Accounts Payable

The morning of Nov. 16 was full of confusion for Linda Fulk. She received a call early on Monday morning notifying her of the fire. Immediately, Fulk felt "shock and disbelief." Later, she received another call from her son telling her that the fire was in the Medical Arts West building and that her office was not harmed. Fulk then called her supervisor, Sharon Rodgers, to pass on the message, only to be corrected. It was indeed her office that was on fire.

That afternoon she received another phone call, telling her to report to the Frye building Tuesday morning. In their temporary location, Fulk and her team were given a small table to serve as their workspace. "Staff members in the Frye building were all very nice to us - we hated to leave because of this!" she says.

Tuesday afternoon they were allowed to go into the Medical Arts building to retrieve anything they could. Fulk remembers walking in and thinking how bright it was in the office for such a cloudy day. She then looked up and realized there was no roof above her head. Fulk says, "When I walked into my office it really hit hard." Fulk found a collage sitting on top of her desk that had once been hanging on her wall. "The shock of seeing the disaster and the sight of that picture, I broke into tears." Fulk took that collage and another one home and re-framed them, so she'll have them both ready when she's assigned to a new office. Also salvaged from the fire was a tribute flag to 9/11, Dalmatian figurines and a box of tissues. Fulk uses those tissues today in her temporary office, and she has plans to re-hang the flag and display the Dalmatians. "It was eerie how some things were totally destroyed and others were fine," she says.

Due to two moves, Christmas break and fire clean up, Fulk found herself swamped with a hectic workload. All of her files were OK, and most of her invoices were saved; however, "they were damp and smelly." Last week she received a call from a vendor requesting payment of three invoices that had been destroyed in the fire. He sent her new ones, and they have all been paid. "I am finally feeling somewhat caught up," she says.

Fulk thanks the firefighters for a job well done. "I have two sons who are volunteers with the Timberville Fire Department, and I know firefighters do not get the praise they deserve."