2011 - comes out kickin'!

What a crazy first couple of weeks 2011 has been. There's no way I could have predicted this. It's mostly because of an event at the store. No Celebrities or performances - just one massive inferno next door that has turned our world upside down. My tweet that day went something like this. "Oh 333 yet another obstacle thrown in our way - don't worry baby we shall overcome!!"

I got a call from my boss around 5am on January 3rd. He was standing outside my store and was surrounded by 30 or so firetrucks. This troublesome heritage building which has been a thorn in my side most of last year was fully engulfed in flames. The owners of the property totally neglected the building in recent years and asked the city if they could tear it down. This was after an incident last April when the side of the structure fell on to the sidewalk below. The city then decided to honour this building as a heritage site which would make the process of moving forward a rather tricky one. The owner's dream of tearing down the building was certainly over. So for past 8 months the building sat abandoned with a 3 meter fence all around it as it was deemed unstable. The fence cut off all traffic flow to my store and we've been suffering in our results ever since. Not only did it obstruct foot traffic but it also took out a lane of Yonge street which really caused a bottleneck due to how many cars use Yonge to get around downtown Toronto. The owners apparently had a meeting set for January 10th with city planners to discuss what action they were going to take to get this situation resolved. So the timing of the fire and size in which it was - very suspicious to me from the moment I saw the first photo. The building hadn't had electricity or gas for several months now - so unless a squatter some how managed to create the bomb-fire - something else made it go up so quickly.

Luckily for us the firefighters were determined to save our building and not let the fire spread. They did this by breaking in and then running a hose to our 3rd floor and up to the roof. Unfortunately 2 firefighters lost their footing when they were up there and fell into the burning building. A rare "mayday" was called on their radios and the fire dept went into panic mode trying to get those 2 guys out of the inferno. They were trapped in there for a good 20 minutes before they would be pulled to safety. It took the firefighters nearly 7 hours to put out the fire and hotspots would continue to flare up for 2 days after the blaze. Our store got soaked - they poured 1.1 million litres of water on the building next door and that water had to go somewhere. Our basement saw the worst of it of course. We installed a sub-pump last spring to help prevent flooding during the annual thaw and we credit that for preventing further water from coming in the store. It's amazing to see the disastrous things water can do - always choosing the path of least resistance - it went everywhere. What was more incredible was the smell - the smoke damage was equally bad and it was very difficult to breathe as we began the process of putting Humpty back together again.

Insurance companies can be pretty amazing - we had our adjustor on site the afternoon of the fire. He had contractors in the store that night beginning to clean up the mess that we were in. The speed at which things happened was a positive thing to witness - we felt we could reopen within days based on what we saw. As the days went on it soon became a "crime scene" next door and the Fire Marshals were taking their time pulling the building apart searching for clues as to how it all happened. We had staff working away during the whole time pulling out product that had been affected by water or smoke. Aside from the occasional call to "evacuate' from the demolition team - the synergy the team displayed really got things done and we could have opened much sooner than we actually did. That didn't happen till a couple days ago. Much of the delay had to do with ensuring our wall that was next to the burnt out building was still structurally sound and was not going to collapse on us.

Through this experience I feel I've grown a fair bit - I am stronger than I realized emotionally and was able to step up when I needed to. I suffer from some post-traumatic stress from a event that happened when I was 12 that has had me crippled when it comes to house fires and disasters. I hope as the weeks go on that I am able to remain as strong and use this event as a stepping stone to control my paranoia. It'll be awhile until things return to normal at the store - but we will make the most of it in the months to come. We are doing a remodel in April so this event is kind of the last chapter of our current state. It's kind of a dark place we're in right now but as exciting releases come out and customers return to embrace us - it'll make things easier to endure.