Seriously pay attention to safety issues
At about 12:50
am on Monday morning we heard loud shouting and banging on our door and
Lynn was not quite asleep and heard our neighbors yelling "FIRE, FIRE,
FIRE". So we hopped out of bed grabbed our shoes, coats and phones and
evacuated the building. We had opened the front door and there were tons
of flames and smoke everywhere. We slammed the door shut and went to the
window. After fiddling with the lock we busted open the screen and
jumped out the window.
It is only a story and a half, so we consider ourselves lucky. Two
people who jumped off the third floor suffered broken bones and may need
surgery. Everyone made it out of the building. We then were taken to a
university bus where we waited for the fire to dissipate and the red
cross gave us food, water, and blankets. We were then able to enter our
apartment at about 3:30 am and grabbed our valuables (laptops, cameras,
some clothing, etc.).
We then went to stay at Lynn's brother's house in North Campus family
housing. We did not sleep very much and started making preparations
quite early. We are temporarily residing in Northwood III at Plymouth
and Murfin. It is emergency housing for 2 weeks free and then we can
decide if we want to live here for the rest of the semester and next
semester as well. The apartments in the back of our building were not
damaged and the power was turned back on this afternoon and many
residents are still living there.
They think that we might be able to move back into our apartment in a
week, but we do not want to live there anymore. We are going to sort out
leasing details tomorrow. Our apartment actually suffered much less
damage than the surrounding units. The unit on the same floor as ours is
where the fire started. It was an overheated circuit. The guy was
sleeping on the couch and when he saw the fire he ran to our apartment
and started banging on the door. He wanted to make sure that everyone
knew there was a fire and could get out. His apartment has nothing left
just as the apartment above it where the fire spread violently. It also
spread to the apartment above ours causing some damage but not as severe
as the other two units.
We consider ourselves lucky that nothing was lost in the fire; we just
will be washing clothes forever.