Fire!

Last Tuesday was a very interesting Tuesday Morning. Unexpectedly my mom wakes me up at around 5 o'clock in the morning (I usually get up at around 6 or 6:30). She wanted me to wake up with her because she thought there was an electrical problem. I didn't want to get up so then she was like Laura Beth you need to get up with me I'm smelling burning rubber and I think something is smoking in the kitchen. Well, with that information I got up really quick. As soon as I walked into the kitchen I smelled it too. My sister's room is in the basement and my mom said all that she could think about was the circuits and electrical box being down there and so was my sister so my mom made me call Jessica to get upstairs. So I did. My mom was trying to decide whether there was a fire or what was going out- she was freaking out, and by that time I was crying because I thought the house was going to burn down. My sister kept saying Mom, just call 911! So we all went outside and mom called 911. When the firefighter's got there, there were about 6 firetrucks, Lined up and down West 5th Street Road and Dalton Street (my house is on the corner.) With my dad being away in Wisconsin my mom hadn't a clue what to do, so she called one of our old neighbors, Donald and Jennifer, that now live a street over and they came over to be with us. When they got there, the firefighters were already in the house and everything. We were just outside waiting. I didn't have any contacts in or anything, so I couldn't see. My shirt was on wrong-side out and on backwards, so the tag was sticking out on the front. I had on PJ pants and house shoe boots and my hair was in a messy bun on top of my head. By that time I put my contacts in. Then, the firefighter's turn on the big BRIGHT spotlights and I'm thinking, how fun a bright spot light shined on me for all the neighbors to see my when I'm dressed in this, LOL but I didn't care at that point. My uncle Jody, Andy, and cousin Terrill are all firefighters but none of them were on call at the time. One of the firefighters saw a sign in our basement that says "Fiorella's Pool Hall" and he asked which Fiorella lived here and my mom said Jerry Pat and they knew him... of course, haha. Anyways to sum it all up, the problem wasn't our fault. OMU had a break in the lines outside supposedly and no "neutral electricity" was running to our house and our breaker box was like sparking and catching on fire and heating up really quick. The firefighter said if we didn't call within the next 10 minutes or so... the wood floor panels that seperate the basement to the upstairs would have caught fire. Now, we have our electricity fixed and everything, but it shorted out a bunch of our appliances. Our microwave, a refridgerator in the basement, some florescent lights in the basement, and a surge protector for our computer. So OMU will pay for all that which is good and our house is back to normal again (: