QUITASOL Family
QUITASOL Family. Five members of the Quitasol family of Modesto, CA perished in the Labor Day fire aboard the dive boat Conception on September 2, 2019 off Santa Cruz Island: father Michel Storm Quitasol, and his wife, Fernisa Sison, and sisters EvanMichel Solano Quitasol (37), Nicole Storm Solano Quitasol (31), and Angela Rose Solano Quitasol (28).
Father Michel and his wife Fernisa both worked at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Central Valley. Evan also worked as a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Hospital as well as St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton. Angela Quitasol worked as a science teacher at Sierra Middle School in Stockton and was a member of the Lincoln Unified Teacher Association union.
A broken-hearted mother posted on her Facebook page Tuesday that her three daughters, their father and his wife were among those presumed dead. Susana Rosas of Stockton posted that her three daughters — Evan, Nicole and Angela Quitasol — were with their father Michael Quitasol and stepmother Fernisa Sison. Evan Quitasol was a nurse at St. Joseph’s Medical Center of Stockton, where her father and Sison had worked after attending nursing school at San Joaquin Delta College. Sison also worked at the college teaching first-year nursing students full-time in 2005 and 2006 and later as an adjunct instructor, according to the school’s spokesman, Alex Breitler. “Everybody’s devastated. It’s a totally unexpected thing that happened,” said Dominic Selga, Sison’s ex-husband. “What caused the fire, that’s the big question, that’s what we all want to know.” Rosas’ husband, Chris, told the Los Angeles Times that Nicole Quitasol worked as a bartender in Coronado near San Diego and her sister, Angela, was a science teacher at a middle school in Stockton. The sisters were on the trip to celebrate their dad’s birthday, Chris Rosas said. He described them as “the most kind, most loving people I’ve ever met — and I’m not just saying that because they’re family.”
In the News~
September 4, 2019 [Coronado Times]: “Local Woman Killed in Boat Fire Off Santa Cruz Island. Relatives and co-workers of Nicole Quitasol have confirmed that Nicole and four of her immediate family members died when their diving boat, Conception, caught fire off Santa Cruz Island. In total, 34 people are presumed to have died in the tragic boat fire. Nicole Quitasol worked at Coronado’s Nicky Rottens Bar & Burger Joint. The following was shared by her manager, Bryn Butolph, on the restaurant’s Facebook page along with a link to support the family: "It’s with great sorrow that I share the news of one of our dearly loved employees of Nicky Rottens Bar & Burger Joint, Nicole Quitasol and 4 of her family members passed away tragically in the recent Santa Cruz boat fire. With the blessing of her mother Susana Solano Rosas we have setup this fundraiser to help with the funerals for all 5 family members. We ask that you keep their family in your prayers, share this if you can and also donate if you’re able to. Nicole was such a smart, loving, energetic and adventurous soul. She will be greatly missed." ”
September 4, 2019 [Marin Independent Journal]: “The Quitasol-Sison Family . Among the passengers identified is a family of five from Stockton, who had been celebrating the birthday of Michael Quitasol, a registered nurse in his early 60s who had worked as a registered nurse at Kaiser Permanente medical centers in Modesto and Manteca. Quitasol had been traveling with his partner, Fernisa June Sison, also was a nurse who had worked at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, and three of his daughters. In a Facebook post, the women’s mother, Susana Rosa, confirmed “with a broken heart” that the family had been passengers on the Conception. Like her dad and stepmom, Evanmichel Solano Quitasol, 37, known as Evan, had worked as a nurse in Stockton and Modesto hospitals, according to a Kaiser spokesperson. Nicole Quitasol, 31, worked at a restaurant in Coronado, a sleepy beach community in San Diego County. She was a server and bartender at Nicky Rottens Bar and Burger Joint for almost four years, according to the restaurant’s CFO Bryn Butolph. Angela Quitasol, 28, the youngest of the three, was a 7th-grade science teacher at Sierra Middle School in Stockton, where she had attended school years earlier. She was also a former member of Stockton’s Port City women’s roller derby team, where she skated under the name Hermione Danger, according to a team Facebook post. The post said a fourth Quitasol sister, who was not on the diving trip, also was a former derby member. “For Angela, students were her focus. She shared her passion for science with them and greeted them every day with a high five and a bright smile,” Lincoln Unified Superintendent Kelly Dextraze said in a statement. “We are all deeply saddened by this terrible incident and hold her family, and all those affected, in our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.” Chris Rosas, Susana Rosa’s husband, said Tuesday that he and his wife had joined other relatives of the victims to await more information from authorities. “We’re in Santa Barbara with all the other people who lost someone in the accident. We’re all talking to each other, just being together,” he said.”
