The Aftermath

After finding out our house was gone, we decided to take things one step at a time. We first had to figure out what to do with the cats. I don't know if you've ever tried to find a hotel that allows cats, but they simply don't exist. Many say they are pet friendly, until you go to check in and they tell you except for cats! We found a place that was boarding animals for free for fire victims, Pets Without Parents, so we stopped by there and felt comfortable enough to leave Cali and Missy. Then we had to figure out lodging for ourselves.

We had a place to stay for Thursday through Cabins for You if we wanted it, and then we would go from there. It was Wednesday, and we knew the best place for us to be was in church. That was the best decision we made, and we were blessed many times by making that decision. Pastor Brent had all of the families who lost their homes stand up and he prayed for all of us. We all met with him after church and he gave us money and gift cards to Walmart so we could get the kids new clothes for school. When we went to get the clothes, we didn't keep track of how much we were spending. We just figured we would use our savings to pay for the rest. When we went to check out, the amount was exactly the amount we had gift cards for. Not a coincidence, but a blessing by God. 😊

We were also given a telephone number to a place called Wafloy Mountain Village and told they may have a place for us to stay. This was the third time someone had mentioned Wafloy to us, so we figured that was probably another sign from God and that we should call them. It turned out they did have a place for us to stay, and they told us we could stay for 30 days. What a blessing! That would give us enough time to figure out our next step.

School was back in session on Thursday, and we were all in good spirits. 

The school provided us with overwhelming love and support. They gave the kids book bags, school supplies and signed us up for free meals for the rest of the school year. Before Christmas the school board gave each child who had lost their home $250. Every day when we would pick up the kids they were giving us gift cards, money and Christmas presents. It was unbelievable. 

After we dropped the kids off at school, we headed to Wafloy for the first time. That is when we met Chad and Jennifer Eidemiller, the couple who runs the camp. They showed us the house where we would be staying, Hemlock. Jennifer had filled the table and refrigerator with food for us. It was unbelievable. We have never felt so much love from strangers in our lives. We were speechless. Since then, they and their children have become such good friends of ours. We love them and know that God gave them to us for a reason. It feels good to now have friends here! We were happy when it was just the five of us, but God was not satisfied with that. He wanted us to have more! What a tremendous feeling that he has blessed us with the Eidemillers. They are amazing people! Oh, and they also have arranged for us to stay here until our house is built!!! God is so good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

On Friday, we were told we could get into Gatlinburg with ID. What a process that was! Everybody and their brother was trying to get into Gatlinburg. We had to fill out paperwork and wait in line for over an hour before we finally got in. The sun was shining especially bright that day!

We look just a wee bit tired! 😀

Driving into Gatlinburg was like nothing I have ever seen, except maybe in the movies. The destruction is undescribable. Some places were completely burnt to the ground, while others were untouched right next to it. This is the first sight we had of our house on the road down below.

You can see Brett's trusty little Vue sitting there, with the rental cabin, Aaron's Lodge, in the background. No sight of our beloved green treehouse. I'm not going to lie, I broke down. I was angry. Why were there rental cabins left untouched, while our home of memories was burned to the ground? It didn't seem fair to me. But, you all know, I have this amazing husband with faith like a rock, and he talked me down from that negativity quickly! Before we even got out of the van, I think. 😀

As we headed up the road, I noticed how brightly the sun was shining. This was a reminder to me that there is a light at the end of the darkness. We will get through this and we will be stronger than ever.

These were the first things we saw driving up our driveway, the only things we were able to save. People kept telling us we would be able to salvage some things. In a house fire that firefighters are fighting, maybe. But there were no firefighters battling this fire. It burned until God opened up the skies with rain. 

Next we saw Brett's truck. The red x means that it was searched and no one was found inside. This trusty guy had over 235,000 miles on it and we never had any problems with it. We never thought a fire would be it's demise! It was definitely worth more to us than the insurance company claimed it was worth! 😁

The fire was so hot that it melted the rims right off! Brett picked this whole piece up and moved it. I wanted to keep it for wall decor but of course insurance "needed" it.

Here is where the house once stood. You can see that it's mostly ash. Many things were difficult to tell what they even were. 

This was the springs of our mattress. Underneath the was my wedding dress and veil, which I waited 14 years to finally get preserved and boxed! I had bought it with money my mom gave to me from my Grandma when she passed away. It hung in the back of my closet all those years, right where I could see it. I'm so glad for that. 

An old ceramic Christmas tree that I had for years that used to belong to my mom. Just a few weeks before the fire, I reminded the boys not to roughhouse near it because it was special to me.

