Telecommuting from Paradise - Not What I Had Planned
Now for a sobering post about what happened to me this past June while I was sleeping at my home away from home. During the summers, my wife and I frequently go to the shore (in our case, the Chesapeake Bay) as many people do in my region. I often go down Thursday night and work from there on Fridays so that the fishing can commence swiftly after the workday. My wife will come down after work Friday but won’t get there until after it’s too late for me to dip the fishing lines in the water - thus, my Thursday arrivals. As I mentioned in my previous post, it doesn’t matter where you work when you have a work at home job as long as you have the basic necessities at your disposal.
This particular Thursday evening started as many do once I arrived after the 2 1/2 hour journey - with dinner - and I grilled lamb chops on the BBQ that night. I’ve been cooking for many years but I still haven’t found the trick to grilling lamb chops without grease-induced flames, so they became a bit charred (I need to use the indirect heat method next time). No, this wasn’t the source of the fire you see above, but it plays into the story…
I spent some time on the Internet that night, watched some television and went to bed around 10:30. I was unusually restless that night and left the room 3 times to get a drink of water in the kitchen - something I never do (once I’m in bed, I stay!). The first of those three times I smelled something funny - a smoky, burnt smell, but I assumed it was the remnants of the BBQ’d lamb that was then residing in the waste bin. I went back to sleep and I realized the next day I had been sleeping for hours as the fire started and grew.
I woke up two more times and during the third awakening at 5:00 AM I decided that the charred smell wasn’t BBQ lamb - something was very wrong. I left the bedroom (located on the left side of the house below) and I looked out the glass doors in the center of the rear of the house and saw flames shooting out of the other side of the house. At this moment I encountered the first situation in my lifetime where I felt truly powerless and quickly decided to jettison myself from the house.
Being someone that wears corrective contact lenses, I was in a vulnerable position as I had no time to put them into my eyes so I was running blind to a degree. I threw on minimal clothes, no shoes, no lenses, no wallet, no keys, no cell phone, hit the ADT Security fire alarm button and left the house with the cordless phone in my hand while dialing 911. I had enough time to tell the emergency operator my street address, she blurted out the name of my city and the phone went dead (power line inside was burned through). I learned later that since she lost contact with me part way through the conversation, she put the call into the emergency crews as if I was trapped in the fire. Luckily at this point I was safe in the backyard, walking around with very poor vision in the dark - but safe.
Twenty-five mile per hour winds off the Bay were fanning the flames and expediting the spread of the fire, which started in the garage area and entered the attic, spreading across the breadth of the home. At this point my SUV - my immaculately maintained Porsche Cayenne that was parked in front of the garage and the boat parked beside it were absorbed by 40 foot flames. The remnants left over after the fire are below. It was as if a missile had hit them.
Within 25 minutes, the fire department was present and starting to take control of the fire. My neighbors quickly arrived and offered any assistance they could provide. In all, five fire departments arrived from as far away as 40 minutes. Within about two hours the fire was out and I could commence doing something productive like asking the fire department to retrieve any of a few key items: contact lenses, keys, wallet, shoes, cell phone, and oh yes, my work laptop. The laptop was scorched, melted and contorted, but fortunately the hard drive was magically intact.
I had backed up my work data a few days before and it was fortunately at the other house so I was safe either way. This fire is now why I use Mozy, which is a remote backup service over the Internet (safely encrypted). In the case of fire, your backups are offsite and not just sitting on top of the computer in an external device prone to the same disasters that your source computer is.
There’s much more to tell on the fire story relative to insurance claims (all stories are positive so far) and other recovery activities, but suffice to say this is the most eventful night of my life - and thankfully I still have one. In the end, they ruled it an electrical fire, possibly coming from a power screwdriver battery. Rebuild planning continues as I write this.
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4 Responses to “Telecommuting from Paradise - Not What I Had Planned”
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that is awful to have something like that happen. Thankfully you were not hurt. Cars and boats can be replaced, but you can’t.
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Praise the Lord you are okay.
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Oh my god, luckily you’re alright. No joke though, that Cayenne photo is one of the saddest photos I’ve ever seen! Hopefully insurance stuff continues to go positively - good luck!
Paddy
(patrickwilly.com)
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That’s a horrible life’s moment but there’s also a moral to it. It’s great that you drew some of it and you’re able to write about this experience with calm.
I’d also add that not getting enough sleep can cause pretty bad situations. A significant percentage of airplane crashes are attributed to sleep disturbances experienced by pilots, not to mention car crashes.
I have a similar experience when I was renewing my life rescuer license. To cut the long story short, after sleeping 3h I felt from 5 meters straight on my butt! My head fell one feet away from a stone - even helmet wouldn’t help much. Luckily, I didn’t break anything thanks to rain that fell one day before, softening the ground.
Anyway, I hope this experience will only make you stronger.
Get well and get enough sleep!
Cheers!
Shonzilla
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