September 4, 2019 [Recordnet]: “In a moment steeped in inconceivable darkness, Susana Solano Rosas was thinking Friday morning not of herself but of her extended family’s staggering sorrow. “I don’t know if they would find comfort being around me,” she said, “but if I can be a comfort to them, I want to do that. I don’t want to be a spectacle for anyone. I don’t want to share my grief with the world. My grief isn’t for the world to see.” Rosas, 60, learned Monday that three of her daughters, as well as former husband Michael Quitasol and his wife, Fernisa Sison, were among the 34 who perished in the fire that engulfed the diving boat Conception in the wee hours of Labor Day off the Southern California coast. As she spoke, and as she occasionally choked back tears, Rosas and her husband, Chris Rosas, were driving home after spending the worst week of their lives in Santa Barbara waiting with others who lost loved ones in the tragedy. Susan Solano Rosas made it very clear that her purpose in speaking was to honor the daughters she lost, asking to have them remembered by their full names: Angela Rose Solano Quitasol, 27; Nicole Storm Solano Quitasol, 31; and EvanMichel Solano Quitasol, 37. I had plans for them to have weddings,” Susana said. “I wanted to take care of their children. That’s not happening.” She reminisced about each of them. Angela, she said, was a seventh-grade science teacher at Sierra Middle School who loved to dye her hair purple, was a fierce advocate for the LGBT community and was something of a ruffian as a little girl. In second grade, Susana said, Angela accidentally impaled a schoolmate with a spork during lunchtime. “She was always so playful and so active,” her mother said. “Somehow she never managed to get hurt but people around her did. She played soccer from the get-go ... but wasn’t too interested in the ball. She was more interested in the butterflies and climbing on the net.” Susana said Nicole, who was living in San Diego, lost her boyfriend to a motorcycle accident when she was still in high school, and called her “the bravest of all my kids.” “She was my first one to move out of the house (at 18) against all my wishes,” she said. “She was just a beach and ocean kid, could not stay out of the water. She rented a cottage in Imperial Beach and worked three jobs to maintain that little cottage.” Susana said the death of Nicole’s boyfriend during high school changed her. “It seemed to give her the strength to do a lot of the things she wanted to do,” Susana said. EvanMichel, like both her parents and her surviving sister, Christina Asia Solano Quitasol, was a registered nurse. “Always, from the time she was born, she was this perfect newborn, perfect kid, never seemed to do anything wrong ever,” Susana said. “She was so prudent that other girls called her a prude. She was like her dad, did everything with great detail. She was the big sister, always paying attention to safety.” Susan said her children gained many of their most admirable traits from Michael, her former husband, who would have turned 63 on Sept. 4. Michael, she said, began his working life as an ambulance driver, eventually becoming a paramedic and then a registered nurse. In the late 1980s, he was part of a group that established a health-careers program at Stagg High School, where he taught for a time. “As a parent, when the girls were growing up, we worried about broken legs, serious injuries, what we thought were serious injuries,” Susana said. ”(Michael) was pretty good at attention to detail and attention to safety, and his career was also as a nurse so there always was great confidence that he would keep them safe and make sure they didn’t do anything crazy.” Christina, who lives in San Diego, drove Angela’s car back to Stockton on Friday, Susana said. According to Susana, Christina and her longtime partner, Michael Azurcon, are restoring a boat they plan to sail to Hawaii and the South Pacific later this year. Were it not for the demands of the restoration work, Christina and her partner might also have been on the Conception. ″(Christina) wanted to not let Michael down and work with him on the boat,” Susana said. “We’re thankful for that, so grateful that those two didn’t go.” Christina wrote this week on Facebook, “We’re strong and we will get through this. I’ve found some peace in reading all of the wonderful, beautiful messages everyone has been leaving about my family.” Susana, who retired two years ago from her career as a Stockton Unified school nurse, said her comfort and peace this week came from the support and kindnesses she and family members of other victims received in Santa Barbara. Plans for a memorial service are in the works, Susana said, adding that her family members already are thinking about making an annual return trip to Santa Barbara on future Labor Day weekends as a tribute to those they lost. “They’re taken away and they had so much work they could have done, so much goodness to give out,” Susana said. “They lit the room. It’s really true, all these clichés. They lit the room when they came in. They were the spotlight. They shined a light on everyone.”
January 30, 2020 [KRCA]: “STOCKTON, Calif.—A Stockton woman is pushing for new laws after her three daughters, their father and stepmother were killed in a dive boat fire near Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Santa Barbra. The September fire killed 34 on board, including Susana Solano Rosas' family. “My family can't be replaced. They are gone,” Rosas said. “They were people that loved life and helped lives.” Her daughters Evanmichel Solano Quitasol, Angela Rose Solano Quitasol and Nicole Storm Solano Quitasol, along with their father Michael Storm Quitasol and stepmother Fernisa Sison were on the dive boat to celebrate Michael’s birthday. Rosas, along with several other victims’ families, is pushing lawmakers to make changes to the Small Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 2019. “I'd like that bill to be passed and signed so that vessels that have been grandfathered in could step up safety measures,” Rosas said. The amendment is asking for lit exit signs, bigger exits and better staff training. “I want this bill to be passed so no one else has to go through the anguish,” said stepfather Chris Rosas. The bill was presented in December and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Evanmichel Solano Quitasol was a nurse at Saint Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton. Nicole Storm Solano Quitasol lived in San Diego and was known for her love of the ocean and earth. Angela Rose Solano Quitasol was a teacher at Sierra Vista Middle School. Michael Storm Quitasol and Fernisa Sison were nurses in Stockton and Modesto.”
