It could have been me......
Tuesday morning started just as routinely as any other day starts. On this particular morning, I had just gotten home from the hospital at about 4:00 AM, and was scheduled to be on duty at my new job at Exeter Ambulance at 10:00 AM. Instead of sleeping at home, and risking being late due to oversleeping, I just stopped in at home for the 4S's pit-stop, then soon headed off to Exeter, and slept in the bunk room there until my shift started. On the way down to station at about 5:00 AM, I noticed that I was following a friend/neighbor of mine who was heading off to work in his truck. On Route 222, I pulled up alongside of him in the hammer lane and waved to him, but at that groggy hour of the morning he just gave me a brief look, as if to say "Who are you?" Musn't have recognized me or my truck at the moment. Later, he said he doesn't even remember seeing anyone wave at him.
Later, while on duty at Exeter, we heard Berks dispatch Bethel Ambulance...... "Beeeeeee-Booooooop.......Squad 585 Station 1, Marion Township, the area of 228... Two-two-eight.... Christmas Village Road; A fire-scene standby at the scene of a reportedly fully involved structure fire." Oh poop! At Exeter, we didn't have any radio or pager turned on with the fire department frequencies, only the EMS frequencies, so we heard very little of this story as it was occurring. Also, we were busy at Exeter on a call of our own at the time.
Later, after I was finished with my shift at 10:00pm and was driving home, I started thinking again about that dispatch for the "fully-involved structure fire." My nosey streak kicked in, and since it isn't far from home, I had to go check out where this fire had been. I drove past the location, only to find that it had been the house of the guy I had waved to on the highway earlier the same morning. NO!!!!!!!! But there it was, all dark and desolate with the roof caved in, obvious even in the dark. Dirt dragged out on the road, tell-tale signs of a valiant fire attack earlier the same day.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday it rained, but the insurance adjuster came out, inspected the place, found the presumed site of the source of the fire, and gave them the OK to start cleaning it up. I found out that the probable cause for the fire was a heat lamp for some puppies that they had just bought. Nobody was at home when the fire had started, so it went unnoticed until the house was fully involved. The neighbors saw it from their place and called 911.
Thursday, I had the day off from work and decided to go over and help with the clean-up. By the time I got there, a bunch of neighbors where over there with trucks, trailers, tractors, a skid loader, and two trackhoes. Someone had arranged to have dumpsters hauled in, and they had a truck running the full dumpsters away and bringing back empty ones nonstop. They had already salvaged the few things that they could, and the wife/mom of the home was sorting through that stuff, re-evaluating, and pitching what wasn't worth keeping. By this time, they had already nocked down about half of the house and sent if off in dumpsters. We quit working at it by about 7:00PM on Thursday, and at that point there was not much left except some of the basement walls, and about enough other rubble to fill one or two dumpsters. It had been a really nice tri-level house with plenty of room inside, a two car garage, a pool out back, a nice kitchen, and a really big wooden patio and deck around the pool, and lots of trees, bushes, and flower beds all around. It's all a torn up strip of dirt now. Two days after the fire, the mess is almost cleaned up. The pool is gone. The wooden walkways, deck, and patio are gone. The two car garage is a bare concrete pad. Same for the lounge room. Basement is an almost empty hole in the ground. People came "out of the woodwork" to help clean up, and we got a lot done. Another progressive day like that, and most of the cleaning up phase should be finished. Rain is in the forecast for the weekend, so maybe more will get done next week.
