early morning wake-up call; the worst kind...

Imagine waking up at 4:30am to the screams of a neighbor yelling "get out, FIRE!" repeatedly over and over again. I don't have to imagine much as that was my wake up call this morning.

Originally thinking that the neighbor was yelling at a possible homeless person to get out of our carport area I quickly realized that maybe she meant something bigger. I grabbed my cell phone, somehow managed to get Frankie into his carrier and got out quickly leaving everything else behind. The entire time all I heard was the exploding of tires and glass shattering.

Local stations on Hillhurst and Bronson were dispatched and contained the fire rather fast. 2 units took the brunt of the fire but surprisingly made it through without much damage. My living room wall is connected to the backside of the carport and the interior walls were smoldering so now I've got a chunk missing from the corner of my living room. Most units have soot covering everything and smell of smoke. And obviously all 4 cars in the carport are no longer operational.

We are very lucky that considering the potential for damage we escaped on the better side of things and as a complex became even closer that we already were. Quite a bonding experience and good to know we are all looking out for each other, even those who aren't in our building.

Most extra special thanks goes to Claudette, the neighbor behind our building that successfully woke us all from deep sleep in time to get out safely.

Photos of the aftermath:

And finally, a Flickr set. Some repeats.

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Comments

[julius]

GAH! I am glad you are ok. If you need a place to crash let me know.

[Jason]

I've been there before. Glad you made it out. Keep your head up!

[Melanie]

Wow! Thank goodness you're all ok! If there's anything you need or any way I can be of help, let me know.

[Lisa]

Sha-nay-nay .. how scary! Glad you and Frankie made it out in time and your apt. is relatively in one piece. I'm here for you if you need to talk. xo

[Laura]

Crazy! Glad you and Frankie are ok. Scary stuff.

[shannon]

Thank you all for your concern. I'm OK, if just a bit overwhelmed and forever grateful that the fire was contained as quickly as it was. It is so true that the sooner the fire department gets the word the better the chances are...put your local fire station number in your cell phone now. You never know when you'll need it. I tried 911 at least 3 times from my cell before I was able to get through. Granted one of those times I threw the phone down as I was attempting to shove frankie in his cat carrier but still...

[Rico A]

I'm so glad you're all right! Has anyone figured out what happened?