Monday, February 18, 2019

Winter Not-so Whites

Maxwell: Some of you may have heard that we had a bit of an adventure a few weeks ago.



Remember the snow I shared with you on Friday? Loads and loads of it?

Well it was so heavy it broke tree branches, and many in our area were without power.


Allie: Including us. But we had a generator, installed professionally, so we stayed safe and warm.
Or so we thought.


Faraday: Yeah, until the generator caught the house on fire because of a recall the humans didn't know about. And then we ended up outside, inna big ol' crate, wif loads of strangers milling around!


Maxwell: Well now, hold on, dood. Those strangers were cool.
They had firetrucks and power tools, and hoses, and stuff.


And loads of pretty, flashy lights that made the front yard look like a Disney movie!


Faraday: Yeah buts... Seriouslies, Maxie, did you see what happened?!?!?
Here, lemme show you. 

(*grunt* canz I get a boost, pleez?)


Look!  It's right over here! The house is burned an' stuffs!

Generator, hooked up outside the house (properly). We had not been notified of the recall.
Yes, the house caught fire. 
We called 9-1-1 and, thanks to fire preparations we've had in place for years, the evacuation went smoothly.

I keep a portable pop-up pet kennel (one in the basement and one in the bedroom where Faraday — our most skittish cat — usually hangs out).  It opens in seconds, and I popped the cats inside, zipped it up and took them out the front door.

On the way, I grabbed the packed bags I keep in our front closet — one for the humans and one for the cats. 

I was out in two minutes, and that included traversing two flights of steps and going into three rooms to round up cats.

In theory, I could have cut that time in half... hopefully there's no "next time" for me to gauge how I've improved.  I'm good with that remaining theoretical!
 
 * * *

Faraday: Seriouslies Mommy.
It was incredibly traumatic for an impressionable young kitty like me.


Yes, but Faraday...the front yard looked like a scene out of Frozen !!

Faraday: Not worth it. Soooo not worth it,  Mommy.

(but it was pretty!)

The house is still livable, and we're in the process of getting repair estimates.



Still. How about we start 2019 in February?
January wasn't all that great...!

***

21 comments:

  1. oh my gosh. i'm so glad to hear you're all safe. the garden does look pretty all done up with the red and blue lighting from the trucks though.

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  2. Yikes! That had to be scary. But good that you have an escape plan in place. Looks like the damage was confined to one area. And yeah, the front yard was really pretty with all the lights.

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  3. seriously scary!!! but so glad you had a plan in place and it worked!

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  4. Hokey Smoke! How awful, but I'm glad everyone is okay. We have escape plans in place, but I know that I would NOT be calm enough for a 2 minute turnaround! I hope you don't have smoke damage in the rest of the house.

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  5. Wow, wow, WOW! That sounds hugely scary for everyone! We are incredibly impressed by how well prepared your family was to get you all out safely and with supplies. And, most of all, we are very glad you are all safe and the damage can be repaired.

    Purrs,
    The Chans

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  6. My human saw all about it on Facebook - what a scary time for all of you! I'm glad everyone was safe, and there was an evacuation plan in place. Which my human still needs to do. At least, the house is lousy with cat carriers and Boodie is practically deaf, so getting us rounded up would not be a problem.

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  7. OMC, that sounds so scary ! We're so glad you're all safe ! It's great you had a plan to escape, and could make it work successfully ! Purrs

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  8. I am glad you are all safe and had a good and effective evacuation plan. That is very scary, but could have been so much worse. Not a good start to the year.

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  9. Wow ! So glad everyone is safe ! What a great job of panning !

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  10. This is so terrifying but I'm incredibly impressed by how smoothly your evacuation went!!! I'm glad your house is still livable, and yes, those pictures of your yard are gorgeous!

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  11. I am so sorry. I am glad you are all OK.

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  12. Glad everyone is safe and that you can still live in your house.

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  13. I am sooooo sorry--this is so scary! All our jaws dropped here. So glad everyone is OK!

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  14. We are so furry furry glad you are all safe. Thank you for the reminder about emergency preparedness. And it is very traumatizing to have damage to your den, but thank goodness yours is okay. We've been reading your bloggie for a while and always admire the fine photos. Stay safe-purrs, Bibi & Meep

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  15. We had that happen almost 3 years ago. We lost our home for 7 months and my brother, Runt, who was sleeping on the bed in the spare room, didn't make it from the smoke. I woke mommy up by scratching on her bedroom door. (mommy here...the smoke detector worked on Sunday when I broiled my steak but didn't work on that Monday night).
    Charles again-we are really happy that everycat is safe and that the big house will hopefully be back to normal.

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    1. oh we're SO very sorry you lost your brother in that! Purrrrs from us to you <3

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  16. WOW. One thing leads to another ... I wish they'd ban winter ;)

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  17. How scary!!! I'm so happy you are all safe though!!

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  18. So very glad to hear that everyone got out safe and sound, really scary!!!! Makes one realize that planning ahead is something one needs to take seriously and not put off till the next day. Hopefully the company of the generator helps with costs since they never notified you of the recall.

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  19. OMC! I go AWOLon account of my bad (too busy with not kitty things), and then I get here to read about *this*. Yikes. How scary. Glad you are safe, well, and that your plan was well worth it. Even happier that you can still live in your den...hope by now its is repaired...and fireproofed.

    We have a generator here, outside hooked into the natural gas, and it comes on by itself in a power outage, but we have not had any trouble with it. Phew! (Well, except when it was rather new, it stopped working cause it got a direct lightning hit,wowzers!)

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