Fire

As if this year hasn't been hard enough, Tuesday (12/14/10) I received a phone call that I never want to receive again.  Gus was on the other end of the line, and the first words out of his mouth were, "You need to stay calm when I tell you this."  I thought he had been in a car accident, but nope, he was calling to tell me that our house was on fire.  A jogger had noticed it, but didn't have a cell phone.  He flagged down the next person coming down the road, and it was Derek Mann, a delivery driver for the Department of Human Services.  He called 911 and then knocked on our door to see if anyone was home.  He heard Noah barking, and then went to the neighbors house and knocked on their door to see if she knew if anyone was inside.  She said she thought we were both at work, but knew we had a dog inside.  He then went to the back of the house and popped out the window in our screen door, then busted the window in the kitchen door.  Noah came running out and proceeded to pee on the back porch where the neighbor tried to get him to come outside.  Derek then ran through the house searching for people or other animals.  The neighbor had called her mom who had our phone numbers and her mom then called Gus.  Gus called our friend Todd (who is on the SFD) to see if he could meet me at the house so I wouldn't be there alone.  Todd was working that day, but wasn't on the call, so he made a couple of phone calls and got a bunch of people to come over.  Gus also called our friend Dewey, who came over right away as well.  Then Gus called me.  All I can say is that adrenaline kicked in to high gear instantly.  And it was a feeling I've never had before.  On my way home, a neighbor called to tell me about it, and when I asked how bad it was, she said "my husband says there is a lot of smoke coming from the top of your house and there are 5 fire trucks there."  All I could think was that our "babies" were in there.  We had just had the furnace guy there who had to order a new motor for the downstairs furnace, and I honestly thought that is what started the fire.  So when she said smoke was coming from the top of the house, I thought I was going to be coming home to nothing.  Gus and I made several calls to each other on our way home, just to see where each other was at and I wanted to know how he found out about it.  He told me that Connie had called him and that the fire department knew Noah and Nigel were inside.  Driving down Lawrence, I kept wondering what I would see when I turned on to Henrietta.  And I did feel a little better when I saw that there weren't any flames shooting out of the house and that the structure was still there.  My neighbor greeted me and then I approached the firemen.  They told me the dog was safe and that they didn't have any information for me and that it would be best if I waited in the car and stayed warm.  I asked about the cat, and they told me the didn't know we had a cat, but they would look for him.  I walked back to the van and just stood outside staring at the house.  Dewey showed up shortly after that, and then all kinds of people from church started showing up.  My boss even showed up.  Shortly after that, the fire investigator took me to his van and started to ask me questions.  Who else lives in the house?  Date of birth for both of us?  What time did I leave this morning?  Where was I going?  Did we have insurance?  With who?  And at that moment, my agent was walking toward the van - perfect timing, just like in the commercials.  Apparently Gus had called him too on his way home.  And then I saw Gus.  He came over to the van and was asked the same questions about what time he left and so on.  Gus told him that he had reset a circuit breaker that morning before leaving for work.  We were then told it would be several hours before we were allowed in the house, so we should go somewhere to stay warm.  I asked if we could get the dog out and look for the cat before we left and the investigator said that would be fine for Gus, but I was not allowed in the house.  He said it looked worse than it was and didn't want me seeing it yet.  They found Nigel, but he kept running from them, he was in the basement, so they just locked him down there.  Gus and Noah came out of the house, and I went to them and was greeted by my puppy.  It was so good to see him finally.  Todd's sister, Tiffani, took Noah to her house for us for the rest of the day.  Our agent took us to a restaurant, cut us a check for clothes and personal items, got the claim started and told us what calls to start expecting.  Within minutes we received calls from the claims adjuster and Peerless.  We went back to the house to try to see if we could get Nigel out and the investigator was just finishing up and was going to take us in and show us the damage and explain what happened.  Gus had noticed that the circuit was tripped, and it was apparently tripped by a mouse that had chewed through a wire.  When he reset it, the faulty wire didn't allow the circuit to re-trip so the hot wire started the fire, and was apparently burning since about 7 that morning.  The 911 call came in at 9:06, so it burned for about 2 hours before someone noticed. 

The rest of the day and the week have been a blur.  We got the cat out and took him to the vet to be kenneled.  We had to go shopping for clothes and personal items, check into the hotel where we will be living for at least the next 3 to 5 months, get a few things from the house, eat lunch (at 3:30 in the afternoon), field phone calls, pick up Noah, go "home" and get settled and then attempt to sleep.  I got about 3 hours of sleep on Tuesday night and Wednesday was about just as busy as Tuesday.  We had to go get 2 to 3 weeks of clothing for the cleaning company to rush through to get back on Friday, I took Nigel his bed and a few new toys to the vet, gave Noah a bath, did more shopping for essentials, and tried to let everything sink in.  I went back to work on Thursday, but it was our Christmas party day, so it was a half day, lunch out and then the afternoon off.  I went to work on Friday and my boss let me go home early that day too, which was nice.  We went to the house today to write off and get rid of everything in the fridge and freezers.  The three of us (me, Gus and Noah) are doing okay, and trying to adjust to hotel living.  Nigel was doing okay at the vet when I saw him on Wednesday, but he did a lot of growling.  I feel bad for him, because he is the one who will have no sense of normal living until we can get back into the house.  Friends of ours are going to take him after the first of the year, but I feel bad that he can't be with us. 

We have had several friends sign up to bring meals, and lots of offers for anything we need.  We are feeling the love, but just wish we didn't have to go through this.  And because of the fire, we decided to cancel our cruise.  We couldn't justify spending the money on it when we weren't sure what the future holds for us.  We hope to reschedule, but for now we have other things to worry about.  I still can't believe that this is happening.  I keep thinking I will wake up from this dream and things will be back to normal.  Gus has been doing an awesome job dealing with the insurance company and the cleaning company and the contractor, so I will let him keep doing it! 

I am so ready for this year to be over with.  2011 has a lot of making up to do for 2010.