Reminding us that we need house insurance

At 5:30 am today the power went out. That means that both computers, the floor fan and the air conditioner stopped. The sudden silence woke both of us. That is when we noticed another noise. A noise that sounded very much like a water hose spraying the side of a house. Glasses were located and placed on the respective faces. We peered out the bedroom window to see this. The picture above was taken from our bedroom window. The building on fire is directly across the street from Quality Bakery (which you can see on the left) and our house is right behind the bakery. Ron went outside to get the cellphone out of the truck and to get some more pictures. The really bizarre thing is that other than the noise of water hitting the building it was very quiet. Occasionally a firefighter on the scene would say something loud enough for me to hear but no sirens, no screaming, no nothing other than the sound of water. I wonder if the power had not gone out if we would have even noticed until morning.
After setting the alarm on the cell phone we eventually went back to sleep. At 10am the power was still out and the fire trucks were still out on the street. I proceeded to get ready for work on 5 hours of sleep (i generally need 8 hours to function like a normal person). I then try to go to work. Try being the key word. Obviously 2nd street would be blocked off because fire trucks were still there. So I pulled out of the alley to our parking area onto Washington Ave and instead of turning right to get onto 2nd street I turned left to get onto 1st street at the end of the block. I was surprised to find that the road was also blocked there. This means that I was unable to get off of our segement of Washington Ave. So then I had to call work and tell them that I was not going to be in today. I then had to call my mother in law who was stopping by at 1:30pm to pick up my husband and puppy for a vet appointment. She had to park several blocks away and we had to walk to get to her vehicle. In the end the power did not come back on until around 5:30pm during the demolition of the shell of a building that was left. According to the news 7 of the 11 people rescued from the apartments of the first and second floor were taken to the hospital. At least one person jumped from the third floor to escape the fire and broke both legs. Which brings me back to the title of this post. We need to get homeowners' insurnace on this house. If the fire had spread we could have lost everything. Even if it was just exterior damage like the building next to the one destroyed we would have no way of replacing siding or making repairs. Homeowners' Insurance is now near the top of my list of things to get asap.