The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Was On Fire

Oh my... what a weekend!!! The roof of our building caught on fire. I will try to make this as short as I can. Dave was golfing in the burbs all day while Evan and I were at Gymboree. Evan and I left Gymboree. I happened to check my cell phone and saw that my neighbor called. I called her back and learned that our building was on fire. I ran the 30 minute walk back home in about 15 minutes (mind you E was in the stroller and I was wearing flip flops). Needless to say at the very moment I learned of the fire, I feared the worse...all I could think of was Dexter. I was hoping and praying that he was okay. As I was approaching our block, I saw 2 fire engines, an ambulance, and my neighbors and their dogs but no Dexter. My throat closed up, I started hyperventilating, and could barely move. Thankfully my neighbors quickly reassured me that although Dexter was still inside he was fine. They had contained the fire and no one was hurt. Kindly my neighbor offered to go up and get Dexter from our unit while I stayed with Evan and our neighbors. As soon as I saw Dexter, that he was okay, I breathed a sigh of relief and held back my tears. I was so grateful he was alright. Apparently one of our neighbors, the owner of the top unit was having a water system installed on the roof top deck so they can access water for their home garden up there. The roofer was sealing and the roof and some material which was resting on top of where the furnace lies caught on fire. After talking to our neighbor and the fire chief, we got the okay to go inside. When I entered our house it had a strong smoke smell and there were puddles up and down our hallway, inside the guest bath, furnace room, kitchen and just inside the door way of both of our guest bedrooms. A few of the walls also had water trickling down of which I didn't notice until an hour or so later. As soon as I got Evan situated with a few toys, I cleaned up the water. Oy...what a project!! I was so happy once Dave got home. I explained what happened and we talked about how grateful we were that everyone was alright and that there wasn't much damage to our place. Little did we know that there was extensive damage inside of the walls. Long story short (well I guess I am beyond that now ;0) we had an emergency service take a moisture reading of our walls to see if there was water within. Low and behold nearly half of our home's walls had water sitting within it. Today we had the walls (all the hallway, third bedroom internal wall, all walls of Evan's nursery (one of the walls has to be ripped out), 3 of the kitchen walls, hall closet and furnace rooms aerated so that they can start drying out. During these next few days (however long it takes for them to dry out and the moisture levels to reach a normal level) there will be a dehumidifier and multiple fans spaced throughout our house. I imagine we are going to be going a little crazy after hearing the humming sound of the fans for hours on end. We have been listening to our neighbors fans above us for the past 24 hours plus and hear them as clear as day. Ugh... Each day the moisture levels will be read in order to determine if a more aggressive approach to drying out the walls needs to be taken (sigh). We are hopeful that there is not more damage than has been already done. And...we are hoping that our home insurance will also cover most of the costs, if not all of it. I can only imagine how long this is all going to take when it's all said and done. After this drying out process is done there will be wall repair, painting and cleaning, at least that's what we hope is all that will be left to do. (sigh) What an experience this is!!!! So glad that we are all safe and sound and that it's just the walls of our unit that will need to be repaired...or so we hope. I'll keep you posted on the progress.