Fingerprints on a Flugelhorn

Looks like we may have to get rid of everything wall to wall. The smoke damage was just worse than any of us could have imagined. Ok, the restoration guys have been saying this, but today (Wednesday), I think I finally understood it.

It was really hard counting the band instruments today...me being a flute/piccolo player and all.

I felt very protective of one specific, silver french horn we found. The guy who was helping me count had very dirty, gritty, black hands (after hours of counting in the smoke stained equipment.) I couldn't stand us tarnishing that horn! I ran and washed my hands before I carefully lifted it out to get its serial #, but then realized they were going to take it away from me no matter what I did to save it!

There is moisture in and on most stuff and a thin black film on everything, no matter how careful you are. There isn't even a clean place to sit down while you work. There is no where safe to put your purse or hat without just knowing it's collecting Powdered Doo Wop.

I opened a Soprano Sax case, which was very wet to the touch, and grimy, and when I tried to pull the pretty gold-brass sparkling instrument out, my hand turned dark black and oily feeling. I showed Geoff Springer (who was helping me with our part of the physical count) my blackened hand. I even ran and showed Howie, the salvage specialist the Insurance people have assigned us. It was really shocking.

We truly hoped that maybe down deep in the back, behind all those cases, and inside of its own tightly closed case, that this instrument was going to be ok, but it just wasn't. None of them were. I suppose that's the point, even if it looked like it was, the pads or brass or silver would be bad or might go bad over time and we wouldn't realize it or know why...

Anyway, that was eye-opening for me. It's hard for me to judge with the guitars because I'm not a guitar person. I see dust on them, but I think, "well wipe it off!" but when a solid silver, open holed Flute is getting black fingerprints across the body, well, that's a major problem.

Oh! There was a solid white clarinet we found, and within a few moments of us opening the case, it started getting black streaks all over. We had to count it quickly because both Geoff and I started actually getting kind of well...emotional.

Again and again, when I would see one that appeared to be in great shape, my instinct was to snatch it out of there and protect it, before the black soot all around us could touch it, but then my eyes would scan to the case that had been sitting in water, and I'd wonder if the cork in the end was ok? Or what about the pads under the keys? What else was I not thinking of?....And I'd let it go.

So, we wrote it all down. And moved on.

Tomorrow we'll see what happens next.

MJ

For the Record

I decided to go around the store and get more photos before anything got moved or changed. So here you go.

First thing on our tour is the Doo Wop Nursery! This was my office, Mom's Office, Sarah's Office, as well as....

Here is Mom's Desk (Used to Be Sarah's Desk...)

This is the little bookcase we kept our baby things and toys in... it was closed when the fire happened, but you can see the smoke damage inside on the shelves. We threw out all the toys except a few DVDs and videos....

Here is our curtain that the little ones loved so much. (And Grandaddy too!) The story is that Dad asked me to make him a curtain to hide the brick wall that is behind there, something with clouds and that was fun. I called and said what about little animals. -It was all I could find- He said great. He only kept that office for about 6 months before it was confiscated for a nursery for Tyler!!! Bill Painted the walls yellow for Sarah and put in the blue carpeting.

The next photo shows me walking through the doorway (crossing the firewall) into the back part of the building. From here you can see the wooden table on the left that Bill built for them to fold down and use when needed. Through the door you can see the orange fan drying the water damage slowly along. At the very top you might notice part of the ceiling coming down...

Just inside that door on the right is Gabrielle's desk. Here leaning against the wall is the special order cards file. She still has her many post-it notes covering the top.

Opposite Gabrielle's Desk is the Roll-Top Desk that belongs to Mom. This outlet was the origin of the fire we think. You can see the wall is torn up just above her desk in two places. There is a wooden stamp there on the desk that reads, "Kiss Ole Beck" and also if you need it, the "Worst Case Scenarios Handbook" did make it mostly through the fire on the front right of her desk...

On the other side of the white cabinets on the right and left is the wooden shelves that my Grandpa built with Dad. Here are some unopened Yorkville speakers and guitars...

These are a few pictures of John Metcalf just after he finished a very long day of inventorying everything in the store in 1 day with only 4-5 other people to help him!

This is what is left of the ladies' bathroom fan. It was on the same circuit as the Coke Machine outlet that started the fire.

Out in the garage today they had lined up burned and smokey karaoke cabinets for counting.

Danny and Rachel have gotten the RBM department all set back up upstairs at the Hurstbourne Ln Store now! It is very fancy. I should get you a picture of that for tomorrow.

Today we managed to actually get paychecks for everyone. Kris Morris came down from Lexington and picked their's up and she was able to stay for several hours to help with the big inventory! (She counted all of my books!!! Hooray!)

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO THE MAIN BLOG PAGE

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

Coming Soon...

We got this message from our computer guy!