(I’m back-posting these next two posts to capture an important moment in our family history. this is email 1 of 2)
At 3:20 AM pst on Tuesday, April 17, 2013, I sent the following email to my family titled “Probably not coming to Boston” (with Holly and the boys in Seattle, I was scheduled to visit Boston that weekend… the following Monday of which happened to be the Boston Marathon bombing)
The email read:
OK, now that i’ve prepared you with a slight disappointment in the subject line, I wanted to share some more serious news. Everyone’s health is fine.
Our house burned down tonight. I was alone at home (Holly and the kids are in Seattle), nobody was hurt.
Status Updates:
- ME: I am fine. I am spending the night a very nice neighbor’s house and using her computer. I will work with the insurance company on a more permanent plan tomorrow and will keep everyone here updated (please let me know if you want me to include others). At the moment, I am expecting that all of my trips for the next week are cancelled (including my planned trip to Boston).
- PROPERTY: Nearly everything in the house is destroyed, either actually burned and gone or “unsalvageable”. I personally have no clothes (Holly: you and the kids have only whatever you have with you in Seattle). I also happen to have no shoes since i had taken them off and put them in the closet when i got home (I’m actually feeling lucky that I had left my pants on which, as Holly knows, is a rarity in the evenings!). I have no wallet. All of that is easily replaceable. The only thing that’s gone that I care about is my wedding ring (I take it off at night before bed, so it was in the bedroom). WIFE: rest assured that I love you more, not less, without it!
- CARS: I have recovered keys to our cars, which are functional (and may actually be fine… we’ll have to take a closer look in the daylight)
- GLASS HALF FULL: as some of you may know, we were getting close to breaking ground on new construction anyway. Of course, we had no plans to get rid of our stuff. Construction costs will clearly go up at this point, but I’m optimistic that insurance will kick in a hefty sum both for the house and replacement stuff. We will need to replace literally everything that we own. If I’m trying to smile, I suppose I can joke here that Holly might have a good time doing that.
- LESSONS: obviously i’m hugely thankful that nobody was actually hurt. Reflecting on it, the biggest surprise was how quickly it all happened. If I could do it over, i’d have planned better what I grabbed (like my wedding ring, wallet, and shoes). Given that there was nobody in the house, i didn’t have much to worry about and had the opportunity to grab things if it had occurred to me. Without a credit card and ID, i can’t get into a hotel (fire dept would have connected me to Red Cross had the nice neighbor not helped). The challenges of not having shoes are obvious.
- NEXT STEPS: I meet with the Insurance adjuster tomorrow, and have ordered replacement credit cards. I am hopeful that I can get myself to the bank to take out cash with my Passport (I just went back into the house to grab it). The insurance company should help with lodging, etc. I’m a little concerned how we’ll “remember” everything that was in the house in terms of filing the claim, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.
Story:
I was in the front of the house folding laundry and watching a TV show. I smelled a strange smell. At first, i thought a bug was getting fried on a lamp. Checked the lamp, no fried bug. I couldn’t quite tell where the smell was coming from. Explored the front room trying to find the source of the smell, no dice, so i went back and folded another shirt, when I smelled it again. Repeat a couple of times, no luck. Then, get this: when I couldn’t locate the source of the smell in my house, I actually wondered if a neighbor’s house was on fire, so I walked over and looked out the front window–trying to see if a neighbor’s house was on fire–and saw nothing.
Fast forward about a minute and i see smoke in my house. I’m now very confused so i run to the kitchen to make sure nothing is burning there. All is OK. So, I run towards the back of the house to the dryer (trying to think of everything that could burn). At this point, I see smoke pouring out of our bedroom (which is adjacent to the dryer). I run back into the room and something (maybe a suitcase?) was ablaze. I guess that the suitcase had fallen onto or been placed on the electric heating vent (our cleaning people came today), or maybe a spark flew up and ignited it. The suitcase fire was large enough that I couldn’t handle it or smother it with a towel, so I immediately picked up my cellphone and dialed 911 (which worked just fine from my mobile phone!)
While calling 911, i started looking for a fire extinguisher, which I know is in the house somewhere but I could not find it. When it was clear that I was not going to be able to do anything useful, I left the house.
Fire response was pretty quick (i’m guessing 5-7 minutes, though it’s a blur), but our house is basically made of kindling, so it was over before it started. I have been through it very briefly, and it’s a war zone. Holes in the ceilings, walls charred and missing, windows blown out, flooded floor (the same kind neighbor loaned me flip flops).
Fire department folks were nice enough. I called Holly and freaked her out when they first arrived, i called her back later, a bit more calm. “Official” folks (approved contractors) are going through the house now and boarding it up for security. Someone else is going through and trying to figure out what they can salvage (they’ll apparently be able to wash and clean my clothes–only the one load that I was folding in the front room). It won’t be much, as I mentioned. The fire department guy warned me that “restoration company reps” would be all over me like white on rice. Sure enough, 3 have already found me (one arrived and walked alongside me as I walked with my neighbor from my burned house to her house, after 1 AM). Amazing. Since we’re planning construction anyway, I probably won’t deal with any of them and will instead talk to the two GC’s that we were considering for construction…
That’s the news for now. Email is best since I’m going to mobile and taking care of things, so please give me some time to get back to you.
Much love in the burning night,
joel
