Sandi Dick doesn’t yet know the full extent of damage to her ground-floor suite from Sunday’s fire at Five Corners.
But she was relieved to learn Tuesday that at least one of her most precious possessions – her cat, Cabo – made it out unscathed.
“It’s kind of a good story of a bad story.”
Cabo had disappeared when Dick opened her patio door around 5 a.m. Sunday to investigate a “pop pop and the smell of burning plastic.”
“It wasn’t a fire really at that particular time,” she said Wednesday, describing what she saw as reminiscent of a candle’s glow.
Dick, who was at home with her husband and son, never imagined the glow would evolve into a raging fire that would leave more than 100 homeless. Residents were evacuated to Centennial Arena and firefighters battled the blaze for several hours, continuing to deal with hot spots overnight Sunday and the next morning.
Cabo – who Dick rescued from the SPCA about four years ago – was among three cats missing following the fire. And while Dick was fairly certain her pet wasn’t inside when she left Sunday morning, until firefighters called Tuesday to say she’d been found in one of Dick’s closets, she couldn’t help but wonder.
“There’s always that thing that maybe she was in there, that she drowned or burned,” or suffocated in the thick smoke, Dick said.
Back with her owner at a friend’s place in Clayton, Cabo was purring Tuesday night.
A report of fresh paw prints has Dick optimistic a cat missing from a third-floor unit also survived. There has been no sign of the third cat, she said.
Dick said community support in the aftermath of the fire has been “amazing.”
But with news it could be two years before she has a home to return to, said she’s “feeling hugely overwhelmed.”
“That’s the hard part, is it’s so unknown.”
Cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but Dick said if it is found to have been intentionally set, those responsible “have no idea what they did (to) everybody.”