On 12/30/11 we had a home and office fire. Setness Tours has been operating out of the Residence Inn for nearly 2 weeks. As of Friday, 1/13/12 we will be in a temporary office until our home and office is rebuilt - hopefully by early fall.Continue to use our 2432 W. Benjamin Holt address for mail to Setness Tours.
Below is the letter I wrote to the Stockton Record, which explains about the fire-
To the good Samaritan
who knocked on our door warning us that our house was ablaze; you truly saved our
lives. You woke my husband, called 911, and left before we got your name.
Please stop by and leave your name so the five people and one dog you saved can
thank you personally.
Our home was lost to
an electrical fire that started when the laundry vent fan that was running overnight
overheated and started an attic fire. We have eleven working smoke detectors in
our house, but none in the attic. That allowed the fire to engulf the attic
before the smoke was forced down into the living area of our house, triggering
the smoke alarms. Every attic needs at least one smoke alarm.
Yes the smoke alarms
were going by time the good Samaritan knocked, but not long enough to arouse us
to action from our sleep. Without the knock I particularly would not have had
time to get my 82 year-old mother-in-law with Parkinson’s disease who uses a
walker out of her bedroom before we would have been engulfed in poisonous
smoke.
I am stupendously
overwhelmed by the herculean measures the Stockton Fire Department took to
preserve our personal property. During the blaze they threw fireproof tarps
over our photographs, records, and family antiques. In rooms which were gutted and
anything not so covered was lost, most everything of personal value was saved.
I had no idea firefighters work so hard to preserve personal property.
It will be most of a
year before we will be able to return to our home, but everyone is safe and our
records and family memories are preserved. This is a life changing event for my
family, but one that teaches us what is important in life. Thank you to our
friends who have reached out to us, to the Stockton Fire Department who was
simply unbelievable during this emergency, and the good Samaritan whose name I
do not know.
In particular we will
always owe a debt to the firefighters who were injured in the blaze. I cannot
imagine what it must be like to cut into a roof when the fire inches below is
fighting to get out. We gratefully thank you for the risks you take every day.
Katherine Setness
On behalf of Wayne,
Katherine, Marc, Diana, JoAnn & Taffy
