So I work for the condo association, so I was across the street. I had just checked the pool for chemicals and pH and I was in the office doing stuff when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and didn't recognize the number, but figured maybe I should answer it anyway, even though I wasn't "on duty" at the moment. It was Frances on the phone. She was hysterical and crying. I knew it was a big deal because the last time I heard her cry like this was when our pet rabbit died. All I could understand her say was there was a car accident and something got hit, but I really had no idea what was going on. I thought I heard her say the word London, and she has a good friend named London, so I thought maybe she was calling me to tell me that London was in an accident.
So I ran across the street and that's when I saw there was firetrucks, so I knew it happened right here and it was bigger than I thought. Then I saw the fence had been destroyed in the area and as I got closer, I saw the car that had hit our building. One of the neighbors, George, ran up to me and said "I was inside your house looking for you. The kids thought you were still in there."
Um, I'm trying to think what happened next.
And I said, "My kids, where are my kids? Are they OK?" And someone said they're upstairs. So I went to the upstairs condo--oh, wait, I really can't remember who told me, it's kind of a blur, but yeah, someone said they were in the upstairs condo. They girls were sitting on the couch of our neighbors and Frances and Alice-Grace were crying hysterically and Jeffrey was just kind of staring, he looked kind of shell-shocked.
I found out later, that because he was the only one that wasn't crying hysterically, he had gone inside with George to look for my body.
So we spent a lot of time hugging and talking to each other and the girls told me they were in the living room when it happened.
(Interjection by Frances -- "I wasn't in the living room. I was in my bed.")
Oh, you weren't?
Jeffrey told me he was in his room when it happened, which freaked me out because I still hadn't looked closely at the accident and I thought the car had actually crashed through Jeffrey's wall. By this time, someone told me the police wanted to talk to me. I didn't want to leave the kids, but I had to. So I went downstairs and this was the first time I got a really good look at the accident.
The car had crashed through our bedroom wall. The damage actually didn't look that bad. Some of the bricks were missing and the hole seemed fairly small. Let's see. Um.
(Interjection by Frances -- "I'm not the only one who gets lost")
The police officers kept asking "Now who's the owner and who's the property manager?" I said, "I'm both." They looked at me kind of puzzled and said, "Now who are you?" I said, "I own the condo." And they said, "Who's the property manager?" I said, "I'm the night and weekend manager." So in all the excitement, it was kind of a blur, but between various police officers and various EMTs, I got asked this same question about a half dozen times.
Once they figured out who I was, they asked what the damage was like inside and I said, "Actually, I don't know. I haven't been inside yet. Is it safe?" And they said it should be.
I forgot to mention, this whole time our Neighborhood Watch chair had been on the scene.
Anyway, we were inside and the wall inside looked a lot worse than the wall outside. The hole was probably about--the damage is at least six foot square. You could see the drywall was broken and you could see the studs were poking through. The car really wasn't protruding into the room, but you could see outside through the insulation.
There was a pile of bricks on Lois' side of the bed and there was lots of rubble in the room, lots of dust. They told me the building inspector was on his way to look at the room. I asked if I could get back to the kids, told them I'd be upstairs. While I was upstairs, I called the general property manager. I can't remember if I called Lois now or earlier. The general property manager told me to call me and Lois' homeowner policy insurance agent. And told me to call the insurer that the HOA uses for the exterior of the building.
When I talked to Lois, she was at work and I said that a car had hit the building, everyone was fine. There was a big hole in the wall and that she should probably come home. And at the time I thought it was strange that she had a tone in her voice like "Why is this important enough for me to come home?" I found out later, based on my description, she thought the building has been crashed into on the other end, which would be someone else's condo.
I also called our Bishop (ecclesiastical leader) to let him know what happened.
Lois interjects -- "This is going on forever. I don't know if my blog has this much memory."
And then in general, our Neighborhood Watch chair called a guy from the neighborhood who is a contractor and also owns a unit in the building to come out and patch the hole, especially since they were expecting rain the next day.
There was a tense few minutes where they suspected the support joists for the building had been damaged and they might have to--the building inspector might have to declare the building uninhabitable, especially on that end. Luckily, the contractor from the neighborhood pointed out to the inspector that the support joists ran in the opposite direction than he thought they did, and were therefore unaffected by the collision.
I guess that's it for what happened right then.
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