e-mail to family and friends
Dear all,
I apologize for sending a generic, bulk, e-mail out to everyone, but I feel that this is the most efficient way to share a piece of information with people that I think needs to be shared.
Sometime before 7 a.m. on the morning of Sunday October 29 (as I send this it is this morning) a fire started behind the wall of the duplex I was living in. I woke up for some reason and decided to check the house to see why I was awake and almost immediately noticed that the electrical outlet next to the fireplace had flames coming out of it. In short, I could tell that the inside of the wall was on fire and that everyone needed to get out of the house. I grabbed my phone, ran get my roommates out of my side of the duplex, and than, in my underwear and with bare feet, raced next door to get the guys living in the other side of the duplex out. I pushed the door open to see flames behind and around their fireplace which shared a wall with out fireplace.
Come to find, they’d had a fire and friends over the night before and, somehow, an ember or something got inside the wall and eventually started the entire inside of the wall on fire.
While emptying the house I called 9-1-1 and reported the incident and, before I was even off the phone, had a police officer making sure that people were out of the house and the street was cleared for the fire trucks that quickly followed. Within ten minutes there were three fire trucks, three ambulances, and a fourth fire department truck for special assignments. There were between 16 and 20 firemen entering both sides of the duplex and four police cars with police officers keeping traffic, pedestrians, and neighbors away from the house. By this time the chimney was completely engulfed in flames and smoke was clearly visible, rising from the house.
My priorities, in this situation, were to get all occupants of the house out, to get the fire department involved, to call the landlord, and finally to call my parents. With that done and nerves and emotions finally coming to a head, I was surrounded by neighbors who all started using the word, “shock.” I don’t know whether or not I was, or am still, in shock, but for a while I had someone near me at all times. With my initial priorities taken care of I was finally able to realize the full ramifications of what was happening. Potentially, I could loose everything.
My house was on fire, everything I owned, all of my journals, all of my writing, my computers and hard drives, everything was in the house. At the point that I realized this, my nerves frayed for a moment and it occurred to me that my life could quickly, and simply, go up in flames and I would have to start all over again. There would be no evidence of my professional work as a writer, all of my school work, course descriptions for classes taken, everything I’ve done over the years, the research I’ve done for various long-term writing projects, school projects, work projects, everything would be gone.
In short, the potential for total, personal, disaster was very great and all I could do was watch as men I didn’t know raced into and out of the house wearing respirators and heavy clothes, carrying axes and water hoses, and wait for the outcome to happen.
Two hours went by. In that time I learned that one of the guys next door had stayed until the fire department showed up spraying water from a garden hose onto the flames inside of the wall. In all that time I learned that a series of events had taken place and that initial guesses toward the damage were that the interconnecting pipes that made up the chimney had been flawed and, after 20 years, had finally allowed something through that caught the wall on fire. I learned that I was the only one who called the landlord to let him know his property could, potentially, be completely wiped out. And I realized that I was lucky, fortunate, blessed, to have woken up and, in turn, gotten everyone else out of bed and out of the house.
After three hours we were finally allowed close enough to the house, and then back in, to survey the damage. The fire department had pulled the electricity, the gas company shut off the natural gas, everything was off and as we walked in we discovered that we would only have limited access inside of the house because it had been condemned by the fire marshal, who spent a few hours between sides, and then left.
In the space of three hours I went from an apartment that I was semi-comfortable in to being homeless and in that time I spoke to my mother twice and had most of my local siblings call with Kimberly and Justin driving down from Layton to see if they could help; and Jared and Emily coming down, with Jared taking charge of my moving clothes and odds-n-ends out of the house and up to his house.
Everything smells like smoke.
It is important to note that I am all right. That the various roommates are fine. No one was injured. And that I have lost nothing (that I am immediately aware of) except the place I was living in. Jared and Emily are putting me up until I figure out where to move and through providence or whatever happened this morning, the damage to the house was minimized.
Sure, we can’t live in it anymore and everyone will be required to find a new place to stay, but the result is that things are being taken care of and that this is an opportunity to take stock, decide what needs to happen, and move forward.
I thought, felt, that it was important to update people on what happened to me this morning. It has been a long and emotional day. And more than anything else, I appreciate the support I’ve felt from neighbors, ward members, family, and friends.
As information changes I will try to keep my blog updated,
John
cc: www.sw-c.com