[HN Gopher] How to help a friend who lost their home in a fire (...
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How to help a friend who lost their home in a fire (2020)
Author : dredmorbius
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-12-31 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sonomamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sonomamag.com)
| squidbot wrote:
| I lost my childhood home in the 1991 Oakland hills fire when I
| was in my early 20's. I was the only one home at the time and it
| started on our block, so I had no time to get anything out of the
| house but the clothes on my back. So, I'll emphasize number 12 as
| one of the most important points on the list.
|
| As long as you are insured, the only things you really miss are
| the things that can't be replaced. In our case it was slides and
| photos of when we were kids and of grandparents, great
| grandparents, etc. And mementos like concert t-shirts and such.
|
| If you are a relative and have old photos, consider having them
| digitized and printed, and give an album to the ones who lost
| their home. My sister (in her own place by then) collected photos
| from relatives and made my mom and I each an album like this (not
| digital then so it was a bit more work!) and it's literally the
| only photos I have of myself growing up that I can share with my
| kids. It's weird in a way, my wife has boxes of childhood
| treasures she can show the kids, and I have just one small album,
| but I think it means that much more because it's all I have.
|
| If you are a friend, and shared experiences with the person who
| lost the home, and you have some keepsakes from those times
| together, that would be an amazing gift. I mentioned concert
| t-shirts, and I had a friend at work who had a connection with a
| well known musician who was able to score me a few old shirts. I
| still have them to this day and treasure them as one of the few
| reminders of those good times.
|
| Also, about #5, bringing food. Please ask first! Food tends to be
| a popular way to help, but it can actually get overwhelming. We
| had so much in our freezer at one point we had to ask people to
| stop bringing it. Plus, you don't necessarily know peoples tastes
| or what they are really craving for comfort. I think restaurant
| gift cards would be a better choice. Hardly any storage needed
| and it lets the family choose what they really want. Or, as
| mentioned in number 7, invite the affected people over for a
| meal! In the beginning they are probably in a hotel room until
| insurance helps with a more permanent place and it is nice to get
| out for a night.
|
| Otherwise, this is a good, timely article with the fire in
| Colorado. My heart goes out to those families as I've been
| through it and it sucks.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I had my house burn down as a child and I think most of these are
| very good! I think #11 is a little circumstantial, but #13
| (paperwork) should be twice in bold. The work of documenting your
| possessions is difficult and long. There is also tons of other
| paperwork to do. If you are up for forms it can be an enormous
| help.
|
| Also - take 5 mins over the next few days to make a quick walk-
| though video of your house and back it up to the cloud. Nothing
| too fancy or detailed, but if you need to make an inventory for
| insurance (or any other reason) it will help enormously.
| lbriner wrote:
| There is a lot of goodwill out there and it works best with
| community and people we can either relate to or live close enough
| to in order to feel empathy.
|
| What is remarkable is that doing something by yourself can feel
| impossible but with just a ffew people to help with
| time/money/expertise can turn the impossible into very doable!
|
| If we all gave a little more to a few people who are struggling,
| the world would be very different but sadly some people would
| rather spend their money on a new iPhone or holiday than
| investing in someone who just needs a little boost.
| chiph wrote:
| I can't find it at the moment, but there was a Reddit post from a
| claims adjuster that said when filing a claim, be as specific as
| possible. So don't just put down "55-inch flatscreen television",
| it's a "Samsung ABC-55-OLED with stand" (be honest! insurance
| fraud is a crime). This is because the policy you have with your
| carrier says they have to replace your stuff with as close to
| original as possible. If you aren't specific enough, you get
| reimbursed for the cheapest 55" TV they can find.
|
| So go through your house and make an inventory, writing down the
| actual model numbers and when you bought the item. A video record
| where you verbally give that same information can help too. Don't
| forget small items like the pots & pans, knives & forks, bath
| towels & linens.
|
| Pay close attention to your policy's exclusions. High value items
| like jewelry, tools, firearms, art, and computers often have
| fairly low limits on them. Or maybe your teen-aged daughter has a
| closet full of designer clothes. Get additional specialty
| insurance on these - it's cheaper than you might think.
|
| So far as saving your data - if it's not offsite it's toast [0].
| Copy it onto an encrypted external USB drive and leave it at the
| office or at a friend or relative's house.
|
| Have a storage tote with all your important "must-save" papers
| and some cash, so you can just grab it and go in case you have to
| evacuate. Print out your insurance policy and important phone
| numbers so that you don't need electronics and power to view
| them.
