Ring of Fire

Considering that Buckhead Church played this song last week, it was appropriate for telling the story of my parents recent escape from a hotel fire.

Mom and Dad were visiting my brother Brad in San Diego. During their last night at the Del Mar Homewood Suites, they were forced to flee their room around 2am due to a fire. The fire started in a building under construction and spread to one side of their hotel. I got a phone call a little before 5 Atlanta time and was instantly awake when I heard Mom's voice scared and going at a rapid clip talking about buildings burning down and escaping with their clothes on their backs. Awful and scary to be across the country when something like that is happening. Dad had left his cell phone in the room. They had time to grab her purse and his laptop before they ran from what Mom called an inferno. Evidently a woman a couple of rooms down woke up to intense heat and when she pulled back the curtains to try to figure our what was going on, the window pane shattered into the room because of the flames.

Their room did not face the building that caught fire, it was 2 doors down from the turn in the hallway and escaped the worst of the fire. They were able to salvage all of their personal belongings the next day. Their rental car, however, burned to a crisp since it was parked between the two buildings; these pictures show both hotels and their SUV. Brad said it was surreal, tires exploding and cars melting...they watched their car burn to the frame.

My Dad said that his lessons learned were: don't park next to a building under construction and don't assume that all hotel alarms are false.

Here is a picture of what was left of their Highlander after the fire.

Here's a link to a Sign on San Diego newspaper article.