Mill Street Apartment Fires

Life is distracting, isn't it? All week we have dealt with this fire - and it wasn't nearly as big as the one in Auburn, which is about 30 minutes from here.

They had 60 houses destroyed - that's 60 families displaced. I am praying for Ralph and Dianne!

The difference between our fire and their fire is that most of their homeowners (if not all) had homeowners insurance - none of ours did. It's been interesting - because people started donating household goods, clothing, furniture.

The first couple days we handed out clothing only because the survivors were in motel rooms or staying with friends and family. Then by Thursday, two or three came in needing dishes, pots andpans,etc.

Glenn and Lucy are looking for cast-iron cookware. They are staying with their three big dogs up in the mountains on a piece of land about an hour out of town - because it's hard to rent with three dogs. It was good to talk to them - I hope we meet up again. I think I have some cast-iron frying pans in the garage.

And the donors here - are so generous! We have so much furniture - we stopped accepting it - and just took people's names because the people aren't moved in yet - so next week, we will be busy connecting people and drivers and couches and beds . . .

We've developed a wonderful relationship with the Red Cross here - they are just some dedicated volunteers who want to help others, like us.

I think we have had more PR because of this unfortunate event than we have had in five years - people keep saying, oh, I forgot you were here! Well, now you know!

Tired and relieved that i have a house to go home to . . .