Kids save musical instruments in quick evacuation
Bannock County Emergency Management consolidated the Charlotte Fire evacuation center to Holt Arena as Thursday night went on.
Our cameras were there as folks signed in to stay at the center overnight. Red Cross volunteers had set up 150 beds for evacuees. About 20 people utilized the facility, a Red Cross volunteer said Friday morning.
We met one mother who says her family lost nearly everything, but not quite:
“He said, ‘oh we haven’t…’ and there go the tones, you could hear the fire alarm going off in the background.”
Jessica Siler remembers the moment her husband Shane, a firefighter, first heard the Charlotte Fire call, rushing to his family’s own neighborhood, to find the worst.
“Shane got to walk up there and see it… it’s … it’s … gone,” she said.
But before flames ripped through the Siler home, before firefighters ever got there, Jessica used some quick thinking.
“I asked the kids, go get anything you want to keep. We got a couple minutes. Go get anything you want to keep. And they went and picked up all their musical instruments and very little else.”
There wasn’t much else they could save.
“We uh… All our outdoor animals are not there any more,” Jessica said.
But the most precious fixtures in the Siler home, a nine-year-old girl and two boys, 12 and 14, are safe and still around to play those rescued instruments.
“What else do you need?”
The Silers were at Holt Arena to pick up some toiletries. They tell us they do have a place to stay and of course, lots of music.
