Within hours, decades worth of legacies on the Oceanside Pier burned away, including the piece of the pier Joe Civalleri left for his family.
“He was a great guy, big heart,” his granddaughter, Jennifer Carmean, said. “Even up until the time that he passed, we were in the hospital sleeping on the bed with him.”
More Oceanside Pier fire coverage:
To the Oceanside Pier, he and so many others were its lifeline while it was down.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
“1978 was a huge raging storm with record-high tides,” Joe’s other granddaughter, Julie Adamic, said. “It took out 560 feet of the pier, and it was the fifth time the pier has been destroyed.”
Joe, and more than 5,000 other names etched in wood, donated money towards rebuilding the pier.
“It’s made from love,” Joe’s daughter, JoAnn Civalleri, said. “It means so much to more than us.”
The latest damage happened on Thursday, April 25. As the Civalleri family watched the pier burn from TVs at home, they couldn't help but think about the right side, which was the most damaged and where Joe’s board was.
Crews fought the fire for more than 24 hours. No one got hurt, but they couldn’t save everything. Ruby’s Diner is a total loss, but Jennifer hopes Joe’s legacy board isn’t.
“That would be a miracle to get that back,” she said. “It would be part of my grandfather still living on in this life, even though he's passed, and I'm sure that would be it for other people, too.”
Adamic says she thinks the board may have been destroyed but wants to get the word out just in case. The retired nurse has seen her fair share of miracles and hopes her grandpa’s board’s return is the next one.
NBC 7 reached out to the Oceanside Fire Department to hear its plans. Division Chief Blake Dorse responded with the following statement:
“We are saddened by the loss of many of the names that were engraved and know that these were important to the community. We are thankful that our efforts to stop the fire resulted in the preservation of names on 93% percent of the pier.
"Unfortunately, some boards were lost completely in the fire and others may have been carried off by the ocean.
"While our focus is currently on ensuring that we complete our investigation, protecting the public from any hazards, and restoring a portion of the pier for public use, the boards with names has also been a topic we are evaluating. We want to ensure our actions going forward are respectful of those that lost a piece of their family history.
"Exactly which names have been completely or partially saved is still being assessed and will be part of our plans going forward.”
