I was THERE! Right THERE during the Hotel fire. Mike, our neighbor in whose room the fire started woke us up about 7:00 in the morning saying there was a fire. We had heard the fire alarms, but we knew that they were going to be testing them that day. Kind of a fire drill, so we just rolled over and went back to sleep. Anyway, there was a knock on the door and Mike was there saying that there was a fire. Told him go back to bed that it was a test. He said, "no, my room's on fire".

Mike's room and ours were joined by a painted over doorway. I went into the hall and around the corner expecting nothing much. A HUGE fire was already going and for some reason I didn't even THINK of the fire hose right next to his room.

I remember saying something heroic and forceful like "Wow, what do we do" and Mike suggested calling 911. I got on the phone to them and it was like they didn't believe me. They wanted me to stay on the line. I told them we had to knock on doors, so i left the phone off the hook and my partner and I worked down the hall yelling and knocking and pretty soon there were 5 or 6 of us knocking.

I was a little ashamed after it all because I was afraid to go to the upper floors. We hung out on the 2nd floor and kept knocking on the doors that we got no response from, then finally exited. I told the cop that was out back that there were some doors that we didn't get an answer from. She said we had better get lost or we were going to jail. Asshole!

Everyone got out safe and sound, but we lost our home (and the relocation stuff we would have got if not for the fire)

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