PRO EXOTICS burning!

Whole-heartedly agree, my statement wasn't meant to be construed that the true value of the animals would be compensated for. I know what it's like to lose a single animal, but I can only imagine the loss they must be feeling.

Yes I would imagine the emotional loss is much worse than the financial. 20 years of blood, sweat and tears... I cannot imagine.

My, as well as yours I bet, herp society is discussing the fire. We do feel for the PE staff and the amazing animals that passed just as everyone does.

However, at some point after reading that description of events you have to ask yourself, 'Where was the sprinkler system? Why didn't the fire and smoke alarms go off before the fire was so large that it broke windows with heat to set off the burglar alarm?' With all that many lives hanging in the balance, what went really wrong here? I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, but I had to admit these were good questions.

If you are a breeder and have a breeding bldg or even bigger, I hope you have adequate fire protection for the animals. All the soldering and heat elements, etc have to really increase our odds of a fire.

This event is making us all question whether we have enough protection in our reptile rooms/bldgs too.

Thank you all for the well wishes and support. It means so much to me, and our entire PE team.

It has been a rough couple of days. More remain ahead.

We met with insurance folks today. Just trying to get a basic understanding of what is covered. Things look good on that front, thankfully.

Our facility is in a warehouse/office district. Our space had offices up front, with 4500 sq ft of snakes in the warehouse. 8 snakes of nearly 3000 lived. It is a total loss, total devastation. With the smoke and water damage, everything has been lost. We tried to salvage some personal items today, but everything has been touched by fire, smoke, soot or water.

It is an older building, no sprinklers, and the landlord wasn't about to spend a million dollars to install them. No one envisioned such a tragedy was even possible.

We have another building across the parking lot housing our monitor lizards and rodent breeding. That is untouched. We are grateful.

I don't know what the future holds. There are months ahead just dealing with insurance folks. We DO have gap coverage that will help pay employee salaries and expenses, thank goodness.

I don't know that even with the graphic pics at facebook Pro Exotics, I don't know that folks understand the devastation.

There are NO cages left, we have no inventory left (20,000 temp guns melted, books, thermostats, etc. all ruined), we found 8 amazing survivors, but we have no cages to put them in (Sloan Reptiles are housing survivors locally for us). Phone system is dead, computers are all wet. There are no boxes to pack orders in, nor any tape to close the boxes. Total devastation, for real.

And it is just surreal. When I stop to rest, it starts to hit, and hard. The outpouring of support from the reptile community is amazing, uplifting, and just awesome. Thank you all, it means so much.

I can't get the smoke stink off of me, my clothes, or out of my car. But I am lucky. No people were hurt, and when I feel weak, the reptile community gives me strength. Super lucky. Thank you for the support, it means SO much.

Robyn, I've been through an electrical house fire that destroyed pretty much everything we had in less than an hour, and I still can't imagine what you're going through. Do really let us know if you think of anything we can do to help, in any way. I wish I was in CO, so I could at least help with the cleanup.

You're right about the loss and trauma not hitting in full yet; it won't for a while. Make sure you have plenty of support around you when it does. The very best to you and all of the PE family.

Sorry to hear about the total loss....
Wishing yall the best!

Phone Interview with Chad Brown:

[media=youtube]Pz-pRLixLZI[/media]

Dang, let's try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kl5zcbQeQ

Here you go, Jeff-

Originally Posted by robyn@Pro Exotics

Thank you all for the well wishes and support. It means so much to me, and our entire PE team.

It has been a rough couple of days. More remain ahead.

We met with insurance folks today. Just trying to get a basic understanding of what is covered. Things look good on that front, thankfully.

Our facility is in a warehouse/office district. Our space had offices up front, with 4500 sq ft of snakes in the warehouse. 8 snakes of nearly 3000 lived. It is a total loss, total devastation. With the smoke and water damage, everything has been lost. We tried to salvage some personal items today, but everything has been touched by fire, smoke, soot or water.

It is an older building, no sprinklers, and the landlord wasn't about to spend a million dollars to install them. No one envisioned such a tragedy was even possible.

We have another building across the parking lot housing our monitor lizards and rodent breeding. That is untouched. We are grateful.

I don't know what the future holds. There are months ahead just dealing with insurance folks. We DO have gap coverage that will help pay employee salaries and expenses, thank goodness.

I don't know that even with the graphic pics at facebook Pro Exotics, I don't know that folks understand the devastation.

There are NO cages left, we have no inventory left (20,000 temp guns melted, books, thermostats, etc. all ruined), we found 8 amazing survivors, but we have no cages to put them in (Sloan Reptiles are housing survivors locally for us). Phone system is dead, computers are all wet. There are no boxes to pack orders in, nor any tape to close the boxes. Total devastation, for real.

And it is just surreal. When I stop to rest, it starts to hit, and hard. The outpouring of support from the reptile community is amazing, uplifting, and just awesome. Thank you all, it means so much.

I can't get the smoke stink off of me, my clothes, or out of my car. But I am lucky. No people were hurt, and when I feel weak, the reptile community gives me strength. Super lucky. Thank you for the support, it means SO much.

Damn.... this has REALLY got to be most people's worst nightmare who have animals. Really sorry this happened to you guys.

Wow, I thought it sucked when I lost all my snakes due to divorce..... sad to see and I hope to see them back up and running in the near future....