|
| [0] I don't know why insurance companies don't offer 10gb of
| storage with someone like Backblaze for their customers. Seems
| like a natural thing to want, now that everyone has electronic
| files for everyday life.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That sounds like an enormous amount of labor unless you're
| starting from an empty house.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I don't know why insurance companies don't offer 10gb of
| storage with someone like Backblaze for their customers.
|
| I agree. Refraining from the 'I told you so' with those you
| chided repeatedly to sort their shit out is really hard.
|
| I've started just doing it for them, as dealing with the
| fallout is more painful than remaining tactfully silent and
| trying to restore broken, corrupted or deleted files.
| rabboRubble wrote:
| dammmmm thank you. your comment just triggered a reminder to me
| to update my personal articles policy for changed computer
| hardware.
| [deleted]
| libria wrote:
| I'd probably be the worst person to have around after someone's
| house burned down. I have almost zero sentiment to material
| except photo albums but those are in the cloud (Yes, I would weep
| if all of iCloud + off-site storage were unrecoverably
| vaporized).
|
| My concerns are strictly financial: What is the actual loss minus
| insurance? This is a $300-500k question; why is the article
| wasting words on sweaters, ziplock bags, spatulas, gift-cards,
| wooden crates(wtf)?
|
| Honestly, my biggest irritation would be lost time. I famously
| loathe paperwork. So I'll get to my real question:
|
| What can all of us do *today*, pre-burned house to deal with this
| situation?
|
| * Buy a ton of fire extinguishers?
|
| * Walkthrough video showing everything of high value and poking
| it to prove it works?
|
| * Pre-file some paperwork or make a spreadsheet of high value
| items: cost + origin + date of purchase + current value?
|
| * Locate nearest fire dept and drop off maps with nearest route
| to your house?
|
| Anyone been through this can pitch in on best prep/prevention
| tips? The goal being, if my house burns down right this second, I
| want a big red button to push that kicks off all the Residence-
| Disaster-Recovery script and if it exits zero, I'm sitting in
| this same kind of chair at the same kind of desk saying "Thanks
| HN".
|
| Despite my callous tone I do want to mention my heart goes out to
| those affected by the Colorado fire right now. Reach out to folks
| there if you know them:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/colorado-fires-update-12-31...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| This stuff comes up because losing a house is like dealing with
| the affairs of someone who does without a plan.
|
| Think about everything you need ID for, including renting an
| apartment or hotel. If that's lost, you're screwed for a month,
| minimum assuming you have the proofs required to get a new
| drivers license or passport.
|
| Little things that you take for granted are very difficult too.
| Sweaters sound frivolous, except the world doesn't stop on your
| account, so the kids need to go to school and you still need to
| go to work.
|
| The other thing is you need the presence of mind to know what a
| public adjuster is and hire one asap, so you don't get
| lowballed by the insurance company. That may also mean that you
| need the cash or credit to survive in hostile conditions for
| 90-120 days, depending on your state.
| ejb999 wrote:
| Pretty much agree - it would be traumatizing if my house burned
| down no doubt, but other than family and pets, I have no
| emotional connection to anything else in the house - its just
| stuff. If the house was on fire, I'd grab my laptop and backup
| disk - that would be about it.
| Schweigi wrote:
| From a material perspective access to cash will be the most
| important thing if you don't have friends or family who can
| help out. If your wallet with credit cards and id burned down,
| it will be hard to book a hotel for the night or buy essential
| things like food or clothing. I think that's something your can
| prepare already now. For example by storing a credit card in a
| second location with people you know or at your work place.
| Also in todays age where nobody remembers phone numbers anymore
| it might be good to try to remember the numbers of your most
| important contacts so you can at least contact your friends or
| family in case your phone is damaged.
|
| Besides that, a digital copy of all your paperwork will help a
| lot down the road. Also you need to pre-declare all expensive
| items already before with the insurance. You can't just claim
| that your $50k watch collection got "lost" after the fact. It's
| also good to understand how the insurance will pay. Do they pay
| based on a % of the damages house? What happens if all of your
| belongings are full of smoke and not usable anymore because of
| it but the house is not really burned down?
| squidbot wrote:
| See my top level post, but I've been through it. A couple of
| quick answers.
|
| It's hard to understand how overwhelming it is to suddenly
| loose every single material possession. And you're spot on.
| Dealing with all the paperwork and agencies like FIMA and
| insurance companies. If you have the ability to help someone
| out in these areas it could be really helpful. Unfortunately
| it's hard, and most of the "dealing" has to be done by the
| victims.
