BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires

Subject: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 07:47 PM

The club is already too big. Who is in it, and what happened to you? What has helped your recovery, and how far along in it are you now?

===

Our fire was in December 5, 2000. We lost most of a 2-story addition, all blended-family memorabilia, had major water damage to big appliances, and major smoke damage in the whole house including an enormously powerful old Mac which Amos had just sold me.

We had insurance on the contents, TBTG. Had a pretty hairy legal sitch. No people were home when it happened but the pets were terrified (no deaths). No music stuff lost, amazingly and TBTG.

The landlord rewired the house the night of the fire, so we could stay in the house, God bless him and the farm systems guy who helped him while we poured coffee and hung out with them in the "warm" basement. We lost only one night out of the house. Gosh-- neighbors, here.... Neighbors also limited the amount of fire and got the gas turned off. Another one took the most terrified critter, no questions asked as I just sort of dumped her and headed back to the hot ash-pile to look for the cats (who had hidden and didn't get found for days). TBTG the daughter with mono was asleep at SCHOOL and not HERE. A whole chain of "but for the Grace of God" moments, thanks to the kind of people we have here.

Our main support was... each other and the Church Insurance Corp. which honored our wish not to sue the landlord-- tho he was (unknowingly thru his insurance) suing us for several years. (When his mom/our original landlady found out about the lawsuits that had hung over us for so long, she pitched a fit at her lawyers and made them drop it "AT ONCE, why didn't you TELL us????!!!")

The church treasurer came over the night it happened, barged right into our shivering shame and shock (TBTG), and gave us an early paycheck for emergency lodging. He also stored all our handguns till we were ready, and his wife sent us one of their Sunday suppers to DIE FOR.

The landlord sent a fresh deer our way the week after it happened. We found it sitting by the back door, unannounced, and immediately passed it along to a clergy couple up the road with hungry teenagers (able to pick it up and dress it).

Seamus Kennedy. He knows what he did, blessed man.

I had just left my Red Cross managership the week or two before. The local fire guys and I had a good laugh about their presence being the hard way to get a clean house. We were so surprised to come home and find all the red trucks at OUR house!!!

Worst practical difficulty-- the whole back end of the house lost its airlock in a bad winter, and then the rebuild took forever with insurance companies fighting-- so we lived in ashes for WAY too long-- including a chilly spring MudGather (dear, DEAR Bert and others, LH... ).

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 08:06 PM

When I look around at all the stuff I have collected over the years, I think, a fire is one of the very worst things that could happen.
Photos of the girls, their voices on tape, memorabilia,the clock that my Fathers boss gave him the year I was born,instruments, records that my Grandmother owned. None of it can ever be replaced.
To those of you who have suffered this horror, bless you all.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Melissa
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 08:12 PM

family home and later the same winter the tipi I was living in was arsoned..and although I'm willing to check in on this thread, I have absolutely no interest in telling stories about it or doing anything that reminds me to revisit the heartbreak.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 08:51 PM

Thanks, Melissa, and bless you in your healing. I understand. It took a long time for me to start talking about it.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 06:13 AM

I should think that Melissa's response will be shared by others who read this thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 06:57 AM

One of my colleagues some years ago had just finished 'doing up' his semi-detached home for his little family and the prat next door used a blow torch to remove old paint from his bargeboards. He set the whole roof alight and the two houses were left a smouldering ruin. The poor man sat in our staffroom and sobbed his heart out, we were all in tears. They were put in hotel accommodation for months while the thing was rebuilt. But it seemed to affect his marriage, and shortly after, they separated. Horrific.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 09:57 AM

I should think that Melissa's response will be shared by others who read this thread!

Of course it will! (PTSD acts like that.) And it's not up to ay of us to post someone else's story, which is why I have not "listed" the several folks I know (via PM) who have been through this-- and IMO neither should anyone else.

Each person has a unique way out of stress-- the best path out of any deep hole is the one you can SEE.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 12:16 PM

Sorry Susan, but I find the predeliction of some, mostly Americans I'm sad to say, to live their life in public, somewhat disturbing.
I ya got PTSD, then I would guess that it might be better to take it to someone medically qualified, to discuss. Rather than people you don't know, haven't met, and who may be suffering too, and don't need reminding.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 12:30 PM

I see, Wysiwyg. I should not have described my colleague's experience. Very sorry if I have transgressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 01:01 PM

I understood where Susan was going with this one. John, it looks like you're jumping to a conclusion that discussions with people you don't know personally aren't productive. Look at all of the dedicated online fora dealing with PTSD or other mental health issues - Freud's "talking cure" need not be confined to a closed room one-on-one discussion. The simple act of sharing can help others therapeutically, especially if it generates a discussion. And Americans aren't the only ones living their lives in public in this day and age. Revolutions are happening around the world right now because formerly repressed individuals are able to finally live in public (facebook and twitter may have their silliness problems, but they have been a gift to populations where public gatherings were frowned upon or suppressed making it hard to compare notes or get the word out.)

