e-KNOW Editorial

By Ian Cobb

It’s been a surreal and horrible past 36 hours for Carrie and I and our family as we are dealing with the aftermath of a catastrophic fire that destroyed our home Friday night.

Thankfully, Carrie’s Dad, who lives in the basement, was not hurt.

We learned of the fire while finishing a nice dinner at Fairmont Hot Springs with our granddaughter and niece when Carrie received a call from her Dad. I will forever remember the look on her face when she received the news. At first I thought she was hearing about the death of a loved one.

When she told me a numbness that has not departed surged through me. We drove home in time to see Cranbrook Fire and Emergency Services mopping up and trying to determine the cause. It’s a cold slap in the face to arrive home to see a myriad of emergency vehicles and flashing lights.

Despite a heroic response time by firefighters, our home has been destroyed. The fire began outside, apparently, our joint office and subsequently all our business and personal materials have been destroyed.

However, thanks to a genius tech friend and business associate (Chris Botterill), all our computerized information and material is saved on the Cloud – including almost one million photographs. Had that not been the case, I would not be writing this and e-KNOW would have been the lone fatality of the fire.

So while we are down, we are far from being out. There will be a slow period for a few weeks, in terms of content on e-KNOW, as we navigate the maze that is the aftermath of a house fire.

Thanks to Carrie’s wisdom we are well enough insured and so far I can only say great things about our broker/adjuster and I must cast a nod of appreciation and gratitude to the Red Cross workers who came out and offered such incredible support.

We will be forever grateful to the firefighters whose professionalism was damned impressive and compassion greatly received. Ditto the paramedics who tended to Pops.

I’ve covered hundreds of house fires during my career but never been on the business end of one. I hope all others who have been through such an event have had the support from family and friends that we are blessed to have.

It isn’t new to us that this community has a beautiful, giving heart but we are seeing it in full flower.

Kind words and deeds have kept our hearts from breaking and we cannot express our gratitude and love enough for the support we are receiving. Thank you forever to all of you.

We lost most of the ‘stuff’ that defines our trek across the mortal coil but that loss is tempered with the astounding awareness of how lucky we are to have such beautiful friends and family in this amazing community we call home.

With love and thanks, Carrie and Ian.

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