Fire FAQ

Sunday morning we had an apartment fire. I made a list of answers to questions everyone was asking and put it on facebook, but I decided it should probably go here too:

I thought I would take a few minutes using my REALLY SMELLY netbook and Java Johnnys free internet to answer some questions everyone seems to have.

Is everyone okay?
Yes! We all made it outside very quickly. And we woke all the neighbors.

What happened?
It was a grease fire in the kitchen. My mom turned on a saucepan with oil in it and then walked away. It didn't take long from there.

How bad was it?
The kitchen is completely gone. The dining room kind of melted from the heat. You can see straight through to the rafters and roof in some areas. The rest of the apartment is smoke damaged. Covered in a black film. And its hard to breathe in there right now.

Are the other apartments okay?
Yes. Ours was the only damaged by the fire. The others in the building are all smoke damaged but are livable.

What can I do to help? What do you need?
Everyone has been so kind. Everyone wants to help. And I really appreciate that. It makes me feel so loved and so grateful to know that I have such caring, generous people in my life. Last night, the Red Cross put us in a hotel room and gave us a prepaid credit card for food. Today, I'll talk to the insurance adjuster because I DO have renters insurance. I'm not sure how much they cover or what comes next.

The apartment complex is putting us into another apartment soon. I'm sure we'll have to replace nearly everything we had. I don't even know where to start. I just don't know what to do. So I'm not sure what you can do to help, you know?

How are you doing?
I just don't know. It's a scary thing to watch everything you own get destroyed. It felt like a dream, standing in the parking lot in my tank top and pajama pants. I didnt have shoes. I wasn't even wearing a bra. And being outside that long gave me the worst sunburn of my life. I have never had that feeling of having absolutely nothing like that before. It was scary.

I know it was just stuff, but I don't know how to operate without stuff. I don't know how to be okay when I can't go home.

Everything is going to be okay. Worse things happen to people all the time. This is just the worst thing that has happened to me. And I don't know what to do now.