I was walking to the brewery at about 7:45 AM and saw the smoke; by the time I got there the first fire engine was already parked in the street. Eventually we had five trucks spraying water - both Silverton units (all volunteers, by the way) plus two from Durango and one from Ouray. Even then it took them eight hours to get it extinguished. Apparently they were able to save our building from any major fire damage, but they cut the power to the entire block, so the sump pumps wouldn’t have been running the entire time they were pumping water onto the roof, and I’m all but certain the basement brewery flooded as a result. No one, tenants or firemen, was hurt, so at least there’s that. I’d assume we’ll have smoke damage as well.
I think it’s mostly a formality, but there will be an arson investigation, so I can’t enter the building until the Sheriff’s office executes a search warrant, and they tell me that will be tomorrow afternoon. So at this point there’s absolutely nothing I can do, and I don’t even know how bad the damage is. We had several thousand dollars worth of grain inventory in the building, so at best we’ll have lost that. At worst we’ll have structural damage and then who knows what.
Sorry for the rambling post. I’ve had several beers throughout the day today. I’ll probably have several more. For at least the next 16 hours, that’s about all I can do. I’m not looking for sympathy or anything, I’m just sitting at home unable to think about anything else - and the bar burnt down, so I don’t have anywhere else to go.
Darn, man – that does suck!!! I grew up in Cortez, my dad is a Durango native, & Silverton is still a favorite place of his to visit, though he has moved farther away. A big loss for such a small community. Sorry, too, for your forced lapse in business and loss of resources. Hang tough!
Bummer. Must’ve been a bad day for brewers yesterday. I burned the hell out of (or more likely, into) my foot yesterday disconnecting a hose. Peeled several layers of skin right off my big toe. I’ll make sure I have my boots on next time. Lesson learned.
I wasn’t brewing yesterday, but I agree it wasn’t a fun day. I got a felony misdemeanor ticket for driving a customer’s car with the wrong tag on it. Not a good birthday for me, but at least my brewery or my foot didn’t burn.
I have to let the judge decide. That’s what the nice police officer told me. (then again how nice could he be to do that knowing it was my birthday?) I got a ticket on April 6 back in the 90’s for speeding 65 in a 55 zone. The trooper went out of her way to pull me over. Perhaps I should stay home next year.
Happy B-Day to you too, hokerer.
I had just rebuilt the engine in an RX-8, which the customer/owner hasn’t bought a license plate for and I wanted to test drive the car, so I put a tag on it that I own. I think I was pulled over for driving a yellow RX-8 (maybe it looked suspicious?), then he checked the tag number, which didn’t match the car.
I’m supposed to have a dealer or transporter tag for situations like this. I’m trying to get one before my court date.
btw I didn’t really mean to hijack the smoking brewery topic. I hope that works out soon.
Assuming you have a reasonable judge, I think that will go a long way toward getting you off or at least reduced penalty. Plead ignorance/stupidity and show you’re fixing the problem so it doesn’t happen again.
Sean, when you can get back in the brewery to assess the damage I know you’ll be super busy, but post an update when you get a chance. Hopefully things can get back up and running quickly, and insurance will cover the losses (lost product, damage, lost earnings, etc).
