Wades Beach: Out of the Ashes

This was an Elvis doll I had in its original box.

We are continuing the aftermath of the fire, which was two weeks ago. On Thursday and Friday we had two long, grueling days at the house. It is a real mess, of course, and standing in the cold and muck out there is no fun. Chrissie was there all day Thursday, and I came out Friday to join her.

On Thursday she met with the architect who we think we will use. He showed Chrissie some houses and jobs he's done locally, which is a big plus. We want to use all local people to rebuild the house. She also had one contractor come out to meet her, and they went and looked at a house on the other side of the island that he worked on. She loved it.

But the big thing to happen on Thursday was the cleanup began in earnest. We have a big pod in front of the house. Workers started carting out salvageable items to it, such as dressers, bed frames, and big furniture. They got most of the stuff in there that we can save. There are two kind of items left: the total loss stuff (pretty much anything that was in the attic or the living room, which is totally destroyed) and the things we can take to have cleaned. The former is the bulk of it. For the latter, this is mostly clothing, pictures, and some books. My comics could be saved, even though there is smoke and water damage to some. But what we spent a lot of time doing was picking out clothes and putting them in big plastic bags, to haul away to be cleaned. Something else we saved and carted off was 12 framed pictures; the insurance will pay to have them professionally matted and framed.


Two Star Wars ships melted together...

Our sister-in-law created this for our wedding.
Dirty, but not destroyed.
Speaking of insurance, that is what we did from 10 am to 2 pm on Friday. To add to this drag of a day was the weather. It was 40, windy, and rained like a S.O.B. all day. A real lashing cold rain, which came through the tarp on the roof at times. But what we did with the adjuster was talk about the personal property. The house is going to be covered for the rebuild; now we go over the work of replacing what was lost. We spent several hours cataloging what was in each room, closet, and hallway. We are being 100 percent honest here, and not claiming a valuable jewelry collection or fine art was lost. Still, we want to get a check to cover what was lost.

This is a real tedious process. But we ended on a high note on Friday. We met with another contractor, also a local guy. He was so upbeat and positive, a real good guy. He thinks the house can be fixed up in six months. I came away feeling like this was not an insurmountable task to build the house all over.

The next thing to happen is the cleaning guys are going back out this week to get the kitchen packed up. I will go out Saturday for the next phase: demolition. Chrissie does not want to be there for that.

Labels: Aftermath