Fire update from Appliances Online

May 3rd, 2012

Appliance Talk

You may have heard about the recent fire near the offices of Appliances Online and Big Brown Box.  You may have heard about it on our Facebook, or perhaps even on the news.

Here’s our side of the story:

It began as just another day at the office – coffees had been drunk, phones were being answered, emails being sent, blogs being worked on.  Lunchtime had come and gone, and all was going well.

Then the lights went out. The computers died. The air conditioner whirred to a halt.

“Must be a power outage,” we said.  “Not unheard of.  Should be over in a few minutes, then we can get back to offering great appliance deals and award-winning customer service.”

Then we smelled the smoke.

A minute later, we had to evacuate. We spilled out into the street, where smoke was pouring out from between 90 and 100 New South Head Road and rising up past the balconies of the apartments above.  Every shopfront on the block was dark. No brightly-lit displays offered passers by great deals. Traffic ground to a halt at the nearby intersections as the traffic lights had gone out, leaving motorists unsure of whose turn it was to go. Even the cafe down at Rushcutters Bay had lost power, leaving dozens without access to precious caffeine (obviously an essential).   

The scene

After a while, the authorities arrived to restore order. Police began to direct traffic, just like in the olden days, getting the gridlock moving. Fire engines rolled up and started flooding the building’s basement with carbon dioxide gas to get the blaze under control. More police escorted all of us up the road to take our details and make sure everyone was okay.  

Sydney's Finest, helping to keep us safe

At time of writing, it’s understood that the fire started in the electrical substation near our building, knocking out our power, but not damaging any of our people or property.  All of our people are safe, though power has not yet been fully restored.  Our office is back up and running, thanks to a generator, and since all our stock is stored off-site at our warehouse, all orders should be able to go out without problems. 

Back to business (almost) as usual.

We’d like to offer our best wishes to those injured by the fire, and hope that they make a speedy recovery.

It’s been a dramatic 24 hours, and we hope that this won’t impact our services.  Thank you to everyone for your patience and support.