FORT WORTH, Texas — The following is what happens when a house burns to the ground:
“We got out alive,” Doug Meacham said. “I hate to think what would have happened had we been asleep.”
It’s about 10 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 21, and the longtime TCU offensive assistant coach is watching TV in his living room.
His wife, Kendall, and their son, Brooks, are in their respective bedrooms asleep. So are the dogs.
The couple’s two other children are older, and no longer live at home.
Summer is basically over, as school begins this week. Everyone in the house will soon be back to the fall routine.
For the first time in several weeks, or months, it is raining.
Meacham hears the thunder, and a lightning crack.
He thinks the lightning crack hit near an upstairs bedroom.
His initial instincts are correct. The lightning that hit his house does not strike his bedroom. It hits the attic.
“I’ve heard transformers pop and this wasn’t as loud as that,” he said.
The TV he is watching in the living room “gets weird,” he said.
The TV screen turns fuzzy. He walks upstairs to watch TV in a different room.
“I never thought about it,” he said.
A minute or so later he smells something. He walks down the hall and turns the lights on in a spare room and sees smoke.
He walks downstairs, and into the driveway where he spots a basketball-sized hole in the roof above the garage.
He sees the soft orange glow from the attic, where some spare furniture is stored. Maybe some toys. Typical attic stuff.
He attaches a pair of garden hoses. He pulls the hose into the house, and walks up the stairs to extinguish what he thinks is a small fire that he can easily douse.
“I thought it was just a few boxes that were on fire and I was just going to knock it out,” he said.
In the few minutes between the time he noticed the smoke, locating the source of the fire, and walking back up stairs, the smoke is so thick he can’t see his hand.
A couple of garden hoses was not going to handle this fire.
He calls the Fort Worth Fire Department.
“It took them six to seven minutes to get there,” he said. “In 10 to 12 minutes, the whole attic is on fire.
“Honestly, getting out was easy for all of us. The entire neighborhood is outside and watching. I thought maybe (the fire department) could just keep it contained to just upstairs. The problem was it got so hot and the only way to put it out was to dump water on it constantly.
“Whatever didn’t burn was so soaked it was ruined. That was the only way to contain it. They basically had to flood the whole place. I’m grateful to (the Fort Worth Fire Department) for getting there as quickly as they did and for the job they did.”
In less than two hours everything inside the house is essentially trash.
The computers, appliances, furniture and electronics. Those items can easily be replaced, and covered by insurance.
“It was all of the personal stuff,” he said. “My daughter’s sixth-grade science project. My son’s first baseball glove. Items like that that you can’t get back.
“There is a laundry list of those things and it’s then you just realize that your home is gone.”
The Meachams resided in this house for four years, so the losses could have been more substantial. Four years ago, they downsized with a neighbor and essentially traded houses.
Thanks to TCU head coach Sonny Dykes’ wife, Katie, she helped the Meacham family find a temporary house.
Next month they plan to move into another house, which happens to be owned by former TCU quarterback, Andy Dalton.
Because of supply chain and material issues, “Temporary” means in this case 14 to 18 months.
“It’s not ideal, but when life gives you lemons you make lemonade,” Meacham said. “What other choice do I have?”
Not many.
Doug Meacham’s house burned down, and he considers himself lucky.
