We Are OK

Five Days After the Fire

Here are some more fire damage photos. These are better shots of the extent of the damage, since they were mostly taken after the electrician had gotten the lights back on. Also some shots of the clean up.

Got to say, not a lot of time for picture taking.

Bill got a great set today of the main computer in the break room that under-went a waterfall from the Firefighters and EXTREME Smoke Damage, not to mention the cooling fans on the back sucking in soot, and it STILL TURNED ON!!! More on that later if I get a copy. Nasty looking.

Here Craig is working with the clean up crew up on the roof of the inner building, I think they are calling it the "Pine Building" as opposed to the outside building (garage etc) above. There were tons of old waiting repair instruments and files in storage up there, and old displays.....


This is the ... ok... was the ceiling in the ladies bathroom we have all used for 30 years. The fan installed in the middle of the ceiling was on the same circuit that shorted.

It is my understanding that we were actually on the other side of the wall on the left (in the picture below) when this came down. They were giving us our 1st walk through and the firefighters came out and said that they'd found a "hot spot" in this bathroom in the ceiling and we had to leave the "scene" again. Which meant they kicked us back out of our building just in time to help this ceiling burn up and fall in!

These Next 2 photos are the corner right inside the door on the left when you walk into the back part of the store. This is where the fire safe and drawers sat for so long. There is a door just out of the frame on the left that leads to the karaoke middle room and my office, then out front. The other side of that wall you are looking at, is the ladies bathroom.

The fire most likely started with an electrical problem in this wall.

The photo below shows what's left of Mom's roll-top desk just below the above photo. The little sign hanging in the above photo is actually right above Mom's desk, if that helps...

The next one is the floor below the photos above. In fact, you can just barely see the edge of that roll-top desk here, top right. This is just outside the breakroom.

Then, I got a shot of the floor looking back towards the RBM department and Sam's desk. On the left is where the cords, karaoke, and videos are stored, as well as the backdoor. You can see the big blue fan up at the top trying to dry everything out. This is after they vacuumed the 1" or so of water up that was originally allowed to run in through the roof. Over to the right, just out of this image are the shelves my Dad and Grandpa built together. They will have to go. Wood just soaks up the smoke and of course the water/mildew problem now...

These last 3 were taken the day after the fire.

This is stuff being thrown down off the inner roof that was burned up. Karaoke Cabinets, Drums, etc. There is also a great Violin picture in one of my other sets below if you go looking. What a mess. Thank God we have Insurance!

So... Where do we stand now?

Mom, Rachel, Danny, Dad, Gannie, and myself have each spent a little time looking around the store for items that are uniquely "Doo Wop" to preserve. Like Mom said, even if we have to laminate a certain poster, if that says, "This is the Doo Wop Shop" to you, let's take it. So, we rescued a few things here and there.



More importantly, we have recovered all of the important computers and as far as I know every one of them have powered up! I could not believe it.

Of course poor Gabrielle's computer we didn't even bother. (It was drowned.) We will still have to claim all of these computers you understand, as they will only survive a very short time before dying again, (Smoke Damage) but at least the information was recovered!!! Chris Jones and Bill are working on this project. I got to go on reconnaissance mission to extract the entrenched computers though...sounds exciting huh... mostly just dirty and smelly...

Hurstbourne is still up and running and now with the help of several additional guys + Gabrielle and Rachel from Bardstown Rd. - And they'll need it with us being closed for a few weeks to clean up the mess!

Most of us have cleared out our desks now completely, throwing out a lot and putting what we felt we had to have in boxes.

The main problem is, the restoration guy, Tony, tells us that ANYTHING we keep that was in the building during the fire will ALWAYS smell like smoke without a major professional cleaning. (Which he has tried to show us how to do.) This proved true today when we realized that after Danny and Rachel spent their entire workday yesterday professionally cleaning garbage bags full of brand new karaoke discs...today they all still smelled like smoke! What a frustrating discovery! They will be sooooo upset tomorrow....

But, he told us, you cannot ever clean smoke out of: Fabric, Paper, or Vinyl.

That would be like, most of the stuff we are trying to salvage. Also, somehow wood seems to fall in that category....paper maybe...

I'm just glad the first week of September is over. Sam changed his facebook status today to say, "Sam is putting out fires at work." which just cracked me up.

Mr. Herre gave us a note the first day that read, "Remember, It's Just Stuff" That has helped a lot.

MJ