It probably wasn't much later than 9am that my mom came in my room. I don't recall if I'd already been awake, or if she woke me up. But I was told to wake up, because the house is on fire next door.
The house is on fire next door.
Yeah, great wording. "THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE next door." After the split-second of registering that it wasn't our house on fire, I sat up and looked for some clothes. The first question; "Where are the cats?" I already knew the answer (under my mom's bed, where they always go when they're scared). I don't like them being under there, because then it's near-impossible to gather them up in case we needed to ever get them out in the case of an emergency.
The house was in flames, apparently. I didn't go out, but my parents did. All we know is it started in the master bedroom, and the whole inside was gutted in the fire. They say that it looks as if there wasn't any furniture at all in the house. The fire burned it all to nothing. But thankfully, the fire department got it under control and out, so we didn't have to worry about trying to evacuate.
It's still standing, but the inside is completely gutted by flames, and the roof is shot out. The whole thing will have to be torn down, and there is literally nothing inside that can be salvaged.
The neighbors themselves were fine. They weren't even home. Their pets, on the other hand... 5 cats and 1 dog. One cat was taken to the hospital, and one cat is missing (update: found, and apparently OK, if not a little shaken up). The rest were victim to the smoke.
And they just found out today they are gonna be grandparents.
We just got power back now, and I'm working on getting my cats out from under the bed. The girls keep coming out and going back under, but the boy won't even dare to come back out again just yet.
Trucks are still here, inspector is going through the wreckage. Neighbors are devastated.
So yeah, how was YOUR morning?