,” she said. “That’s all that was running through my mind — that we weren’t going to make it.”
In the aftermath, the Ross family said they have been reminded of what it means to live in a place where neighbors step in when disaster strikes.
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