hey guys... i know i haven't been around lately, but i want to share some news with you all. on oct. 1 at about 1:30 in the morning, i woke up to my doorbell being rang repeatedly and heard a fire truck roll up outside. i live right around the corner from the fire station and am very used to them tearing by, so i didn't really connect the fire truck with my doorbell being abused. i threw on an inside out t-shirt and ran upstairs to see who was ringing my doorbell. it was my neighbor, tony, who told me to grab my stuff, that the roof was on fire. i asked him what i should grab, and he replied "whatever you need."
standing there in my boxers and an inside out t-shirt, i decided that i should put on some shorts and flip flops. not smelling any smoke, or seeing any flames, i really didn't have a clue about the extent of the fire until i was leaving my unit and there were a half dozen fire fighters rushing up the stairs yelling at everybody to leave the building immediately. it was then that i realized it might be bigger than shorts and flip flops. i ran back into my unit and grabbed my wallet, keys, cell phone and laptop. i'm really glad that i did that because i lost pretty much everything else.
long story short, everybody survived the fire and they were even able to rescue my two cats around 10 in the morning after the fire had been put out. the fire started from a faulty wire on our roof that smoldered down into an 18" space between the old roof and the new roof that they build over it in the early 80s. by the time the fire burned out that space and reached the open air on the roof (to be seen and reported by neighbors) it had raged for a half hour to an hour. the roof ended up collapsing into my fourth floor and did a tremendous amount of damage. what wasn't destroyed directly by fire was subjected to the million plus gallons of water that were dumped on the building. i have to say, the fire fighters were beyond brave and kind in responding to and fighting this 4 alarm blaze.
i was able to get into my unit on thursday and salvage almost my entire knife collection, my wife's jewelery and shoes (all on the top shelf of our bedroom closet) and almost all of our clothing (it WREAKS!!!). i lost one scrapyard blade to the fire and a couple benchmades, but i'm thankful to still have the bulk of my collection. state farm is being really kind to us right now, and i'm really not in need of anything but support. i just wanted to share my story with you dogs.
for pictures, go to
www.catandstew.com/Fire.htmldouble and triple check your insurance policies gents, i can't stress how screwed my under or non-insured neighbors are right now.
no lives were lost, which, above ANYTHING material, is the most important thing.
take care, all.
stew
