Cohousing-L Mailing List: EcoVillage at Ithaca Fire Update

[RAYGASSER (RAYGASSER]

Thanks to all who sent messages of encouragement to us after the fire last 
month. We are all henging in there, and this has brought our community closer 
together, if somewhat farther from completion.
 
The fire department thinks they have found the cause: 2 days before, there 
was a fire in a van owned by an insulation contractor. Apparently some
smoldering insulation found its way into the hopper. The next day it was
pumped into a wall in one of the EcoVillage units. It smoldered there until
the next day when it generated enough heat to start the fire.

Luckily, a few EVI people saw two vans outside the burning houses, broke
the windows & tried to push them away from the fire. The insulation van was
able to be pushed away. The other was locked in park, and couldn't be move,
and burned to a crisp. Saving the insulation van allowed the fire dept to
inspect it and determine the cause. If it hadn't been saved, we might never
know.....

Houses that had been nearly complete are pushed back about a month, into
January. The burned out houses, scheduled for January completion along
with the Common House, will probably be pushed back until late spring or
early summer, depending on how well the Ithaca winter and the Aetna treat us.
Ithaca winters are typically not nearly as nice as the insurance company
has been up to this point. They seem quite cooperative, though we should
know a lot more this week about whether they'll give us back all of what we
lost. So far there's no reason to think they won't.

Thanks again for your kind thoughts.

Ray Gasser, EcoVillage at Ithaca, NY
raygasser [at] delphi.com