The newspaper said that it was a "two-alarm" fire, with approximately 100 firefighters present at the attack. At the clean-up on Thursday, people were saying that they were told that the smoke could be seen from locations that I will estimate to be about 20+ miles away. Sorry, I don't have any pictures, but you can see some some pictures and what the Reading Eagle newspaper had to say about it here. A two-alarm fire means that the dipatchers in the 911 center sent two groups of fire departments (not only two fire departments). Each of the fire departments and ambulance services in the county fill out run cards, and submit the run cards to the 911 center. For each type of incident at any given location in the county, wether it be a fire emergency, rescue, accident, illness, or whatever else, the 911 center is able to pull these cards out for that location and determine what the chiefs want and have previously agreed upon when they call for additional assistance. In a case like this structure fire, the 911 center recieved the call and automatically dispatched the first "alarm," or group of fire departments on the run card. When the guys started arriving on location and found that it truly was a large blazing fire, it was probably their chief who asked Berks for the second alarm to be dispatched. I'm not sure, but I think most run cards have up to at least the fourth or fifth alarm listed on them. After that, they just dispatch whoever is closest, or whoever the chief asks for, but it would have to be an absolutely enormous fire before they resort to that. That said... there have been fires of that size, but very seldomly in this area. A pretty large barn fire can often be handled by a third alarm attack, maybe even fourth alarm, but that is a pretty big incident with a lot of trucks and people present. That little bit of info on those cards accounts for the potential of a large volume of effort from the community with very little or no prior notice. Not exactly the bucket brigade from the days of yore. Truth be told, our 911 center doesn't phsically pull out an actual run card anymore. Those are things of the past. The information on the cards is all entered into their computer system, and is available to the dispatcher at the click of a mouse button.
Anyway, the guy who owns the place that burnt is a builder, and he seems to be taking it fairly well, and isn't fooling around about getting things into action. The same can be said of many of the friends/neighbors who showed up to help. One of the local farmers, who's son married this guy's daughter, was joking with him about pouring footers for the new house today yet (Thursday). There's already talk of a rancher being built, but nothing is certain yet. The owner's oldest son is an excavator, and he ran the trackhoe for several hours in the afternoon, tearing down the house he grew up in. The family is staying with their married daughter/sister who just gave birth to her first baby about a week ago. People are donating clothes, help, storage space, and food. Food for the family, and food for the people who show up to help. There appeared to be a ladies' auxillary of sorts who where present to dish it out. Mennonites aren't the only ones that pull together when something like this happens, but it helps to know people. Especially farmers and other various strains of redneckish neighbors.
So after you are done reading the blog post, do what I did not too long ago. Look away from the computer, and take notice of all the stuff around you. What do you see? Things and stuff that belong to you and your family, right? What's it worth? What's it worth to you? Is it replaceable? Are you deeply and sentimentally attached to it, or is it something that you could do without? Would it irk you to loose it, or would life go on for you. Whatever it is you are looking at, it is one more than what they have right now.
Later, while on duty at Exeter, we heard Berks dispatch Bethel Ambulance...... "Beeeeeee-Booooooop.......Squad 585 Station 1, Marion Township, the area of 228... Two-two-eight.... Christmas Village Road; A fire-scene standby at the scene of a reportedly fully involved structure fire." Oh poop! At Exeter, we didn't have any radio or pager turned on with the fire department frequencies, only the EMS frequencies, so we heard very little of this story as it was occurring. Also, we were busy at Exeter on a call of our own at the time.
Later, after I was finished with my shift at 10:00pm and was driving home, I started thinking again about that dispatch for the "fully-involved structure fire." My nosey streak kicked in, and since it isn't far from home, I had to go check out where this fire had been. I drove past the location, only to find that it had been the house of the guy I had waved to on the highway earlier the same morning. NO!!!!!!!! But there it was, all dark and desolate with the roof caved in, obvious even in the dark. Dirt dragged out on the road, tell-tale signs of a valiant fire attack earlier the same day.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday it rained, but the insurance adjuster came out, inspected the place, found the presumed site of the source of the fire, and gave them the OK to start cleaning it up. I found out that the probable cause for the fire was a heat lamp for some puppies that they had just bought. Nobody was at home when the fire had started, so it went unnoticed until the house was fully involved. The neighbors saw it from their place and called 911.
