Life Happens: Part 1 - Takoma Educational Center 3 Alarm Fire and 150+ Firefighters

Three-Alarm Fire Causes Extensive Damage to DC School, Takoma Educational Center : MyFoxDC.com

In case you weren't able to make sense of the lengthy and highly punctuated title of this blog post, this post will be the first in a 3 part series about the things that happen in life. Today, in Part 1, I will be writing about the tragic 3 alarm fire that destroyed much of Takoma Educational Center -- the school I work at. Although this fire was a tragedy and we are all very nervous about what the repercussions are going to be (they have already said we will not be reporting back to Takoma after the break but instead they will be trying to determine where we can go instead) what is most important is that NOBODY was hurt. This is a blessing; thank heavens school was not in session, things really could have been much worse.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed I had one missed call and a voice message from my school. I thought it was strange that they would be calling staff over the two week winter break. I listened to the message from my principal and learned that there was a major fire at our school. Throughout the day, I learned more from the news and updates on the Washington Post website, and by making a couple phone calls to other teachers that were in D.C. and watched the action in person.

To sum it all up, there was major fire damage on the third floor of the school (where my classroom and teacher preparation room is) and the second floor was destroyed. As luck would have it, the fire on the third floor happened to be right where my classroom is - or used to be. Although everything that was in my classroom is gone, it is not yet certain if everything in my cabinet in my teacher prep room is destroyed. The head custodian at my school said that whatever the fire didn't get, the water from the 'over 150 firefighters' did...so I am keeping my hopes in check but I am clinging to the hope that I can salvage some of my stuff. Since I bike in to work, I keep an entire warbdrobe at school, not to mention my own personal LCD projector and lots of other possessions. In the case that everything is gone, I have started to make a list of everything that I had at svchool for insurance purposes and I was surprised at how much I had there.

Crazy how you only usually read about these things and then the universe lines up and points at you and suddenly it is your school you are watching on the news! What is most important, by far, is that nobody was hurt. No kids were even in the building, thank goodness! Anyways, life happens.

These are links to news articles about the fire at my school and video and pictures of it all:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/fire-reported-at-takoma-ed-cen.html

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/fire--damages-to-dc-school-takoma-educational-center-122210