My biggest fear

So I just got home from a long day/night at work to find 8 fire trucks, 3 ambulances, several police cars, Clark Public Utilities vehicles, some weird red fire bus, and many other utility vehicles one block away from my house. The air smelled of smoke & fire and there were people milling around everywhere. It was an amazingly frightening sight to come home to. I have NEVER seen so many flashing lights in one place in my life. I walked down to the scene and found out that there was a house fire... obviously a large one... that had started in an attic and had only been out for minutes when I had arrived.

I have feared the idea of a house fire my entire life. My mom had a fire in her apartment when she was in college and I have always heard about how devastating it can be. I think about all of the things in my house that I love and cherish. I've got so many pictures, memorabilia, and sheer scrapbooking and crafting product that it would just devastate me. Not to mention my cats :( Oh... I feel so badly for the family involved and only hope that no one was injured.

It is one of those moments that reminds you to:
make sure you have insurance
make sure that candle in the other room gets blown out
unplug that computer charger that seems to spark a little whenever you plug it in (yes... I have one like this)
take care of any sketchy wiring in you house
for the love of god, keep your smoke detector batteries working and appreciate when it starts to beep relentlessly at 4am
and finally... just be prepared

So, my neighbor just knocked on my door and informed me that not only did we have that fire here in the cul-de-sac next to us tonight, but there was a house fire only a couple more blocks over right near Mt. View earlier today and a car had crashed right in front of that cul-de-sac also earlier today and caught fire as well. Wow.

I've got to stop thinking about all of this... so, with the news of hurricane Ike hitting Texas at any moment broadcasting on my tv and the sounds of sirens ringing in the air... I'm going to try to catch some zzzz's after a chapter or two of Harry Potter. What a week.