Getting our feet wet. Literally.
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Sometimes an event in our lives will force us to take a second look at all of the things that we so routinely take for granted: warm food, clothes on our back, and a dry roof over our heads. Emphasis on the “dry.”
One such event occurred here at Anabliss that left our mouths gaping open and our feet scrambling. Our office flooded. Completely flooded. A pipe in the unit above us burst, and water poured from every light fixture, air vent and ceiling fan as if they were faucets. Surreal. Very, very surreal.
By the time the water was finally shut off, there were two to three inches of standing water on both floors. Here is a picture of Matt standing in it. Weird.
Although we won’t argue that this was a huge tragedy, we count ourselves very lucky. Call it fate, call it the power of God or some higher being, but we were fortunate that Scott just happened to be working a little late the night it happened. He was packing up for the day, putting on his coat and grabbing for his keys when the fire alarms started to go off. Of course, he was confused. There was no smell of smoke, but rather the sound of running water…what the??? And then it started. Water pouring from every opening in the ceiling. This got Scott’s feet and hands scrambling to grab every computer and hard drive and get them to dry land! The alarms caught the attention of the neighbors, and before long strangers were helping carry stuff out to safety.
The next morning, we all met at the office to survey the damage and figure out a game plan. This was the first time I was seeing the damage firsthand, and my mouth gaped open as I saw soggy books, dripping files, and a piece of the ceiling starting to sag down. But after we all got over the initial shock, we jumped into action. We have a business to run here people!
It wasn’t long before the place was crawling with insurance claim adjustors and a construction crew. It turned out that the entire place needed to be torn down to its skeleton and rebuilt.
So where do we conduct business during the renovation? Fortunately there was an empty unit just half a block away, and the property manager of the complex so kindly offered for us to move in temporarily while our office is being renovated. So the moving began and only 36 hours after the flood started, we were holding client meetings within our “new” office. There were boxes everywhere, we still didn’t have internet or phones, but we were going on with business as usual.
It was a rough week, but it ended up being an amazing team building experience. There was a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of coordinating and a lot of laughing. We learned that we could count on each other in a crisis. Now it feels like we can handle anything.
It’s been three weeks since the flood, and we are all settled into our temporary space. We are working on some cool stuff, so check back soon to see some new design work.