It has been quite a week....plenty of challenges and much reflection.
This past Friday (6/27) we were enjoying dinner with family when we got a call from our babysitter that she saw some smoke coming out of our upstairs bathroom vent and that she got everyone outside and called 911...Rachel we can't thank you enough for getting everyone out safely and calling right away. Needless to say we moved quite quickly to get back home. On our way down our street we saw 4 fire engines, fire hoses across the street and a lot of fire fighters....reality began to sink in. Unable to get down the street we parked and quickly walked to our home along with half of our neighborhood. There we were met with our kids and babysitter....although we knew they were safe, it was great to see their faces. The fire department had already given all of the kids fire hats and Lindsey a teddy bear. Lindsey kept repeating, "there's a fire in my house....I'm not scared, I'm brave"....like she does with thunder as she tries to convince herself.
After talking with our babysitter we found that Lindsey helped save our house. They were at the park when, conveniently, Lindsey had to go the bathroom, and then followed up by wetting her pants (parents of 2 year olds feel the pain). Our babysitter had to go upstairs to get fresh cloths before heading back to the park, which is when she found smoke in the bathroom. Thanks Lindsey :-) It makes me think twice when I get annoyed by little inconveniences not knowing what we could be spared from.
We are so grateful for all of those at the Midland Fire Department who responded quickly to put out the fire. They even removed our pictures off the wall to keep them from being damaged by the fire.
They worked hard into the night making sure all of the fire was out, seemingly unaware of the crazy storm that they were working through. After the fire was put out I saw one of the firemen kneel in prayer. It was so symbolic of all of our gratitude to God that things were not any worse....hours later we could have been sleeping only feet from where the fire started.
After hours on end we were able to go in the house to see the extent of the damage. I was relieved and taken back at the same time. The little fire in my mind was much larger than I expected. The fire had been smoldering for several hours before it was discovered. The source of the fire, wiring in the attic, was smoldering in the attic by the blown in insulation. Several of the trusses were completely burned through, but a flame never reached the roof. The fire was kept very local.
Jordan and Lindsey were quite taken back by the damage like the rest of us.
So amongst counting our blessings and much reflection we are working through getting the repairs done and the tedious efforts of getting rid of all the smoke and water damage throughout the house. We have been in a hotel since Friday night (Ethan & Jordan..."Cool, like Suite Life of Zach & Cody"....if you don't have kids or watch the Disney Chanel, never mind). We will probably be out of our house for quite some time until every thing is back to normal. Thank you so much all of those who have helped us out during this time and have offered to help, your love and support is felt.
As far as Captured Productions is concerned no equipment was impacted. The fire definitely reinforced our extensive back-up strategy (miniDV tapes, local hard drives, and off site hard drive back-ups of our weddings). It also reinforces our back-up strategy for our million digital personal photos (local hard drives, local back-up hard drives, DVDs, offsite internet back-up (Carbonite, Mozy, soon to be MobileMe)). If you don't back-up offsite, definitely reconsider what could happen to all of your prized memories.
We will have future updates on how things are going. It is still business as usual with no major shifts to our production schedule even with the million hours being spent on getting things back to normal. Being out of our in home studio will definitely change our workflow so if there are any delays, please be patient....hotel internet isn't quite as fast and dependable as our studio.
This experience has once again reconfirmed the importance of capturing memories and preserving them for years to come.
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