§ August 28, 2006
Surreal!
We've been in the middle of the biggest drought Dallas has seen in a long time. Every day has over 100°F and my asthma's been killing me. My water bill has been only a little bit less expensive my mortgage payment lately, and every time it rains (uhm, I mean both times it's rained, [this summer]), the rain seems to hover about 2 feet off the ground just before it runs off down the gutter. It's so dry my boss recently lost a golf ball down a crack in the ground at the golf course (how would you score that btw)... I think you get the point.
This afternoon my son wanted to go over and play at my wife's parents house (who live directly behind us), so he and my wife took the long trek across the alley to go play. Just after they left, it started "coming up a flood" as they say here in Texas (which loosley translates to a "torrential downpour"). After a while I went over with an umbrella so they could come home with out getting soaked. While we were over talking w/ my father in law, it thundered (and lightininged how ever you'd say that, at the same time) the loudest I've ever heard it. We laughed and said how close that one was because there was no pause between the flash and the boom.
As we walked across the alley back to our house, we smelled wood burning (this seemed odd for such a hot afternoon). Looking down the alleyway we could actually see smoke low to the ground like fog in the early morning. My wife took our son back in our house as I ran down our street to see if I could see what was burning. As I walked down the street, the smoke grew thicker and thicker. Some of my neighbors were out, and we all started running towards the smoke (joking about how much help we would all be: wearing our rain soaked "flip-flops").
That lightning we'd heard had actually struck our neighbors house! There was dark smoke billowing out of their attic vent, and a few people were standing out in front of the house across the street from the one burning. The fire department was just pulling up, and you could see fire starting to peek out of the roof of their house. It didn't seem like much at first. The firemen quickly (though it seemed like forever) got hoses hooked up and went into the house. All of the sudden the vent where we first started seeing smoke pouring out, erupted into a big ball of flames. The fireball was literally inches from the neighbor's house.
Minutes later what was a tiny hole in the roof of the house had turned into a big black void where the roof of the attic used to be. The entire roof had flames shooting up 15 to 20 feet from the top of what used to be the crest of the house. The whole scene was surreal.
As I watched--in horror--my neighbors house burn, I couldn't help but think that this could very well be my house disintegrating before my eyes. We do, after all, have the tallest house on the block. At one point the ceiling in the master bedroom fell through, and you could see the fire burning uncontrolled through the bedroom window like the glass of a fireplace shielding the raging fire that you typically build to keep warm in the dead of winter. I felt so sad for these people though I didn't know them from Adam. I can't imagine what it must have felt like to so helplessly watch everything in your life go up in flames. They had escaped from their home with their lives... and nothing else. That's a pretty harsh reality to come to terms with. I still find it very difficult to go to sleep thinking about it. Everything smells of smoke (the damp night air has a lot to do with it I'm sure), and serves as a constant reminder of just how fortunate we were today. Fifteen minutes was all it took for that house to completely burn to the ground.
It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
God help us all.
We've been in the middle of the biggest drought Dallas has seen in a long time. Every day has over 100°F and my asthma's been killing me. My water bill has been only a little bit less expensive my mortgage payment lately, and every time it rains (uhm, I mean both times it's rained, [this summer]), the rain seems to hover about 2 feet off the ground just before it runs off down the gutter. It's so dry my boss recently lost a golf ball down a crack in the ground at the golf course (how would you score that btw)... I think you get the point.
This afternoon my son wanted to go over and play at my wife's parents house (who live directly behind us), so he and my wife took the long trek across the alley to go play. Just after they left, it started "coming up a flood" as they say here in Texas (which loosley translates to a "torrential downpour"). After a while I went over with an umbrella so they could come home with out getting soaked. While we were over talking w/ my father in law, it thundered (and lightininged how ever you'd say that, at the same time) the loudest I've ever heard it. We laughed and said how close that one was because there was no pause between the flash and the boom.
As we walked across the alley back to our house, we smelled wood burning (this seemed odd for such a hot afternoon). Looking down the alleyway we could actually see smoke low to the ground like fog in the early morning. My wife took our son back in our house as I ran down our street to see if I could see what was burning. As I walked down the street, the smoke grew thicker and thicker. Some of my neighbors were out, and we all started running towards the smoke (joking about how much help we would all be: wearing our rain soaked "flip-flops").
That lightning we'd heard had actually struck our neighbors house! There was dark smoke billowing out of their attic vent, and a few people were standing out in front of the house across the street from the one burning. The fire department was just pulling up, and you could see fire starting to peek out of the roof of their house. It didn't seem like much at first. The firemen quickly (though it seemed like forever) got hoses hooked up and went into the house. All of the sudden the vent where we first started seeing smoke pouring out, erupted into a big ball of flames. The fireball was literally inches from the neighbor's house.
Minutes later what was a tiny hole in the roof of the house had turned into a big black void where the roof of the attic used to be. The entire roof had flames shooting up 15 to 20 feet from the top of what used to be the crest of the house. The whole scene was surreal.
As I watched--in horror--my neighbors house burn, I couldn't help but think that this could very well be my house disintegrating before my eyes. We do, after all, have the tallest house on the block. At one point the ceiling in the master bedroom fell through, and you could see the fire burning uncontrolled through the bedroom window like the glass of a fireplace shielding the raging fire that you typically build to keep warm in the dead of winter. I felt so sad for these people though I didn't know them from Adam. I can't imagine what it must have felt like to so helplessly watch everything in your life go up in flames. They had escaped from their home with their lives... and nothing else. That's a pretty harsh reality to come to terms with. I still find it very difficult to go to sleep thinking about it. Everything smells of smoke (the damp night air has a lot to do with it I'm sure), and serves as a constant reminder of just how fortunate we were today. Fifteen minutes was all it took for that house to completely burn to the ground.
It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
God help us all.
Posted 2 years, 5 months ago on August 28, 2006
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