Early Ford V-8 Club of America Golden Gate Charter Regional Group #1 |
Kent Keyser Garage Fire
Dear friends,
Wanted to let you all know we had a small disaster here
at the Keyser place in the early morning hours on Wednesday the 7th.
Everyone's okay. No one was hurt and the damage to my pride-and-joys
can be fixed. Luckily the Phaeton was not in the garage when this
happened (it's up at Kenny Walker's place getting a new sprucing up on
paint!). I actually consider myself quite fortunate when I think of all
the really bad things that could have happened. The 3:00AM wake-up call
from our security service telling me they're getting a fire alarm
signal. I thought it was our house and quickly did the walk-through
finding everything okay. Then looking out the window to see the flames
inside my detached garage. Oh what a sick feeling to see that. The run
out to the "shop" in the dark, losing my shoes along the way (!), only
to find my garage doors will not open because the circuit breakers had
tripped and disconnected power. The fireman can only attribute an
"adrenaline rush" to explain how I was able to rip the roll-up garage
door off it's hinges enough to crawl in with my garden hose and see two
of my "baby's" burning... the '11 Model T and the Mustang. The flames
were climbing up the wall from a workbench area to the high ceilings
catching the roof insulation on fire and raining burning insulation down
on everything.
I was able to get the fires out on the two cars before
focusing on the wall and ceiling.
Geez, where's the fire department?
Then the Model T caught fire again, I put that fire out, with the wall still burning. Arghhh ... where's the fire department??
Finally got all the fires out. I waited, afraid to leave and go wake up my wife who was still asleep in the house (she wears great ear plugs at night!) for fear something would reignite. At last, I hear the fire truck ... no sirens thank goodness... don't want to disturb the neighbors. The Captain wanted to recruit me as a volunteer saying what a great job I did putting the fire out!
In the end I was thankful I did not lose everything. Thankful for having ADT as an alarm service. Without their wake-up call we never would have known there was a problem until everything was lost. Thankful the cars were not totally destroyed. Damaged? Oh yes. Repairable? Yes. Thankful one of the cars did not explode while I was in the garage with the hose. Not sure I'd be typing this essay to you all ... Hopefully I'll be seeing you in the Phaeton soon!
Happy New Year,
Kent Keyser
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