Texas Gardening: 'IT' is a dangerous servant and a fearful master..., 0 by podster

podster wrote:
Carl, you are 1_Lucky_Texan! That is a scary thing to wake up to. Hooray for your dog. Amazing what they can pick up on.

We woke up at the end of August to an inferno in DHs workshop. Until you have been thru it, you never know how you will react under stress. I'm pretty comfortable with my calm logic after that and the only thing I should have done that I didn't was kill the power from the breaker. I was even calm enough to remember the idiotic 911 address we were assigned and don't use. After calling the fire dept and moving our vehicle so the trucks could get in, I moved two vintage cars out of a smoldering garage next to the shop. By then the first fireman was there and took over so I went in a made pots of coffee. I found I couldn't sit still so redirected the energy. Yep, I did take photos and when all done, we took photos of the damaged items too and put all on a cd and sent it with our insurance claim. There was no questions asked and no contesting the claim. Bless this insurance company, it was the first good dealings I've ever had with insurance!

BTW, there was a full 100 gallon propane tank 10 yards away from the fire and an almost full 500 gallon propane tank about 20 yards away. Neither one popped off. The smaller one got so hot it melted the gauge and fitting ends and is still full. Neither one was connected to the building that burned.

Anyway, yes, it did force us to assess our emergency tactics as well as anticipating future problems. One of the things on the agenda is to raise our property values on the insurance policy because rebuilding costs have increased phenominally. The other thing that came to mind was photograph every wall in the house, open every closet and cabinet door and take pictures. You can not imagine how hard it is to recall what all you have lost in a fire. When we cleaned it up, certain refuse would remind us of other items lost. Even today, we say we have, er had one of those. Still recalling lost goods. Absolutely on having a plan. We didn't but will next time. Glad your loss wasn't major and we hope no one else in the neighborhood suffered more than anxiety and lack of sleep.