FIRE.....

-
Well, things are not so great here.....but they could be worse! On Thursday, Aug. 24, I was driving home from work around 10:45 am and noticed smoke coming off my roof. It was so hot that day that I thought it might be steam, so I kept on going. (I was heading for Wal-Mart) I only got a mile down the road before it really started to bug me, and I turned around. When I got to the house, I went in the side door to check things out, and saw that the house was filled with smoke. I only got about three steps inside before I saw cinders falling from the bathroom ceiling. I went back out and called 9-1-1. The fire department got there in 5-10 min. and had to break the door down to get in. They found Hunter's bedroom fully engulfed in flames, with smoke so thick they had to wear their heaviest equipment. And this was on one of those 100 degree days. I was just standing there in shock waiting for the flames to bust through the roof and take my whole house with it. That didn't happen though, they managed to knock down the fire before it took the whole house. My whole family came out and stood there with me. George was working up in Akron, and had to drive the whole way back down, he said he was shaking the whole way. After all was said and done, they said it was the ceiling light fixture in the bathroom that shorted out, and smoldered in the floorboards. Hunter's whole room is gone, and the girls room is heavily smoke and heat damaged. The downstairs is is water damaged, and smoke damaged throughout. The adjustors can't come until Monday because of all the flooding here in Ohio. So it has to sit there in the heat. The smell is almost unbearable. All the wetness and charred smell. Yuck. I just thank God that no one was at home. The most important things weren't in the house---my family.

For now, we're in motel. It could take up to 5 months or so until everything is finished. Talk about feeling misplaced. The insurance is paying for all that, though, so it's all good. I'm so thankful for all the people that have helped us so far. It's been an overwhelming process.

I'll try to post some pics later that we took at the house.

Comments

Tina said…
Oh, my prayers are with you and I'm so grateful to God that no one was home and hurt.
August 27, 2007 at 9:39 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grace in the madness of mothering

-
The Bargain Hunter , where my column appears, is undergoing website changes. For now, my columns will be posted here:  There’s grace somewhere in the octaves between high-pitched and emergency, where I could hear the timbre of my voice and know that I was one step away from madness. This chaos lies in the line of crooked bangs cut with a dull hair scissors, no longer able to brush them away from the brown eyes of a child you love with such fierceness and agony. She would look at me, taunting, hugging me before she ran from me to do the things that would make my throat quiver. She would get up from her bed twenty-nine times in an evening, her Aladdin nightgown swinging as she descended from the stairs, and nothing I did would make her stay. There’s grace allowed somewhere in that madness. I remember rocking my baby in a rocker that several of our family had bought us for our wedding. The curves of it embraced us, and the nursery was warm with forced air from the furnace. I
Read more

We are Ghosts

-
"We are ghosts to you. We don't exist until you want our sympathy or help. You don't think your vote will really count, because you want to see what "happens." It's a vote against us and you don't see that. It's a vote against me. We are ghosts until you want us, but we were never there if you didn't see us until it counted." - quoted by someone I love, 9/24 I am lost.  Awash. Drifting in a sea of distractions. Fraught and edgy. Simple and deep. My thoughts betray me and I cannot sleep. We the people. No longer are we the people we say we are.  We are washed in the blood of Jesus and drowning in our own hypocrisy. We cry out for the blood to flow from the bodies of our brothers and sisters in lands far away - those who cry for our help - as well as turn a blind eye to the ones dying in our streets at alarming levels, shouting, "He should have listened."  We cry "Save the babies!" while we kill those in priso
Read more