Mudcatters who have experienced fires have often started their own threads or participated in those started on their behalf. We have some very private individuals who discuss bare minimum of details, simply to let friends and family know they're okay, end of story. Others have shared the process of rebuilding and posted photos on their facebook pages or elsewhere.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 04:50 PM

Popular is totally different from personal Stilly.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Melissa
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 04:53 PM

This shitawful thread title horrifies me every time it pops to the top of the list!



John, it's really not a very high percentage of us who broadcast everything..it just seems like it because the ones who do are so loud.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: GUEST,Manuel
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 05:38 PM

I'm quite taken aback by the response of Susan (who, after all, started this thread) to Eliza's obviously well-intentioned contribution to the discussion. It could quite easily have been me, rather than Eliza, who chose to bring up, in suitably general terms, the unfortunate experience of someone else with fire. If you felt so strongly about contributions of this kind, Susan, you ought to have made that clear from the outset, on opening your thread. In my respectful view, you have not been fair to Eliza, who has once again demonstrated to the rest of us, by her entirely unnecessary apology to you, what a wonderfully polite and sensitive human being she is.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 08:35 PM

Losing one's home to a fire is as scarey as death itself... It is something that everyone has thought about... Fortunately, most of us will never know that pain...

Susan, Melissa, maeve do know about that pain...

I came close back in West Virginia... There was an attached potting room which caught fire and I really thought that I was not going to stop it but, TBTG, there was rain barrel right outside the door and I was able to throw bucket after bucket on the fire and eventually got it under control...

For me that was "the big fear"... As you go about trying to stop a fire you don't think about those things: pictures, guitars, books, your stuff but the second that you know you have stopped the fire everything that you own jumps into your mind...

Yes, I was lucky... But I fully know the terror of losing your stuff...

My heart goes out to everyone here and elsewhere who has gone thru that... It's a piece of you that is cut out and not replaced... Just an empty hole...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Beer
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 09:13 PM

I have been reading this thread and was holding back. Thanks Bobert for your well written note. Judy and I went through it in 2007 and it was very very tough. However, we are both still alive and enjoying retirement.
Adrien

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: ClaireBear
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 09:50 PM

I am going through it now. Happened on Halloween, reconstruction yet to get underway. It's no secret, but I but have not got a lot that I want to share about the experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Feb 12 - 10:37 PM

My remark was not directed at Eliza, but was a general comment that MY opinion is that it's best if we not post about other MUDCATTERS who have been thru this. It's a mere opinion: this is, after all, not a moderated (controlled) thread.

===

Beer, I never knew. I'm so glad you are enjoying retirement!

===

ClaireBear, you've been in my thoughts. It gets better, really it does. I am sure you are doing exactly what you need to do-- as I am sure each of us would be.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Feb 12 - 04:07 AM

Balm to one person's wounds, is salt for another's.
Self indulgence has unexpected consequences!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 08 Feb 12 - 05:15 AM

I can't imagine a UK clerical household (OK, outside of N.Ireland!) needing to store several handguns! *BG* Glad you're getting back to normal, Susan, it must have been an awful experience.

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Feb 12 - 04:42 AM

Get over it or get therapy.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 06:00 AM

There is one hell of a fire burning now at Tilbury Power Station, in Essex. Has to be about 80 Fire engines here.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 06:32 AM

I can smell smoke from nearly the Isle of Grain - but it might be something else.

BBC News: -


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-17177035

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcatters Who've Had Housefires
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Feb 12 - 12:37 AM

I used to fight forest fires in the US Forest Service. Once you have that instinct to respond and you can identify what is burning (so many different smells - grass vs trees vs smoldering wood vs wires vs petroleum products vs plastic, etc.) then it's hard to ignore. But you can usually tell if it is nearby or in the distance and someone else is probably already fighting it.

Late in the fall we had one in the neighborhood I had to drive around to find because it smelled so close - turns out it was a huge compost pile that had started (spontaneous combustion) a few blocks north of us, across the highway.

SRS