FIRE!!!

Between my sister and I, we are going to give my parents a heart attack.

In November, a guy with a gun walked into my sisters Engineering office on the 8th floor of a crowded building and started shooting things and people. Thank goodness my sister was able to run and get out of the building before he got to her cubical and call 911. Others were not as lucky and 5 were injured, one killed. It was a very traumatic experience, but she is ok. Thank you God!

On Friday, I too had a very traumatic experience at work but I am also ok! It started off as any other day at school. Fridays are my longer days but it was going pretty well so far. Then we had a foreign teacher meeting where we were informed that someone had to teach a 3 hour Saturday class every weekend. I decided to sign up for the one the next day to get it over with. After teaching 9 classes that day I was exhausted but decided to stay after school to plan for the Saturday class and since Caroline was still teaching, I figured we could walk home together anyway. I was in the big office on the 2nd floor of our school going through tapes with Devon, another foreign teacher, when a Korean teacher walks in and says "I've heard the news that's there a fire next door." She didn't seemed concerned but Devon thought she would go check it out. Sure enough, there was a small fire in the vacant building next door that has been in the process of being torn down for awhile now. Devon came back and reported what she saw and the two of us continued to search for teaching materials. Within minutes a little boy walks into the office (I am not sure exactly why) but he turns to us and says "Big fire, teacher." He was also very calm. Then the fire alarm goes off. Its very quiet and seems distant. I turn to my principal who is close by typing away on the computer and I ask her "Is that OUR fire alarm?" She says "yes" nonchalantly and goes back to typing. Devon and I are confused and go to look out the window again to see if it is in fact our alarm and if the fire has gotten any bigger. This time I go too. Devon was the first to get to the window and see big pieces of fire hitting OUR BUILDING. She yells and starts to run back toward the big office when I am able to see out the window too. The building next door to ours is about 10 feet away and is up in flames- HUGE flames. Our building is being hit repeatedly with fire and we are both convinced ECC is on fire. Devon and I run back to the big office quickly to inform the 2 Korean teachers making phone calls at their desks and our principal typing away on the computer. We both yell "FIRE!" but nobody seems to move. We yell it again and again before it hits our principal what is going on. Rachel (one of the Korean teachers) tells the parent on the phone she has to go because she thinks there is a fire or something and then gets off the phone. Devon and I grab our stuff and I run to the small office to grab Caroline's stuff before running to the stairs to find Caroline. It takes a little while before kids start coming down the stairs and Devon and I act as police men directing traffic yelling for kids to go downstairs and to get out of the building! It isn't a few seconds before those kids are running back up the stairs toward us panicked. Our principal is now directing those kids and all the kids coming from the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor in to the 2nd floor lobby. The lobby quickly fills with all of the students and teachers and is full of chaos. Students are pulling out their phones calling their parents frantically and a secretary is trying to yell something on a megaphone that isn't working. Our principal yells and everyone all of the sudden gets super quiet. She yells orders all in Korean and everyone except the foreign teachers seem to know the next plan of action. Next thing we know a firefighter is running up the stairs of the 2nd floor where we are all huddled and telling us all to go downstairs and get out of the building. As I am running out of the building I pass 3 frantic and crying moms who are looking for their kids to come out. I grab random kids and we started running/walking fast because there is ice on the ground making it hard to full out run. While we are running, huge embers from the fire are landing on all of us. A big one lands on my head but is quickly put out by another foreign teacher running beside me. Not too much later I find myself yelling at Caroline that there are embers on her coat and am patting them out for her. I am scared something or someone is going to catch on fire from the embers but all I can do is run and hope we are all ok. At one point we all stop running because we think we are far enough from the fire but the wind continues to blow huge pieces of fire on to us so we continue to run some more. By the time we stop again, ECC buses have arrived and are picking up kids. I am not sure if they had a system but I was pushing all of the students near me toward the bus to get them on. Finally, all of the students are either on a bus or at least way out of sight.

I can not even begin to explain how chaotic all this was. Students and teachers were everywhere and nobody knew exactly where we were supposed to stop or even where all of their students were. It was a mess but eventually there were no students anywhere in sight and a bunch of the foreign teachers had somehow found each other. We waited in fear for what was happening to our school a long way down the street. Finally we all decided we wanted to see our school's fate and walked together on the other side of the street back toward the fire. The embers weren't falling nearly as bad now and we had to know what was happening. I thankfully had my camera and began to take pictures. All of the pictures have been posted to facebook. Keep in mind these pictures were taken a good 30 minutes or longer after we evacuated the school so the flames were actually much bigger and scarier than you even see in the pictures. And during all of this, the road was not closed to traffic. There were all sorts of cars going both ways past the fire and at one point the fire fighters had even hooked up a hose to a hydrant across the street and it was being run over by the cars. Cars drove over the hose for awhile until a van drove over it and broke it. The hydrant had to be turned off and the hose fixed before being turned back on to help put out the fire that was still burning strong. Everyone in Gwangju gathered across the street and watched the building next to ECC burn down to nothing but the metal frame.

After watching for awhile all of the teachers decided to meet up at a local coffee shop to wrap our heads around what just happened and talk about the next plan of action. On our way to the coffee shop all of the Korean teachers were called back in to school to make phone calls to parents letting them know the evening classes wouldn't be happening and what just happened. The foreign teachers still met at the coffee shop and shared our traumatic stories. We got word that the owner of our school told all of the Korean teachers that they had to be back at school the next day (Saturday) at 9am to help clean up after the fire. The foreign teachers decided that we wanted to show our support and would all be at school at 9am to help too. Come to find out, our help was not needed as the damage to the school was beyond what we could clean up and a cleaning team was being called in. All of us went in the school to check out the damage and take pictures. There were broken windows from the heat on the 4th and 5th floor, glass on the floor of the bathrooms, ashes everywhere, and out back we could see our owner and our school technicians cars that were crispy on the hood and in the engine sitting where they were parked the day before, waiting to be towed. On the fifth floor where the kindergarden classrooms are (middle school classes in the afternoon and evening) one room was in need of serious repair. There were a couple big holes in the ceiling that I guess the fire fighters made to drain the roof of all of the water that was sprayed. Lights were hanging down and drywall was absolutely everywhere. Surprisingly, I think this is the only room that wont be in commission the next week or so.

Everything is now sorta a blur and I can't really explain what was going through my head on Friday night. I know I wanted to get all of the kids out and was concerned about them first and that's why I acted as a police directing traffic on the stairs rather that running out of the building myself. But looking back everything was really just done on impulse. I don't remember thinking about anything, it was like my body just knew what to do. I don't remember thinking about grabbing mine and Caroline's purse, I just did it. I guess it was also impulse to wait to find my roomie before leaving the building as well. I can't remember what the kids looked like whose hands I grabbed and ran with, I just know I was concerned with them getting to safety. I don't remember seeing a lot of fire trucks or a lot of fire fighters but our school principal told us yesterday that over 200 fire fighters and 50 trucks responded to the fire at some point or another. I don't remember a lot of the details but the overall experience I will never forget. It was scary and something that I hope never has to happen to anyone. I am glad the building next door was empty and was in the process of being torn down anyways and I am glad that as big as the fire was, that nothing in the surrounding area really got hurt too much. A middle school backed up to the building and it is just fine as is the electronics building that is on the other side of the building that caught on fire.

School is still scheduled for tomorrow but I am kinda curious how many students show up, especially from the evening classes that were there for the fire. Anyways, I hope my Monday turns out to be way less eventful than my Friday and I hope your Friday was less crazy than mine!

I LOVE you all so much and miss everyone like crazy!