Start your morning with a Bang

The deafening sound made me an leap to my feet as the windows shook. Julien was on my heels as I ran into the living room to see what had happened.

We looked at each other in bewilderment. "Did you hear that?" I asked, feeling a little silly for asking such an obvious question. Why else would he be up at 5:45am? All of the possibilities ran through my mind in the blink of an eye: a car running into the building, someone getting shot, a bomb going off. Julien ran to the front door and looked down the hallway. I checked the laundry room, the den, the bathrooms, and Charlotte's room. Nothing.

Then I opened the balcony door and a horrible site awaited me: Fire. Flames were licking our balcony rails. Thick black smoke curled upwards and made me cough as I closed the door as quickly as I had opened it. I ran to get Charlotte as Julien and I pondered what to do. Many seniors from the building across from ours had heard the explosion too and had made their way to their own balconies to watch the action. They yelled to us to call 911, but our phone hadn't been hooked up yet. Our home of 4 days that we had been so excited to get had become a nightmare in the blink of an eye.

I ran for the building manager as someone in the other building called 911. The firetruck seemed to take an eternity to show up, but in reality it only took a few minutes. We watched as they extinguished the fire and started to interview witnesses. The police showed up and also started their investigation. After we were told it was safe, we went back to bed and tried to piece together what had happened.

The building manager called us to thank us for getting him, and explained that a tenant on the 4th floor (we are on the 2nd) had gone camping and had transported a propane tank and some briquettes in a big plastic storage bin. When they somehow caught fire early this morning, he made an executive decision to throw it over his balcony, knowing it was better for it to explode outside than in the building. It turns out that it exploded right in front of our bedroom window on its way down and kept burning once it hit the ground. We were a little bit stunned at the news, especially when we heard that our windows should have imploded with the force of the explosion and would have surely hurt us, as our bed is beside that window.

So knowing this, is it coincidence that just last night Julien and I prayed for protection from walls to windows, floors to ceilings, and doors to doors on our new place?

I think not.