Ben and I had just woken up from a Sunday afternoon nap when there was a loud banging on our door. I went to the door, opened it, and no one was standing there. I looked down the hall and saw a man just going door to door banging, but I also saw a large cloud of smoke charging down the hall - our apartment building was on fire. Since the smoke alarms on our end of the building weren't going off yet, I am very thankful to the man who was banging on doors. Ben and I quickly grabbed our toiletries and glasses/contact stuff (since we figured we'd probably be out of the building at least over night), a few things that were easy to carry, took pictures of the apartment just in case, and we headed to his parents house - who only live about half a mile away. We were probably out of our apartment in less than 3 minutes, but in that little amount of time, we reeked like smoke and it was getting very thick in the air. We drove back a few times through the night to check on things. It was a big fire. The fire started on the complete opposite side of the building, and destroyed the whole third floor. Just FYI - it was an electrical fire.
The Aftermath - look at all the ice coated trees. We had to chip about 3 inches of ice of of Ben's truck to get it out.
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We weren't allowed back into the building for 2 weeks. The third floor was a complete loss. Our floor, the second floor, and the first floor suffered primarily smoke and water damage. They had to make sure the building was structurally sound before we were allowed to enter. They also had crews come in and rip the ceilings down in all the apartments because large chunks of drywall were just falling at random. Here are a few pictures of our apartment:
The Bathroom
The difference in carpet - we had a TV stand sitting in this spot
Our closet. The bar fell, and our clothes were sitting in 3 inches of nasty, sooty water for 2 weeks. Lovely. Needless to say, they all got thrown away.
Thankfully, we had renter's insurance and were able to recover most things. The fire seems like yesterday, but it also seems like so long ago. We're so grateful to all our wonderful friends and family who supported us in various ways this past year. Our home is always welcome to you, if you need a place to stay!
6 comments:
Gosh, I can't imagine what it was like to deal with that. What a wonderful man that was who went door to door.
I remember reading about that fire but didn't know anyone personally who had lived there. Now I do.. and glad to hear that you both made it out safe!
I remember when that happened to you. How awful. At least it's all behind you now!
wOW! i forgot about this. it must have been awful. But I'm glad you can see the light in it.
Wow, Heather. I remember all of that, and remember you going through it. I am glad this is in the past, but what a hard thing to go through!!
I still remember me calling you like an IDIOT to see if you wanted to work out. I had no clue what had happened.
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