My essential oils bottles! Jennifer is a top Young Living consultant and she called them and they sent me an essentials kit and are replacing my starter kit. She also have me some of her own things to help with my stress, migraines and sleeplessness. I told you she's amazing!

Just a few decor items I pulled out that were recognizable. And a weight! Oh how we miss doing our workout together each morning!

My stamping buddies will recognize these... All of my framelits! They are cutting dies. Each one was on a magnet card. There were over fifty of them. Every magnet card melted and these were laying in a pile.

This pile of rubble is from both bathrooms that we had recently remodeled. I loved my bathroom and know that Isaac will build me another that is just as great! He knows he'll hear about it if it isn't. Ha! 😂

The kids' toothbrush holder.

A ceramic figurine that Grandpa Skeet had given Janae. This is one of the few burned items we ended up keeping. We thought maybe there was a place that could restore it for her.

This tree had fallen right on Janae's bedroom. Our neighbor who refused to leave said this is the side of the house where the fire started.

A look from the other side.

We bought this fire pit at a fundraiser auction at the kids' school at the beginning of November. We never got to use it since it was so dry and we were afraid it would start a fire. How ironic.

Our brand new refrigerator.

One lone Longaberger stand still standing in the corner of the guest bedroom. It was the only one out of twelve or so that I remember seeing!

Our silverware. The mason jars it was all in were melted away but you can still see the wire rack that held them.

The boys' baseball bats.

My Scentsy candle warmer.

A look up from the bottom. There's another red x indicating they checked the house and found no one. It makes me wonder what time it was that someone last saw our house standing. I sure wish I had taken one final look as we were leaving that night. It's a view that will never be the same again.

The view from the road, before and after. I can't wait to see that double-level deck again!

The Unknown

Tuesday, November 29th, was an odd day for us. We felt completely out of touch with the world we knew. We were exhausted, but couldn't sleep because we had so many thoughts running through our heads. The unknown was the worst part. I felt like I could deal with it if I knew our home was gone, but not knowing was horrible. We continued to scour Facebook for any glimmer of hope that our beloved green treehouse had somehow survived. We read of destruction from one end of Gatlinburg to the other, but found no mention of our Silverbell Lane. This gave us hope.

Then we found the post we had been searching for. There was a man who had posted pictures on Silverbell Lane. There was a picture of our neighbor's house, a beautiful log home, completely burned. We now know that this neighbor is Carol, and we are looking forward to meeting her in person soon. Many good things have come from this fire, including building friendships with people that have experienced the same thing as us. In some ways, we felt disconnected when we moved here. Now we feel more at home than ever. It's all part of God's plan!

After seeing the pictures of Carol's house, we searched and found pictures of other burned properties on our road and the two roads above us. Still no 230 Silverbell Lane. This gave us even more hope. This gentleman was only taking pictures of burned properties, so perhaps our treehouse was in the clear! We sent him a message, asking him if he could recall any information about our house. Then we waited and prayed.

It seemed like days before we got a response, but it was probably only an hour or so. The gentleman rememebered standing in our driveway to take the picture of Carol's house. He thought he remembered turning around and seeing a burnt vehicle at the top of the driveway, with the remains of a house still smoking behind it, but he wasn't 100% sure. That was like a punch in the gut. I cried myself to sleep that night, thinking about all of the memories in the house that we could not get back. My wedding dress, Brett and Talan's deer mounts, my necklace that had a diamond from my Grandma Velma in it, the only picture I had of me and my brother before he died, my scrapbooks detailing every memory from before Brett and I were married to our decision to move down here, and so much more. It was surreal to think that all of that was gone. Talan cried right alongside me. Not because he was sad about losing stuff, but because he felt sad for me. I have always called him my tenderhearted one, and in this moment, he definitely was that.

Tuesday night went by in the blink of an eye, and when we woke up on Wednesday, we decided that we were not going to be sad. We talked about how we still had memories and that we were blessed to still be alive. Even though we weren't positive our house was gone, we were going to accept that it was. We had grieved enough Tuesday night, so we decided we would put our trust in God and know that He would help us through this if we found out that we had, indeed, lost our house.

To keep our minds off of things, we decided to go to the Rescue Mission that had been set up in Sevierville. The kids and Brett each had a few extra outfits, but I had only two shirts and no shoes. I had left the house wearing just my slippers. My friends will tell you this is not out of the ordinary. When they all came down a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I accidentally wore my slippers for a full day of shopping at the outlets and evening at the Island. In fact, I'm wearing them right now! 😁 Think about how many pairs of shoes you have. Now think about losing them all. That's how I felt!

