Second Fire

Tuesday morning after we wandered around the apartment trying to comprehend the damage, we went and check on the fish. Despite the tank full of ash in the bedroom, they were all alive, in both the 29 gallon tank and the 55. We made a quick run to the store for large buckets and aerators and spent several hours making sure every last fish was in the buckets. We even managed to get four of the little tiny baby fish that had been born several months before. We took them to my place and they stayed in buckets on the dining room floor for about four days. I also managed to grab a few of my clothes from the closet that didn't smell like smoke, a few sentimental items and a couple other random things, like the box set of Firefly DVDs that had been in the duffle bag in the bedroom. One of the items of clothing was a gorgeous dress my mom bought me last summer. I wore it to a wedding Anthony was in, and it was (originally) a 250 dollar dress. She didn't pay that much for it, of course, it was on sale, but I would have been devastated if it had been destroyed. We also rescued the irreplaceable antique diamond ring my parents bought me and the necklace Anthony bought me for our first Valentine's Day together. Plus, my medication. All very important things to save.

On wednesday Anthony tried to go to work. Partway through the day he got a call from the field agent from his insurance. He went to the apartment and discussed what was salvageable and what wasn't with her. The bedroom was in fairly good shape, the ceiling was still intact and there hadn't been too much water sprayed around. Shortly after she left, while he was sorting through a few things in the room, he smelled smoke. He could see it coming down from the ceiling above the closet, got out, and called the fire department again. They arrived very quickly, but the closet ceiling collapsed and almost everything in the closet was completely soaked. The bedroom got an additional soaking, and what had been completely salvageable, was now damaged.