I know I still have a few weeks of back pictures to post, but everything was put on hold this week when the Waldo Canyon Fire started in Colorado Springs.
For those of you who don't know our history in Colorado Springs, we moved there in 2007 when I was pregnant with Jack. The month before Jack was born we bought a house. Two years later, Luke was transferred to Switzerland We really loved Colorado Springs and liked our house so we decided not to sell it. Instead we hired a management company and rented out the house. The family who rented our house really liked it and have been in the house the entire time we were in Switzerland.
Fast forward to our current trip in the US, we flew to Colorado on June 20th (Wednesday) and then on Thursday we made a trip down to the Springs to visit friends and check on our house. Everything was great and we drove back to my parents house two hours north of the Springs. On Saturday June 23rd the Waldo Canyon fire started and for a while it was not an issue. I was in contact with friends in the Springs and although the air was smokey, no homes were threatened. It seemed like all of the sudden things took a turn for the worse. On Wednesday June 26th the fire moved into the community of Mountain Shadows (where our house is). I watched in horror as friends posted pictures of the fire growing and growing.
When I saw this picture, my heart sank. I recognized the top of the church right away. Our house is somewhere in the smoke/flames.
There was no information on what homes had been destroyed. I tried to find information on the internet and the only thing I could find was this map which showed the burned areas.
And then I found pictures of homes in the Mountain Shadows community:
I was sure that our home was destroyed along with all of our neighbors.
While all this was going on, Luke was on a business trip in England and had no idea about the fires or our house or anything. He had no cellphone and no internet connection either so I had no way of contacting him. I decided it was for the better that he didn't know, this way he could concentrate on his work and then deal with our house when he got back.
Thursday morning I found these aerial pictures of the aftermath of the fire:
I emailed the photographer and he sent me a high resolution version of the image and I was able to zoom in and see our house... still standing
Luke got home late Thursday night and I debriefed him on the whole situation. We were both anxious to find out what happened to our house, but we couldn't find any information. Our tenants were invited to a private meeting on Thursday night to hear the status of all the affected homes. Everyone who attended was given a list of addresses and next to each one was listed "total loss" "visible damage" or "no visible damage." Our house was listed as "visible damage"
That is all the information we have right now. It will be several days before they open up our streets again, so until then we just have to wait.
For those of you who don't know our history in Colorado Springs, we moved there in 2007 when I was pregnant with Jack. The month before Jack was born we bought a house. Two years later, Luke was transferred to Switzerland We really loved Colorado Springs and liked our house so we decided not to sell it. Instead we hired a management company and rented out the house. The family who rented our house really liked it and have been in the house the entire time we were in Switzerland.
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| Saying goodbye to our house before leaving for Switzerland |
Fast forward to our current trip in the US, we flew to Colorado on June 20th (Wednesday) and then on Thursday we made a trip down to the Springs to visit friends and check on our house. Everything was great and we drove back to my parents house two hours north of the Springs. On Saturday June 23rd the Waldo Canyon fire started and for a while it was not an issue. I was in contact with friends in the Springs and although the air was smokey, no homes were threatened. It seemed like all of the sudden things took a turn for the worse. On Wednesday June 26th the fire moved into the community of Mountain Shadows (where our house is). I watched in horror as friends posted pictures of the fire growing and growing.
When I saw this picture, my heart sank. I recognized the top of the church right away. Our house is somewhere in the smoke/flames.
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| Burn areas in red, our house is the yellow dot |
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| Our house was right on the edge of the burn area. |
While all this was going on, Luke was on a business trip in England and had no idea about the fires or our house or anything. He had no cellphone and no internet connection either so I had no way of contacting him. I decided it was for the better that he didn't know, this way he could concentrate on his work and then deal with our house when he got back.
Thursday morning I found these aerial pictures of the aftermath of the fire:
That is all the information we have right now. It will be several days before they open up our streets again, so until then we just have to wait.
Jenny - my email is klieberster@gmail.com and my cell is (562) 252-2039, should you want to email or call me. I don't expecct you to, by all means, with all that's going on, but, if you want to.....I'm here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kay! We are staying at my parents house until we move to England. None of our personal belongings were in our house, so this is just more of a hassle than anything.
ReplyDelete