Hi, all!
I received this e-mail from my sister (known here as 'Nikita') on February 12th:
Hi guys, just to fyi we had a fire that started in our dryer on Tuesday night-fortunately, I was home (with Ann's baby) and caught it at the early stages and was able to call the fire dept (another fortunate thing was our firemen just happened to be having a meeting and responded before the whistle sounded from the 911 center.) But, even so, by the time they got here it was only minutes away from blowing as at the top of our basement stairs the temp. registered 800 degrees! There is tremendous smoke damage throughout the whole house. Alex and I were fine-no major side effects from the smoke inhalation. I received some really bad bruises and cuts on my legs as I had to walk to our back yard in 2 feet of ice (every time I took a step, my feet would break through the ice) to get the dogs from the back yard so that the firemen could do their job. The cats had to be given oxygen as they were the last ones out. Another fortunate thing is we were supposed to have a new sectional sofa delivered today. Now, we are displaced-living with my in-laws, the cats are racking up a boarding bill, the dogs are with us while we await the insurance adjuster to tour the home and tell us what they will do. I am hoping they will let us just take out the carpet as I am not sure if even if it were to be cleaned it would help much. Then, there are the mattresses, the dryer, the walls, etc...On top of all this I had a tooth extracted today-yeah!