Marshall Fire Relief for the Oman Family

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year,

My name is Nicole Oman and it comes with a humble and heavy heart that I write this message today. The last 48 hours have been 2 of the most challenging days that I have experienced. We live in the center of where the Marshall fires devastated an entire community in a matter of hours.

For the last few years, Ryan and I have been working hard on developing a brand new business, where we can join forces and create programs to help people mentally and emotionally in tragic and traumatic times just like these. On December 30 at 12 pm Ryan had his last client as a personal trainer to take the leap of faith and fully commit to his path as a healer. But as he walked through the glass doors of the gym, he saw something that he never expected: a dark plume of smoke filled the air. He rushed home to get to us, and we filled the cars with irreplaceable items, important documents, and suitcases with necessities. As Ryan loaded the cars, me and the girls were in my meditation room sending deep prayers around the house and neighborhood. The sirens screeched down our road, the police officers started yelling that our street needed to be evacuated immediately. We ran outside, the wind gusts were so strong, they nearly blew me and the children off our feet. The police officer began to assist my mother-in-law with her bags and helped load us into our vehicles. Only to just sit in a long line of cars in grid lock. One of our quick thinking neighbors galvanized some of the men including Ryan, and tore down the fence at the end of our cul de sac creating an emergency exit, and we were able to get us out to safety. To the left of us were flames and black smoke, to our right was blue skies. The surreal images are plastered in my mind. The officers who ushered us out of town were covered in ash and soot. As we made it to the top of the hill to safety, we watched our small town up in flames and black smoke. To us, the flames looked to be right in our area. For the next 12 hours we had no idea if we were going to return to a home or to the rubble of a former life. We were able to make it to a friend's house for the night, but had no internet access because the lines were down from the wind and fire. We had to rely on friends to give us updates on what they were hearing from certain news sources. At around 10 am the next morning we were informed that we were in a small pocket where they were able to save the houses. The relief I felt sent me into hysterical tears. But the grief and sadness still remained. My town will never be the same. We all will need to rebuild, brick by brick together.

We were able to walk into the area, and to our house yesterday. afternoon. After all is said and done, we got extremely lucky. When we looked at the surrounding areas, the earth was scorched, but the amazing firefighters, police officers and responders did such an amazing job saving so many houses and neighborhoods.

Unfortunately we are not out of the woods yet. We don’t have gas, heat, and clean water. Last night, we had to drive 2 hours north to find a vacant hotel room. My beautiful friend, Charity, paid for our hotel for a few days so we can have sanctuary. On New Year's eve Ryan drove us safely through a nasty snow storm. A little traumatized and exhausted, we are safe. We may be displaced for a few weeks. This is really hard for me to ask, but we are on a limb… We are out of our house and not able to work at the moment. I hold space and help people through traumatic and transforming times, and here I am: broke and displaced from my home not able to work to keep us afloat. The disaster relief and support are very difficult to come by, except for a $100 gift card to Costco. There are a ton of places to donate, and nowhere to receive those donations. We've been scouring the internet for hours to find help from charities, and government, but it's a needle in a haystack. We need help. God, that's so hard for me to write, but it’s true. There are so many families that lost so much more than we did, but I have to ask. We need to some funds to find a place to stay and food to eat for my family and doggies.

We have some friends that lost their homes after we have enough to get us through the month, I will take any donations, and give them directly to those in my community in need of assistance. Please, if you can donate or share this post, please help me build our community back. As soon as I get on my feet, I will be putting up support groups to get this community healing. I'm learning that I can't help until I am stable. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.