TRAGEDY STRIKES

How quickly things can change!  One minute we’re looking forward to our next trip which was to start on May 1st, 2016 … and the next minute we find we’re homeless and not sure where we’ll be.

In the early morning of March 29th, we were awakend from a deep sleep by an explosion while at our home base of the West Bay Marina & RV Park in Victoria.  By the time we scrambled haphazardly into some clothes … Bruce ran to the door when another explosion rocked our RV and a giant ball of orange light lit up our bedroom!

Bruce ran out the door to find the Class A parked next to us on fire.  Once he quickly ascertained that our neighbors Jim & Pam Smith were out and ok … he grabbed our keys to move our cars that were parked between our rigs.  Jim also managed to get his car out of the way, but couldn’t move his small boat parked in front of his car.

I managed to dial 911 (difficult without my glasses!) and ran out into the road.  Only minutes had passed since the first explosion but the Class A was completely and fully engulfed in flames.

Bruce had the garden hose out and was trying to keep water on our 5th wheel to try and keep it wet enough so it wouldn’t burn … we were lucky as there was space between our rigs that acted as a bit of a buffer to the fire … but the 5th wheel on the other side of the Class A wasn’t so lucky.

In West Bay … as in a lot of RV parks, we are pretty jammed in with 2 RV’s back to back … a space for cars … then 2 more back to back.  Which puts the 2 back to back RV’s within inches of each other.  If one of those rigs catches fire … it’s almost a certainty that the other one will as well.

By 3:30 a.m., the fires were out but the Class A and the 5th wheel were completely destroyed.  Our 5th wheel remained intact although very badly damaged.  Luckily no one was injured and for that we’re very thankful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the initial shock and trauma had a chance to settle down, we realized some important things and this is what I’d like to pass on to you.

First … Make sure your smoke alarms are installed and working. It saved the lives of Jim & Pam … another minute or two and they would have been overcome by smoke and could possibly have died.

Second … Make sure you have an up-to-date and working fire extinguisher. And not one of those tiny, useless ones that come with your RV. A REAL fire extinguisher. Had Jim had a good one … he might have been able to put the fire out … but he didn’t!

Third … Know where your emergency exits are and know how to use them! I realize that our bedroom window was an emergency exit … but I’d never tried to use it and in a panicked situation I might not be able to figure it out!  I’m also going an extra step and getting one of those tempered glass breaker things.  Just in case!

Forth … Have a plan! Of course the first thing is to get out safely … but if you can … what do you grab? I had my phone … was dialling 911 with it … but should have grabbed my purse … and Bruce his wallet. It was right there on the counter but we just didn’t think of it. Maybe the computer? Most insurance policies will cover computers, but not their contents.  If you have a plan … and go over it from time to time … you don’t have to think … you can just react.

Fifth … Make sure you have insurance and it’s enough to cover not only your rig, but your stuff.  Also a good thing is to have insurance that will pay for emergency shelter and food.  Ours doesn’t and we’re lucky that Bruce’s parents live in town or we’d be out an awful lot of money.

Sixth … If you have an IPhone … look at your starting screen.  You know … push the ‘on’ button at the bottom … swipe from left to right to open and you’ll see your keypad to put in your code.  BUT … look at the bottom left corner and you’ll see the word ‘Emergency’.  I had seen it but never really thought about it.  Guess what?  Tap on that word and you go immediately to a phone touchpad which will only let you dial an emergency number.  That saves valuable minutes and would have helped me to get the fire department on-site faster.  But instead I did the usual routine … push on … swipe … key in code … hit ‘phone’ … find symbol for keypad … THEN dial 911.  Without glasses it was almost impossible and wasted valuable time.