My beautiful friends and family when they visited in November

Our experience at the Rescue Mission was very humbling. People had already donated tons and tons of clothes. Unfortunately, some people do not think that other people may not want to wear dirty and ratty clothes that should have been put in the trash. There were many volunteers sorting through all of the clothing and putting out what was suitable for people to wear. In my little mind, I thought we would be back at our house soon enough, so we would only need a few things each. I didn't want to take away from the people who needed it, so I searched for specific items and sizes. Meanwhile, there were people loading up garbage bag after garbage bag of clothing, not checking sizes on anything. There was one family who had filled the entire back of a pick-up with bags of clothing and water. I felt so bad taking away from these people who obviously had so little to begin with. We left with a pair of shoes for me, a few items of clothing for each of us, a bag of hygiene products that I was thrilled to have and two cases of water (only because a volunteer insisted we take it 😊). Ahhhh, the water. This is a funny subject. For some reason, people think when there is a disaster you need water. There were probably millions of cases donated. We still see pallets of water when driving around Sevier County. It's everywhere. Lol It was wonderful to see that people wanted to help, though, regardless of what the help was. Now we know in the future to find out the need before we just start sending stuff. 😊

After we left the Rescue Mission, Brett planned to go to the house with Isaac, our contractor who had remodeled our house for us. We had heard they were letting people in with ID to survey their property. I dropped Brett off to meet Isaac and headed back to the hotel. It was at this time that I got a call from Ashley. Ashley works for Cabins for You, the rental company we had our house, formerly known as Emily's Joy, with when it was on the rental program. We had talked to Ashley several times in the past, and she was always so helpful when we were renting out Emily's Joy. I was not surprised to hear from her, as she had already called us once to see if we were okay and if we needed anything. As I answered the phone, I could tell in her voice that she was upset, and she cried as she told me that they had someone checking on their cabins and Emily's Joy was gone. It hit me like a ton of bricks, but I am so grateful for her calling me. I then got to tell Brett instead of him seeing it first. That was, somehow, easier. It turned out that he was not able to even get into Gatlinburg that day. It was Friday before we were allowed in with ID. That would have been two more days of the unknown. I am so thankful that God brought Ashley into our lives. We have since met and had dinner together just the other night. Her office is based out of Georgia but we would love for her and her family to move up here! 😁 She told us that she had to make many calls to property owners that day, but ours was the hardest, knowing it was not a rental but our home. This is just another example of good that has come from evil.

After I hung up with Ashley, I started to break down a little. Then Talan reminded me "Remember, Mom? We aren't going to be sad anymore. We already knew our house was gone." He was exactly right. It was time to move forward and continue putting our faith in God.

Looking Back

Well, now that it's been seven weeks since the fire, I figured it was time that I explain to all of you what exactly took place the day of the fire. We have talked about it so much down here that I got so tired of rehashing it and thinking what if we had done things differently. But it's been a while, so it's time. 😊

We went home to Indiana on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and got up early Sunday morning to head home. We were so excited when we finally saw this sign.

You know how it is when you're gone for a few days... You're ready to be home and back to your routine. We loved our house and missed it.

When we got home, we found that Flash the Tennessee Elf had paid us a visit.

The kids enjoyed seeing the cats after being gone for a few days, and the boys played the PlayStation while Janae and I unpacked the van, put things away and did laundry. Typical. Haha

The next morning when we took the kids to school, we noticed that the smell of the smoke had gotten a lot worse. It looked a little smokey from the school, but nothing alarming.

We returned back home and got in the hot tub before Brett got to work. It was our daily routine of just spending a few minutes together on the deck that we loved. Every time we got in the hot tub, we would look up at the trees and one of us would say "Can you believe this is our life?" And then we would talk about all of the blessings God has given us. Every. Single. Time. We did not waste a minute loving what God had given us.

Brett got to work in what he called his office. It was really a corner of the boys' bedroom in the darkest area of the house that I referred to as The Hole. 😁 Seriously, he would never have the blinds open to know what was going on outside. I don't know how anyone can work like that! 

I picked up around the house and started some more laundry. Being a rental cabin pretty much since it was built, there was only a small area for a washer and dryer, so we had one of those stacked units that you can fit about three towels in. I was forever doing laundry in that thing. It will not be missed. 😂 I had a migraine and laid down for a bit. We had a beautiful log king bed. Back in Indiana, we had a full bed our entire marriage, so we appreciated and loved this blessing as much as the hot tub!

Around noon, Brett woke me up and said I needed to come outside and look at the sky. It was an eerie shade of orange. I could not capture it completely, but you can tell by these photos that something was not quite right. By the time we went to pick up the kids from school, the smell of smoke was so thick that you could not breathe without covering your mouth. 

The crazy thing is though, the view up at the school still looked perfect. You would never know that this was only about ten miles from our house.