|
| So, the point of the article is what can you do so help in the
| immediate where you have people you know suddenly have to
| replace literally everything. The spatulas and boxes may seem
| silly, but when you're dealing with so many things at one time,
| even small stuff taken off your plate is helpful. For example,
| the first night I finally went to go to bed and hadn't even
| thought to pick up a toothbrush and I was too overwhelmed to
| deal with it and actually broke down in tears!
|
| Prevention tips? Well for the Oakland firestorm or the Colorado
| fires there's not much to prevent. All I can say is do an
| inventory of your home and determine what you'd really miss if
| it were gone. Put those things close together so you can grab
| them in a minute. Or make sure you have copies. Cloud photo
| storage definitely makes a big difference. If you have old
| photos, make digital copies.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > What can all of us do _today_ , pre-burned house to deal with
| this situation?
|
| 2 is one, and 1 is none. Have a second abode nearby that is
| ready to go at a moment's notice. Could be an empty home or
| apartment you own, or could be family and friends you can stay
| with.
|
| With electronic backups of everything, I do not see anything
| else that would need to be protected. Although, I do have a
| small go box with important documents, especially government
| issued IDs and copies and cash that would come in handy,
| assuming I have the ability to extract it from the burning
| house.
| oblib wrote:
| Great post. And the timing as well for me because we almost lost
| our home to a fire just a few days ago. Someone bought the 5 acre
| lot next to our place recently and about a month ago they hired a
| guy with bulldozer who's been knocking down almost every tree and
| all the brush and piling it up and burning it, and then leaving
| the fire unattended all night and on the weekends.
|
| It burned for three weeks before it spread to our place and it
| was pure luck that one of our daughters and a granddaughter took
| a bag of garbage out just a bit after midnight and saw it burning
| on our property.
|
| It was pretty much inevitable it would do that and pure stupidity
| on their part, but legal where we live to do that. But there are
| laws that make it clear you're responsible to keep it under
| control and liagle for any damage that occurs if the fire crosses
| your property line.
|
| There were seven of us here so we called 911 and then ran outside
| and started raking leaves and dead fall away from our old wooden
| barn and chicken coop to create a firebreak. The fire was less
| than 30 feet from the barn and it would've been no more than 10
| minutes at most before it would've caught fire. From there it
| would have spread fast to our house.
|
| When the firefighters showed up they asked us to get out of their
| way, which of course we did. Then they spent about 4 hours
| getting it under control.
|
| Since then we've had many neighbors and locals reach out and
| offer help and that's been incredibly heartwarming. The guy who
| bought that property hasn't contacted us though. He owns a
| construction company but I'm pretty sure he bought that lot to
| build a home for himself so it's in his best interest to reach
| out and apologize, but so far nothing at all.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| First, F that guy and his contractor too. They're both a-holes
| for being so irresponsible with the fires.
|
| That said - I do wonder if the future neighbor is even aware
| that something happened. If it's an empty lot (i.e., the future
| neighbor isn't living there now) and the neighbor doesn't visit
| regularly it might be possible that the person just doesn't
| know.
|
| This is definitely an inauspicious start to your relationship
| with the future neighbor but hopefully the person will turn out
| better once they actually live there.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Considering you (or your insurance company) might have a legal
| case against them, it would seem to be in the adjacent property
| owner's best interest to only communicate via lawyers to limit
| their potential losses.
| oblib wrote:
| Here's a link to a post the Fire Dept put on Facebook:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/CTCFirePD/posts/4787245711356321
| bittercynic wrote:
| If you're going to be neighbors, I think it's more important
| to deliver a sincere apology. Then again, from the behavior
| leading up to this it doesn't sound like the new owner cares
| too much about positive relationships with neighbors.
| akiselev wrote:
| Some Canadian provinces [1] and US states are beginning to
| adopt laws that apologies don't constitute an admission of
| liability. Hopefully, these catch on - it's ridiculous that
| we have to be so guarded about basic human decency because
| of the threat of litigation.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_Act,_2009
| scottlamb wrote:
| > Considering you (or your insurance company) might have a
| legal case against them, it would seem to be in the adjacent
| property owner's best interest to only communicate via
| lawyers to limit their potential losses.
|
| This line of thought seems common, but I think it's incorrect
| as well as immoral. Personally, I'd be far more likely to be
| lenient on someone who sincerely apologized. When someone
| doesn't admit fault, I'd be more likely to use the legal
| system to declare them at fault and seek the maximum damages.
| I don't think I'm alone. There have been studies on this,
| mostly in the context of medical mistakes.
| https://www.calbarjournal.com/July2010/TopHeadlines/TH1.aspx
| mindslight wrote:
| One of the hard and fast rules of open fires, regardless of
| anything the law says, is that you make sure it is
| completely out before leaving. It would seem that this guy,
| or at the very least his contractor, is a straight up
| asshole.
|
| I would have called the fire department the very first day
| they left it unattended. And speaking to the legal
| situation, I would be shocked if actual firefighters
| brushed off that level of irresponsibility.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It depends what the expected value of the loss is. Based on
| the story above, I assume they are looking at a minimum of
| 6 figures, possibly even 7 figures. At that point, it could
| be about livelihoods, and the risk tolerances get much
| smaller.
|
| If I am the person whose house was burned down, even with
| an apology, I am not going to be lenient on replacing what
| I lost, which is at least 6 figures worth. If the insurance
| company is involved, they are definitely not going to care
| about apologies, just getting all of their costs covered.
|
| Edit: ignore everything I wrote. I thought the OP had lost
| their home due to the neighbor burning stuff on their land.
| I lazily missed the word "almost", in which case, since
| there are no large damages for the negligent neighbor to
| worry about, I agree that an apology is at least warranted.
| scottlamb wrote:
| The studies of medical mistakes included cases where
| someone actually died or was crippled for life. So it
| doesn't make sense to me to think this applies only to
| minor incidents.
|
| My opinion: when someone sues for damages, they're
| looking not only to offset the harm they've suffered but
| also to ensure the same thing doesn't happen again. The
| first part depends on their circumstances--they may
| desperately need that money now. The second part may be
| satisfied entirely by a sincere apology, or the lack of
| an apology may underscore the importance of punitive
| damages.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| I think I'm missing something - the story above is about
| how the neighbor's contractor didn't control their fires
| so the author's family had to rake leaves in the middle
| of the night to avoid their house burning down, yes?
|
| At this point it seems like there's no "real" damage done
| so the person who's responsible for the fire couldn't be
| sued for anything.
|
| My understanding is that the neighbors et al expressed
| support because they all understand how close to disaster
| this was, not because there was a disaster.
|
| (Having said all that - the neighbor & the contractor are
| both a-holes for not being responsible and then not
| apologizing afterwards.)
| oblib wrote:
| That's spot on. We have some old fence post made from
| cedar that burned up and probably between a 1/3 - 1/2 and
| acre of the forest floor that's burned, but that will
| recover.
|
| More than anything this has been stressful, and not just
| for us. All of our neighbors have been stressed by this
| as well. They all know it's just a matter of which way
| the wind is blowing and how hard.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Big oops by me! Sorry, I misread the original comment as
| "lost our home" and missed "almost lost our home".
| Spooky23 wrote:
| If the party suffering harm is insured, it doesn't really
| matter because the insurance company will do whatever it
| can to recover it's loss.
| chabes wrote:
| My brother's house burned to the ground in Colorado last night.
| His wife is about 7 months pregnant with their first child. I've
| been looking for more ways to help remotely, and this article had
| a few nice tidbits. It just seems so daunting, having to deal
| with what comes next. As the article mentions... the road to
| recovery is a marathon, and not a sprint.
| drivers99 wrote:
| > Our attorney had just explained that despite the 300 pages of
| paperwork we have submitted to our insurance company, I have
| another 100-300 more to go in order to obtain the balance of the
| insurance policy monies we seek.
|
| That seems excessively difficult. I'd probably give up before the
| first 100 pages.
| [deleted]
| anthomtb wrote:
| Well this article hit home. A large chunk of my hometown burned
| to the ground last night.
|
| My parents still live there and are okay but there is no doubt
| that friends and colleagues (I still work in the area) have lost
| their homes.
| idoubtit wrote:
| A close relative's house burned this fall, so I can relate to
| this subject. It was in western Europe, so it probably differs
| from the US experience: insurance was a great help, and other
| structures (e.g. municipality) are now involved in building back
| the house. Unlike the article, it was not a from a large scale
| fire, so neighbor solidarity was very important and very useful.
|
| In the case I know, the most important point was that the family
| could take care of the young children for the first week, which
| is the most chaotic. It also softened their trauma.
|
| Another important point is to deal with the jobs: explain what
| happened, try to find temporary adjustments (co-workers and
| hierarchy were great in this case), and if working gets too hard,
| ask for a sick leave. I couldn't do any of this myself, but
| talking about it with the victims is essential.
|
| Apart from this, all the points 1-9 of the article are valid and
| important. Especially in 1, "sift through ashes for remnants of
| cherished belongings", which is so heartbreaking for the house
| owners that it shouldn't be done alone.
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