don_w
Dyno Numbers - Who Cares?
The purpose of this thread will be to document the rebuild of our home that was destroyed last year by fire. I will include pics and videos, and over the next 8 to 10 months you’ll be able to see it all happen as we go.
The title of this thread… Bigger, Stronger, and a Lift!.., is a spin-off from a thread I had when I was rebuilding my engine (Bigger, Stronger, Faster). The house will be about 1,000 SF bigger, will be built stronger (due to earthquake and fire codes), and I plan on having a 2-post lift in the garage!!
Although this thread is about the future, a little historical background may be useful. Most of this has been posted in other places, but I wanted to repeat it here for completeness.
======================================================
A little over a year ago, our world was turned upside down. As most of you know, we lost our house on Monday, 10/22/07 in the San Diego wildfires.
Our neighbor woke us up at about 5:15am to let us know there was a fire on the hillside behind our house. I went out to take a look, and at first was not concerned. It was raging to be sure, but the strong Santa Ana winds were blowing away from us, and I didn’t feel threatened at all. So I grabbed the video camera, and started shooting. It was hot, smoky and smelly, and my eyes were full of ash, but I kept shooting. About 15 or 20 minutes went by, and the Fire Dept told us to leave. We went about a block, and hit some traffic. After waiting there a while, we decided to double back and try to get out another direction. We drove back to our house at about 6:00am, only to discover that the situation was a more serious than I previously thought. As we left that last time, all we had with us were a few photo albums and pictures, my laptop, our cameras, and the clothes we were wearing. Donna and I each drove a vehicle, leaving one behind.
Here is the video I shot in those pre-dawn moments before we evacuated.
[sfire]b6537e6c-a140-4ad4-aac5-9b4c00182e6b[/sfire]
After about an hour stuck in local traffic (remember, about a half million people were evacuated in San Diego that day), we finally got on the highway, and went to my office. I figured we would have phones, bathrooms, internet, etc. there. At about 9:30am, our daughter called us and she was hysterical. She said a local TV station was broadcasting live from right in front of our house as it burned to the ground. My son captured it on his DVR, and we watched a recording of that a few hours later. It was bizarre to say the least. Here is the same footage we saw.
Parts 1 and 2 are the actual live footage being broadcast as the house burned. It's pretty graphic, but there are a couple humorous moments when the newscasters say dumb things. Give yourself some time to watch this... it was almost 25 minutes of live TV and they stayed on our house for most of that time (all but about 6 minutes in Part 1). Part 3 was a 5-minute summary wrap up that they did at 6:00pm later that evening. The field reporter was in the studio for this.
PART 1 (16 min)
Note from 1:53 thru 7:53 is not coverage of our house; you can FF through that part if you want.
[sfire]fa4a4425-f46c-4417-8c5b-9b3f00206a70[/sfire]
PART 2 (8 min)
[sfire]8fa9da57-2cb3-4d00-84c9-9b3f010d2ea8[/sfire]
PART 3 (5 min)
[sfire]9bf1b40b-4eb7-40d6-b548-9b3f01206e58[/sfire]
The title of this thread… Bigger, Stronger, and a Lift!.., is a spin-off from a thread I had when I was rebuilding my engine (Bigger, Stronger, Faster). The house will be about 1,000 SF bigger, will be built stronger (due to earthquake and fire codes), and I plan on having a 2-post lift in the garage!!
Although this thread is about the future, a little historical background may be useful. Most of this has been posted in other places, but I wanted to repeat it here for completeness.
======================================================
A little over a year ago, our world was turned upside down. As most of you know, we lost our house on Monday, 10/22/07 in the San Diego wildfires.
Our neighbor woke us up at about 5:15am to let us know there was a fire on the hillside behind our house. I went out to take a look, and at first was not concerned. It was raging to be sure, but the strong Santa Ana winds were blowing away from us, and I didn’t feel threatened at all. So I grabbed the video camera, and started shooting. It was hot, smoky and smelly, and my eyes were full of ash, but I kept shooting. About 15 or 20 minutes went by, and the Fire Dept told us to leave. We went about a block, and hit some traffic. After waiting there a while, we decided to double back and try to get out another direction. We drove back to our house at about 6:00am, only to discover that the situation was a more serious than I previously thought. As we left that last time, all we had with us were a few photo albums and pictures, my laptop, our cameras, and the clothes we were wearing. Donna and I each drove a vehicle, leaving one behind.
Here is the video I shot in those pre-dawn moments before we evacuated.
[sfire]b6537e6c-a140-4ad4-aac5-9b4c00182e6b[/sfire]
After about an hour stuck in local traffic (remember, about a half million people were evacuated in San Diego that day), we finally got on the highway, and went to my office. I figured we would have phones, bathrooms, internet, etc. there. At about 9:30am, our daughter called us and she was hysterical. She said a local TV station was broadcasting live from right in front of our house as it burned to the ground. My son captured it on his DVR, and we watched a recording of that a few hours later. It was bizarre to say the least. Here is the same footage we saw.
Parts 1 and 2 are the actual live footage being broadcast as the house burned. It's pretty graphic, but there are a couple humorous moments when the newscasters say dumb things. Give yourself some time to watch this... it was almost 25 minutes of live TV and they stayed on our house for most of that time (all but about 6 minutes in Part 1). Part 3 was a 5-minute summary wrap up that they did at 6:00pm later that evening. The field reporter was in the studio for this.
PART 1 (16 min)
Note from 1:53 thru 7:53 is not coverage of our house; you can FF through that part if you want.
[sfire]fa4a4425-f46c-4417-8c5b-9b3f00206a70[/sfire]
PART 2 (8 min)
[sfire]8fa9da57-2cb3-4d00-84c9-9b3f010d2ea8[/sfire]
PART 3 (5 min)
[sfire]9bf1b40b-4eb7-40d6-b548-9b3f01206e58[/sfire]
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