We drove around Gatlinburg before going home, just to check things out. The smoke was getting worse, but there were still a few tourists walking around downtown. Everyone had their shirts pulled up over their faces. We talked about taking Janae to youth group in the evening, just so we could get away from the smoke. It's in Sevierville, about a half hour away, so we thought it would be better there. The wind was starting to pick up though, so we decided to wait and see how things progressed.

After we got home, the kids found that Flash had moved while they were at school. I'm so glad that I had put up all of our Christmas decorations at the beginning of November so we had time to enjoy them. I also had all of my Christmas presents bought and most of them wrapped and under the tree. I was so proud of myself for getting a head start on things this year!

It wasn't long before we got a call saying that school would be closed on Tuesday due to the smokey conditions. It was then that we decided to just stay in for the evening instead of getting out in the mess. I was following several community conversations on Facebook, and an area of Gatlinburg on the opposite end of town from us was evacuated around 7:00, I believe, to the Community Center. People in many other areas were concerned and asking if they should evacuate, but reported that they were told everything was under control when they called the police or fire department. 

Our biggest concern at the time was the wind. It had picked up and we could hear branches falling. We decided we would all sleep downstairs, so Janae and I started to get our things ready. I heard a large branch fall, and looked out my bedroom window and saw that it had landed on the van. At that point I started to worry that a tree would fall across our driveway and we would be blocked in. 

Brett went outside to assess the situation and orange embers were flying past him. He went to the front of the house and discovered that the entire hill behind us was glowing orange. It was on fire and we had had no warning whatsoever. This whole time we had been thinking we might be without power because of the winds. I had no idea our house might burn down.

The boys were playing the PlayStation and I told them they needed to immediately turn it off and get their shoes on. They obeyed immediately. That rarely happens! They knew it was important. Janae helped me to throw some clothes in a bag for all of them and the kids grabbed their blankets and pillows. We got the cats loaded up into their carriers and raced down the driveway. Had we taken Janae to church, we would have lost the cats too. That would have been so hard for the kids, so I'm so glad we made the decision not to go! We stopped at the neighbor's house at the bottom of our driveway to check on them. They said they were not leaving. We didn't feel like it was a choice for us. It was not worth the risk.

I remembered that people were being evacuated to the Community Center earlier, so we decided to go there. It was about 8:30 at this point. Traffic was terrible and moving slowly. We were headed out of town away from the fire though, so we felt safe. 

We found a spot away from people at the Community Center and played games for a while. Then the kids fell asleep. I was desperately trying to get connected to Facebook to see if anyone had any information about what was going on, but I had zero connection inside the building.

We weren't at the Community Center for very long, maybe an hour, before they made us all leave and go to Rocky Top Sports Complex, which is just in front of the Community Center. They had decided to make the Community Center a base for firefighters.

Once we were at Rocky Top, we found some free cots. Unfortunately, a man from the Red Cross came and made an announcement that the cots were being saved for firefighters or injured people, and everyone had to move to the floor. The firefighters were out fighting the fires for two days, so those cots were never used that night. Children and elderly people slept on the hard gym floor that night. That about broke my heart! Obviously, we would have gotten up if someone needed a cot. That was just the first mistep of many made by the Red Cross over the next two weeks. 

We found a corner of the gym where there weren't very many people and I scrolled through Facebook the entire night. I wish I hadn't done that. It was the longest night of my life. I read rumor after rumor about what was destroyed by fire. People were saying that Ober Gatlinburg was gone, that Pi Beta Phi school had burned to the ground, and that Ripley's Aquarium was on fire. Brett talked to a man who was volunteering and he said that Papa John's at the bottom of our hill was gone. I even saw a post by a woman whose son was a firefighter and he had told her that downtown was completely gone. None of this ended up being true. I have no idea why people would post things that were completely false, but it sure made for a long and stressful night for me!

Around 7:00 am, we decided to leave town and go to Kodak. We found out that most of the fires were under control, but that bodies had been found and the city would be closed for at least a few days. It is still unfathomable for me to think that 14 people died in these fires, several within miles of our house. We had no warning of the fire. That could have been us. Why God spared us, I don't know. I do know that God has a plan for our family and He is using us as a testimony for others! We are stronger in our faith than we have ever been, and we are seeing God at work daily in our lives. We are so thankful for all of you and the help you have given us. The help started the very first night at the hotel, when we got a message from Del and Becky Harshman saying they had paid for our two nights at the hotel, and it hasn't stopped yet. We feel your prayers and love, too! I am still working on thank you notes, but please know we are so grateful and could never give you the thanks you deserve! Thank you for being a part of our lives and for living this incredible journey alongside us.