By Ron B
Standing there 4am in an old t shirt and jeans the fire almost out, shivering thinking about getting something warm on. It dawns on me that what I am wearing are all the clothes I have. Everything else is gone, Burned or in the rubble of what was left of our home. I ended up finding some old farm coat that was in the garage ready for a trip to the Salvos, which made me look like some hobo and didn't flatter my 4pm appearance on the 7-news interview.
The next 3 days were a bit of a blur as we got the very basics of our lives resorted. I'd been living in the same clothes for 3 days till family and friends started outfitting us with new clothing and basic essentials such like toothbrush and deodorant, undies, hair dryer, brushes-n-stuff. Things just started to appear out of the blue from all sorts of people going out and shopping for us, family and friends collecting money locally and overseas and gifts of food and dinners each day. We didn’t cook for the first month after the fire. Not that we were short of cash, but these many acts of kindness helped us emotionally as well as physically. And the last thing I could do was go shopping as I was trying to cope with more than my tiny brain could handle.
Swarms of well-wishers, friends and family came to visit us over the first 3 days while we were staying next door with our neighbours, taking over their home, devouring refreshments and taking up couch space. A lot of hugs and tears were exchanged during those first days… Not that I am that way inclined, but I did choke up just a little when I initially rang the insurance company and it dawned on me the true state of our predicament. To that end my daughters fiancée took over the Insurance liaison roll, and things started moving forward gaining momentum.
The house itself looked like a bomb had hit, not that you could see anything from the front or for that matter from the back roadway but there was no roof at the back. Just a lot of blackened and jagged roof beams and a massive teetering Dorma window that was lurching towards the other neighbours house. This all needed to be made safe. If I was standing, there after the fire on my own I would not know what I would have needed to do first.
My knight in shiny red armour was our insurance company AAMI. They basically took over everything and lead us gently by the hand along a path that firstly made safe the house so that no-one would get hurt and the structure was a safe place for people to work in and not a danger to our neighbours.
They organised a team of demolition people and a 65-ton crane and basket that cut away all the dangerous protrusions and things that could accidentally fall any further. The crane helped to dislodge the massive Dorma into the house itself so there was no danger to anyone. They propped up what was left of the stairs so that there was access to the top floors. Then a team of people cleared access to areas of the house for the other teams of assessors, forensic inspectors engineers, electricians, plumbers, estimators, rubble removers and the contents removals people.
A few days after the fire our Insurance Assessor who was a lovely man that understood how we must have felt showed up with 3 builders that would ultimately quote on the rebuild as well as this guy called Kevin who ended up spending over a week at the house assessing the damage, bringing in experts and developing a scope of works that ended up going to the panel of builders to quote on.
In the meantime, being a hands-on kind of guy, I started to try and minimise the damage done by the water and initially with the help of my neighbour removed the sodden carpet from the unburned heritage part of the home to protect the floorboards and allow them to dry out. And with his help and that of my son we removed all the furniture from the house which was still dripping like a sieve after more torrential rain fell days after the fire. My main concern was for the protection of the heritage sections pressed metal ceilings which were under constant flood with broken roof tiles from the fire fighters water cannons leaking water onto the precious ceilings below. The frustrating thing was that the insurance company couldn’t get anyone to tarp the roof so with the approval of the assessor I got a good friend who owns a roof fixing business to make the roof over the area watertight by moving and replacing tiles and parking up areas that were exposed.
The top of the building was deemed as unsafe from the team of people that were commission to remove all the furniture and contents, so I took it upon myself to give them a bit of a hand by passing down furniture from the top floors. But it wasn’t as unsafe as what the original scene looked and underneath all that charred rubble and broken roof tiles there was a sodden layer of carpet that actually created a barrier against the fire burning to the floor beneath. One of the first experts called in was the structural engineer who indicated that the walls and 95% of the ground floor were structurally sound which was a relief to hear as I was worried about the integrity of the walls being on both neighbours boundaries.
The people that were removing the contents photographed and catalogued each piece that was either taken away if it was restorable or thrown into dumpster. My partner could not watch when this was happening as a lot of items that were thrown out held memories and sentimental value. Watching the piano that the children learned on being broken down to transport was the worst nightmare for her. The water damage rendered it un-restorable as was much or our furniture that either expanded or started to slowly rot. While we rescued some things like pots pans and the like the majority of what we owned went to the dumpster.
While all this was happening, I spent many a day scrounging through the rubble and occasionally finding the odd keepsake especially photos of the pre digital times. My partners photo albums all were destroyed so out of the blackness I occasionally found packets of Kodak photos through charred around the edges, could be cropped. Like the furniture removal people I also photographically catalogued things that we lost in the fire sometimes only a part of some clothing or jewellery that was partially melted as well as soggy draw and cupboard full of items.
The way the system worked is that the building side of our policy is treated separately from the contents side. The building side we were given the choice of the Insurance company rebuilding the home to exactly how it was before the fire or the other option of being paid out the agreed or in our case the full insured amount. The contents side we were given a catalogued and photographic breakdown of all the items taken and disposed of including the items I had catalogued and photographed. Then it was up to us to nominate a replacement cost of each item which was then checked or adjusted by the insurer. A lot of work but a lot of money was involved.
From
my point of view our insurer was very fair and professional and we were treated
well. 30 years + being with the same insurance company... I am happy that
we stuck with AAMI (no this is not an ad). They were really good.
