FAMILY HOME BURNED TO THE GROUND

February 13, 2022 our lives changed forever,,,,,, around 7:20am'ish, my 18 year old son Matthew barreled through the master bedroom door where Jeremy and I sleep. Matt was screaming,, " WAKE UP!! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!! IT'S ON FIRE!! GET OUT!! At first I was in disbelief or maybe he was playing a joke until I herd the terror in his voice. Our laundry room was under the control of bright yellow and blue flames,, our house was on fire! I grabbed my phone and my bra,, ( I guess those things are important to me) and I see Jeremy throwing on his jeans to go investigate this fire that Matt and I are both yelling about now. Our 3 dogs are in a panic because they sense our panicked energy,, I remember that Zeus ( Matt's rottweiler mix), Junior (Jeremys corgi mix) and Roscoe (my shadow of a Chihuahua) are by this time circling my feet as I'm running towards the front door and Jeremy runs towards the fire. Matt says that Jeremy ran through a wall of flames and he was screaming for him to get out. Jeremy had some how made it out the back door and is going for a fire extinguisher he had in the shop.. he quickly figured out that someone has used it and it's empty so he started throwing 5 gallon jugs of water at the flames. Jeremy is now standing in the laundry room that is on fire hoping the water has helped,, it didn't and the back door is now shut and extremely hot,, so hot it burned his fingers as he tried to open the door. He has to literally kick the back door off it's hinges to get out of the fire. The ends of his hairs are burned, his fingers burned and his foot hurts now. By this time I've called 911 (7:27am) and my boys Clay (23yrsold) and Matt (18yrsold) are at the back steps of our house in time to catch Jeremy falling out the back door. (Jeremy is a stage 4 heart failure patient and has completely exhausted himself with trying all he knew to do to save our home) Clay and Matt sit him down out at his truck. By this time which has only been maybe 7 minutes there are flames lapping out the back door and front door and then I hear the dining room windows shatter.. just so you know why I left the front door open I was fully aware that I was only looking at 1 dog now. Zeus and Junior were not at my feet any more and I don't remember them being outside. I realized that they were in the house still. I started screaming thier names and so did Jeremy and Matt and Clay but they never came out. I know the 911 operator is a little bit hard of hearing now due to me screaming in her ear. The first responder on scene was a Bell county police officer,, it's now a few minutes before 8am and still no fire trucks. Matt is holding Jeremy back from running inside a now fully engulfed structure fire and no one is there to stop the distruction for almost 45 minutes. When the fire department does finally show up there are 3 fire engines that came out to a fire with little to no water. The departments that showed up I understand are volunteer but someone dropped the ball when it was thier job to refill the water tanks. Salado FD ( completely different city!!) was called to bring the water tanker because Central Bell Volunteer Fire didn't bring any with them on thier trucks. So after screaming and giving a very colorful vocabulary lesson to the fire department I have no voice! (They haven't heard the last of me! Thier actions are unacceptable and I am pissed still!) Not one paramedic/EMS asked any of us if we were ok or even bothered to check on us,, maybe think about taking a set of vitals! They looked at me as though I spoke another language when I asked for a thermal blanket for Jeremy and me... and then dumbly responded " uh we don't carry those on the truck",,, I'm still wondering if he would have liked where I would have him hold them for me after that response. Our home is a total loss even the Fire Marshal himself can't say what started it because the damages are to great,, so the cause is left "Undetermined"... I know it would have been the grown up adult thing to have but No we did not have any type of insurance so please don't beat me up over it,, I'm hard enough on my self. Our house burned for over two and a half hours. We lost everything but the clothes on our backs. We lost my oldest son Clay's Nissan Pathfinder, it was parked close to the house and the flames were so strong it caught his car on fire and it's a total loss to. The most hurtful of all is the loss of our Zeus and Junior. Jeremy and I have confirmed that they died in the fire together,, less than a foot apart.

For the past 4 days I've been on the phone calling different places that I've been told will/can help. And at the end of each day I feel like I was just given a number on top of another number and just ran in circles. One of my best friends set up a fund raiser for us but she doesn't have all the details like I do and my middle and little sister have spread the word. Tami Sue ( my unbelievable friend) you are for ever in my heart for all your help,, Chelsea and Robin ( my two little sisters) even if God didn't pick y'all for me I'd pick you again again again and again to be mine,,, you don't know what it means to be shown how much you are loved like I do now!! Thank y'all!!