What would you do if you lost everything you own?

From This article dated July 3, 2008.

Around 3am on Wednesday morning, I was sitting at my computer working. Some of the neighborhood teenagers were shooting off fireworks (LARGE ones) in the parking lot across the street from me. About twenty minutes later, I heard sirens that sounded like they stopped right at my door. I looked out and saw a fire truck in that same parking lot, heard more sirens coming… and then smelled the smoke.

One of the fireworks had apparently landed on the corner of the rubber roof of the 3-store strip mall, and smoldered long enough to cause a fire. When he saw me outside on my porch, one fireman came over and calmly reassured me. He said that it was a small fire in the roof of the pet store at the opposite end of the mall from me, and that it would be completely contained “very soon”. He said to stay alert just in case, as there was a fireworks store attached to the pet store. I wasn’t really worried much at that point.

There weren’t even any flames at that time, just a lot of smoke. It was bothering my eyes and throat, so I came back inside. Within fifteen minutes, someone beat on my door and I could hear even more sirens coming. I opened the door to another fireman, telling me we had to “get out immediately”. What?! The fire had spread very quickly, and was threatening to get into the fireworks store at any moment. Our town’s aerial fire truck has a broken hydraulic system, and all we had were ground crews to fight a roof fire. They weren’t making much headway.

I grabbed my purse and shoes, and went out on the porch. I told the fireman that I was going back in to get our kitten. He grabbed my arm and started moving me to the steps. He refused to allow me to go back in to find Gomez, saying it was too dangerous and I had to leave. I tried to go back to at least leave my door open so he could run out. My mindset was that I’d rather have him get out and run away than have him burn in a fire. The fireman wouldn’t even let me go back for that.

They rushed me across the highway. I was directly in front of the fire, about 45-50 yards away. I watched in horror as the fire spread quickly, and flames were shooting out of the roof of the pet store and fireworks store, probably 10-12 feet in the air. The smoke was unreal. It was making my eyes, throat and chest burn, but I had nowhere to go. I stayed there for six hours with “onlookers”. Mine was the only house that was evacuated that long. You see, the wind was blowing north.. and my house is directly north of the mall. I had to watch as embers landed on the house, and smoke went pouring towards it. Most residents were allowed to go into their homes by about 6:30am. It was nearly 10am before I could, and then only after a fireman went through my whole house, attic and basement with a carbon monoxide detector.

I was video taping the fire when the big explosion occurred. You could see the flames shooting out of the fireworks store. Suddenly, you can hear me yell “Oh my god, the windows are going to blow”… two seconds later BOOM. A “fireball” of sorts had moved from the back to the front of the store, and out the windows. Since I was right across from it, I got excellent footage. My video has been shown on three television station channels now. There was only one news crew there at that point, and they were down the street, taping from an angle. I’ll embed my video at the end of this post.

I was terrified I would lose my home, my kitten, and everything we own. I kept thinking to myself “what the hell will we do? Where will we go?”. It was a horrible experience. I cannot imagine watching your own home burn… it was awful enough having to live through the possibility. The worst part was all the animals who died in the fire. There were hundreds of fish, snakes, rabbits, ferrets, birds (including the owner’s personal bird: a 20 year old Macaw who spoke many words), and 12 brand new kittens.

My 13-year-old daughter, Beka, is completely devastated. You see, she wants to be either a Vet or a Dolphin Trainer. That’s all she’s wanted to do since she was old enough to really talk. She adores animals, even snakes and rodents. The manager of the pet store loved her to death. She went over there nearly every day for the past five months. They let her help feed the animals sometimes. She played with the birds, ferrets, kittens and puppies (when they had some). She was totally in love with Niki… the Macaw. She keeps breaking down crying, and she keeps walking across the street today to stand in the parking lot, staring at the pet store and crying for the animals.

I am so grateful that my family, my kitten and our home is safe. I had to clean for a few hours to get smoke residue off walls, surfaces and floors. I aired out the house for two days now, but the smell lingers still. It’s hard to get “fresh air” in when the air outside is still heavy with the stench, as well.

This was a wake up call for me. I don’t have renter’s insurance. I guess I thought it wasn’t worth the expense, since I live on a very tight budget. This hit too close to home. We could so easily have lost everything. I called around and got quotes for renter’s insurance. I will be getting it the next time I get paid. Something else will have to wait. This is more important to me at this point.

Are you insured? Do you have escape plans in case of fire? Are you prepared? What would YOU do if you suddenly lost everything?