Sacred Geometrix Damaged by Fire: Help Us Recover

Hello Friends and Family!

What Happened:

On February 12th, at 4:30 am a fire was ablaze in a room of my storefront at Sacred Geometrix in Arcata. My brother was asleep in that room, having fallen asleep sometime earlier with a small candle still going. I was asleep laying next to my girlfriend in my bedroom in a separate room of the building. No fire alarms sounded…

I awoke to the sound of my brother stumbling and groaning a couple rooms away. I got up immediately as it sounded like something was terribly wrong. When I got to the room, and opened the door a wall of black smoke rushed out from the opening as heat blasted me in the face. I looked down, saw my brother on the ground and dragged him out to safety.

Everyones okay!

My brother was stable, and my girlfriend and I were unharmed - but the fire was still going. After attempting to go and get the hose to spray the onto the fire, and being confused when no water came out, I was confronted with the reality that’s not customary to Arcata climate: water not in a liquid state. It was so cold in the early morning, the water in the hose had frozen solid.

With the help of my girlfriend Aiyana we filled pots and got water to where it needed to be, and put out the fire — or so we thought.

After checking to make sure my brother was okay, I made another entry into the room to make a terrible discovery: there was now a new fire crackling up the wall and the ceiling was burning. Energetic vortices snaked upwards into the rafters like veins from the circulatory system of a living fire demon, chemically being drawn in, to catalyze a disaster big enough to crush dreams. Everything I ever worked for was in this building, and it was about to catch fire. I snapped out of the trance of shock and horror, remembering that I had a fire extinguisher in a back room somewhere! I located it, and moments later the fire was out for good. Thank God. The Fire Department showed up shortly after and was able to ensure all fire was put out, and the first chapter of this disaster was officially over.

My brother was taken in an ambulance to Mad River Hospital and I drove to there shortly after to make sure there was no risk of constriction of the air passages that can happen after the inhalation of too much C02.

As the smoke cleared and the soot settled…

Im grateful to be alive. No one was seriously injured. But as the hours pass, I am beginning to realize there was a fire that was inside my business headquarters. Organic clothing that was hand made by myself or a team member over the past 5 years were all on display in the room directly next to the fire. The lobby and screen printing room both were filled with merch and had been engulfed in heat, smoke and soot. Hours invested into every one of the garments that were once pristine, now completely unfit for sale.

The Bottom Line:

The store front will be closed until further notice. The estimate time frame is going to be anywhere from 3-6 months, just for cleaning and removal of effected surfaces, including the walls themselves, being wood and porous they absorb smells that can not be removed. This doesn’t include rebuild time.

The Screen printing department of the business has to be temporarily shut down. The printing press, the screens and the dryer all need to be inspected before they can be ran again. Every surface has to be scrubbed and cleaned. A single touch where there was soot and and another touch to a new garment will immediately depreciate its value in half, or worse.

The amount of financial damage is currently unknown, and our insurance claim is fair from being settled and I am skeptical that it’s going to even remotely even out in the long run. The amount of time that I will loose to this disaster will be immense, and the amount of lost business due to this fire, the restoration and the rebuild will be a challenge in itself just to estimate.

The Silver Lining:

The one area of the business that was essentially unaffected was the fabric and pattern room and the garment production room.

Our machines were undamaged and our fabrics are un-effected and do not smell like smoke.

We can effectively still fulfill any order for our hand made garments as if a fire never happened.

Why I made a Gofundme:

Im asking for help to reach the cost of my insurance deductible which is $5k. It’s embarrassing to admit I don’t have this kind of money saved up in my “in case of emergency” fund, but that is my reality right now, and why I’m not ashamed in asking for your help.

Anything you can do to support would be greatly appreciated. Im anticipating weeks upon weeks of unpaid labor where all I can hope for is to regain some semblance of cleanliness that doesn’t rub off a stain and a smell like burned wood and plastic. Even plants that were rooms away had upper foliage completely burnt.

Planned Updates:

I am hopeful that the Insurance claim and process will be as smooth as possible and we won’t experience a terrible situation involving some “fine print” , but I’m not impervious to the reality that insurance companies have very slippery and sneaky legal ways of escaping the full amount required to absolve the total damages caused in accidents like this.

I will post updates as progress is made - hopefully highlighting a positive outcome - or at least as positive as it can be, all things considered.

Conclusion:

I genuinely am grateful to be alive, and Im immensely grateful for the silver lining that will allow my business to continue onward. In another parallel dimension, I may be dead, the whole building burnt and it would have been a sad story you would have read about in the paper. In fact a woman, her child and her mother all tragically were killed in Arcata last week due to a structure fire. It doesn’t escape me for a second, how lucky my brother, my girlfriend and I am to not have shared a similar fate.

I will be grateful for any amount of financial help I receive so please don’t hesitate to reach out even if you can’t donate a penny, its always good to hear from people who care.

Love and gratitude,

Roy and the whole extended Sacred Geo Family