FIRE

Fire Fighters...you gotta love them!

Alright, I know that most of you have already read this (this is from the email I sent in Nov or something...) But I felt I should add it to the list of stories...because it definitely was quite a crazy couple of months back then.

So you all are probably wondering why I moved already. Because before I was living in Downtown Brooklyn and also loved that apartment and my roommates there. But unfortunately forces out of our control kinda convinced us all to move out. Basically there was a fire in our
apartment building. The fire didn't spread to our apartment, but we had fire damage and me and my roommates ended up being homeless for about 5 weeks. Luckily I have some amazing friends here in NY and was able to crash in an extra bedroom or on the couch. But it wasn't easy
being homeless and having to search for a new apartment.

Anyways, you're probably a bit intrigued to know more details about the fire....so here they are.

It all started on a Monday morning about 2 months ago now. Me and my roommate were woken up at 4:30am by the crazies on our street yelling "Fire, Fire" at us. There usually are crazy people yelling on our street, so at first I was just confused...but when it continued I looked out my window and saw that they were serious. So then I heard our door buzzer going off and the smoke alarm going off as well. My roommate and I ran out of our rooms (one of my roommates luckily wasn't there) and I went to answer the door buzzer. That weekend we had just got a new video door answering thing...so I picked it up and the guy outside just yelled into the phone "get everyone out." So yeah...that was pretty freaky. And on the video I could see people
running out the front door....

So me and my roommate look at each other and were like...Fire escape. So we ran into my room. I opened my window and we climbed over my air conditioner...under the window out onto the fire escape. Just to get out there...look over the edge and see orange smoke pouring up at us.
And then everyone on the street started yelling at us not to go down.

I was like...not go down...but this is the way we get out. I mean it is the FIRE ESCAPE! Honestly thinking back...standing on the fire escape was the scariest thing I have ever had to do. Going out there at all to escape is crazy enough. But being told not to go down...yeah, that wasn't so cool.

Anyways, so we both scramble back into my room...and run to our front door. The only path left for us to escape was the main staircase. Luckily I had seen people going out our front door. So I knew it wasn't blocked and it could be ok to go that way. So I felt the door knob with the back of my hand (yes, I'm very proud of myself for that...all those times I went into that smoke house things put on by the local firefighters during elementary school definitely paid off). It wasn't hot...so we opened the door and just sprinted down the stairs and out the front door. The staircase was filled with smoke and smoke was pouring out of the walls--yeah, freaky!

But we made it outside safely. As we just got outside the fire department arrived and started to get to work to putting out the fire. We were so impressed with how fast they got there...supposedly the guy who gives away papers next to the subway called them. After that
day...I definitely loved all the random people on our street! They basically saved our lives!

The fire ended up being in the flower shop below us. And conveniently it was right beneath the fire escape and next to the door. But the fire fighters pulled out their big chain saw and opening the grate covering the door and quickly put out the fire. We didn't really even see them use much water. After that they opened some of the shops next door to make sure it didn't spread. They also went into all of our apartments to probably check for people and help get the smoke out (which basically entails them punching holes in walls and breaking windows).

We were lucky though because for some reason they didn't have to break any of our windows...even though all the other apartment's windows were broken. So at about 8:30 or 9...we were allowed back into our apartment to change and take out anything we would need. Yes...for about 4 hours I was sitting on the street in my pjs...awesome. After we grabbed some stuff we waited to see when we could lock our apartment back up because we didn't want to be louted. And after we locked up me and my roommates went our separate ways.

You can see all the broken widows with plastic bags covering them...

I went up to Midtown to get apartment keys from my good friend Courtney...then went to her place to nap and shower. I totally smelled like smoke...it was pretty awful. My roommate even said that people moved away from him on the subway because he smelled so bad! Later that day I went into work to explain the whole ordeal. It was perfect timing...because we had a HUGE deadline later that week on the project i was working on...but you really can't plan for fires. Anyways, I only ended up working half days for the rest of the week before I flew home for one of my best friend, Danielle's wedding.

Here are the photos...

Our front door...conveniently located right next to the fire.

The Flower Shop...and oh yes, there is the fire escape (once again conveniently located right in front of the fire)