Horrible news from yesterday in my neighborhood

[tlspiegel]

Two houses in the neigborhood blew up - no one knows exactly what happened, but it was a gas leak water heater. One of the houses my good friends live in. 3 dogs, they raise birds, fish - everyone is safe. The houses are one street away from me - directly across the street... so I can see everything. There are 10 fire trucks and just as many police cars. These are good friends of mine. So, I'm going to be helping out as I can. V is about to have a nervous breakdown - the flames were 50 feet high and the smoke damage - well, you can imagine. Thank God it happened in the middle of the day when people were awake.

D (my good friend across the street) has V and G's dogs. One of the dogs had to be rescued - he's a yorkie, hard of hearing and old. Rocky the chihuahua is safe, and so is Sugar their part wolf/shepherd dog.

The second house where the fire went to (my friends) is on a corner, so it could have gone to many more houses.

It's very freaky. Both house are being gutted by the firemen - what wasn't damaged is being taken out and destroyed. It will take a year to restore the houses. G had over 25K in new a/c equipment on the roof.
Everyone is safe and it's only material things, but it's a horrible shock.

Taco is 15... he was going to be put down today because he is very very sick. Some relatives just took him out of D house and he is going to dog heaven.

G has lived in that house 31 years! He built it. The investigators are examining what caused the explosion next door. I can't tell you how horrific the damage is. I feel so badly for them.

The Red Cross offered to put them in a hotel until... but they are going to stay in their 5th wheel next to the house. It's stocked with everything they might need.

The insurance people were there in a few hours after being called. And the fire dept was here in 10 min. The entire 'hood has offered to help. It's an amazing neighborhood - we all stick together, so that's good!

Fire Dept came back later in the day, and they have a truck sitting out there all night long - firemen taking shifts.

It was an electrical fire that started in the people next door's garage - chemicals caught fire and the rest is history.

It's really a huge mess, but everyone is going to be ok. The local Li'l Cesars donated tons of pizza's to the 2 families and all their relatives and helpers.

Taco is in doggy heaven, the other 2 dogs are with G and V and they will be living in their 5th wheel - brand new and huge.

The house where it started: couple has been married 5 years - anniversary coming up soon and both of their b'days are this week.
You just never know... you wake up and figure today is going to be just like every other day and then your life changes in less than 2 seconds.
The other good news though - V and G live on a corner, so the fire didn't spread to anyone else, other wise it would have traveled house to house to house. And, it happened in broad daylight when everyone was awake.

V told me the news folks 'tried' to interview her and she resisted bigtime. I don't know if it even made the news because Arizona is in the beginning stages of a VERY bad fire season. First one is not that far away from here - in Payson area. We haven't had rain in almost 4 months and it's as dry as a bone here. It IS the desert, but we normally have some rain in the winter. Fire season started very early this year.

On the good side of the news: Chico now weighs 2.2oz. and is completely housebroken at 15 weeks. I learned one thing: Never use newspapers to start potty training. First time I did that and it set us back at least 2 weeks. But he's got his little act together and is a real charmer.

[iluvcoupons]

My only advice right now would be to take a bubble bath and try to relax after that.

[hattielee]

Wow! Glad to hear no one was hurt. It's great the neighborhood is pulling together to help out.

[mayfly]

Oh my word, how freaky!!! This is one reason I don't trust gas! My friend got burned very badly when her gas oven blew up.

[tlspiegel]

Mayfly - if you read my OP - turned out it wasn't gas. Anyway, the cause has been determined.

Update on cause of fire. Wasn't chemicals. The guy next door - where it started - had a lot of technical equipment (computers, servers) in the garage, and for some strange unknown reason the socket where one thing was plugged in exploded.

[mayfly]

oh sorry, I am guilty of post skimming *hangs head in shame*
Glad they found out what caused it.

[john928]

Sorry to hear about your news. That's one thing that I would never have in my house is "GAS".

I have never trusted it and it was only about 3 years ago that a major gas line was put down not far from my house. It is running under the ground and is not further than a mile away from my house.

Originally Posted by tlspiegel

Mayfly - if you read my OP - turned out it wasn't gas. Anyway, the cause has been determined.

Update on cause of fire. Wasn't chemicals. The guy next door - where it started - had a lot of technical equipment (computers, servers) in the garage, and for some strange unknown reason the socket where one thing was plugged in exploded.

This is for john928----

TobyLee: That's quite a frightening thing to see, and I'm glad all parties are safe. One never knows when something is going to hit and this is another freaky incident. It never made the news here so I guess it happens all the time somewhere.

[tlspiegel]

Thanks Sandy. Everyone is going to be fine. Shock will not go away for a long time though.