Thursday, I had the day off from work and decided to go over and help with the clean-up. By the time I got there, a bunch of neighbors where over there with trucks, trailers, tractors, a skid loader, and two trackhoes. Someone had arranged to have dumpsters hauled in, and they had a truck running the full dumpsters away and bringing back empty ones nonstop. They had already salvaged the few things that they could, and the wife/mom of the home was sorting through that stuff, re-evaluating, and pitching what wasn't worth keeping. By this time, they had already nocked down about half of the house and sent if off in dumpsters. We quit working at it by about 7:00PM on Thursday, and at that point there was not much left except some of the basement walls, and about enough other rubble to fill one or two dumpsters. It had been a really nice tri-level house with plenty of room inside, a two car garage, a pool out back, a nice kitchen, and a really big wooden patio and deck around the pool, and lots of trees, bushes, and flower beds all around. It's all a torn up strip of dirt now. Two days after the fire, the mess is almost cleaned up. The pool is gone. The wooden walkways, deck, and patio are gone. The two car garage is a bare concrete pad. Same for the lounge room. Basement is an almost empty hole in the ground. People came "out of the woodwork" to help clean up, and we got a lot done. Another progressive day like that, and most of the cleaning up phase should be finished. Rain is in the forecast for the weekend, so maybe more will get done next week.
The newspaper said that it was a "two-alarm" fire, with approximately 100 firefighters present at the attack. At the clean-up on Thursday, people were saying that they were told that the smoke could be seen from locations that I will estimate to be about 20+ miles away. Sorry, I don't have any pictures, but you can see some some pictures and what the Reading Eagle newspaper had to say about it here. A two-alarm fire means that the dipatchers in the 911 center sent two groups of fire departments (not only two fire departments). Each of the fire departments and ambulance services in the county fill out run cards, and submit the run cards to the 911 center. For each type of incident at any given location in the county, wether it be a fire emergency, rescue, accident, illness, or whatever else, the 911 center is able to pull these cards out for that location and determine what the chiefs want and have previously agreed upon when they call for additional assistance. In a case like this structure fire, the 911 center recieved the call and automatically dispatched the first "alarm," or group of fire departments on the run card. When the guys started arriving on location and found that it truly was a large blazing fire, it was probably their chief who asked Berks for the second alarm to be dispatched. I'm not sure, but I think most run cards have up to at least the fourth or fifth alarm listed on them. After that, they just dispatch whoever is closest, or whoever the chief asks for, but it would have to be an absolutely enormous fire before they resort to that. That said... there have been fires of that size, but very seldomly in this area. A pretty large barn fire can often be handled by a third alarm attack, maybe even fourth alarm, but that is a pretty big incident with a lot of trucks and people present. That little bit of info on those cards accounts for the potential of a large volume of effort from the community with very little or no prior notice. Not exactly the bucket brigade from the days of yore. Truth be told, our 911 center doesn't phsically pull out an actual run card anymore. Those are things of the past. The information on the cards is all entered into their computer system, and is available to the dispatcher at the click of a mouse button.
Anyway, the guy who owns the place that burnt is a builder, and he seems to be taking it fairly well, and isn't fooling around about getting things into action. The same can be said of many of the friends/neighbors who showed up to help. One of the local farmers, who's son married this guy's daughter, was joking with him about pouring footers for the new house today yet (Thursday). There's already talk of a rancher being built, but nothing is certain yet. The owner's oldest son is an excavator, and he ran the trackhoe for several hours in the afternoon, tearing down the house he grew up in. The family is staying with their married daughter/sister who just gave birth to her first baby about a week ago. People are donating clothes, help, storage space, and food. Food for the family, and food for the people who show up to help. There appeared to be a ladies' auxillary of sorts who where present to dish it out. Mennonites aren't the only ones that pull together when something like this happens, but it helps to know people. Especially farmers and other various strains of redneckish neighbors.
So after you are done reading the blog post, do what I did not too long ago. Look away from the computer, and take notice of all the stuff around you. What do you see? Things and stuff that belong to you and your family, right? What's it worth? What's it worth to you? Is it replaceable? Are you deeply and sentimentally attached to it, or is it something that you could do without? Would it irk you to loose it, or would life go on for you. Whatever it is you are looking at, it is one more than what they have right now.
posted by GKStauffer at 23:50
2 Comments:
As representatives of an "insurance company" (correctly known as a Brotherhood Sharing Plan), I heartily agree with your last paragraph. I know it's unwise to place our security in being insured. But it's been our experience that people want to pay the minimum allowed but collect the maximum. Don't procrastinate - cover yourself adequately. And by all means, don't forget to thank God for what you've got.
Really sad. Brought back memories of when the church my mom got married in burned down.
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