continued from san juan del sur HOME

Pelican Eyes fire

(A letter from Chris Berry)

At approximately 9:30 Sunday morning, June 3rd, it was noted that we had a fire burning in Casa Jocote, the large villa located on the extreme Southwest corner of our property, owned by Dr. Gregory Houston. The fire burned for approximately one hour before it was extinguished by a large group of Piedras y Olas employees and townsfolk who came up to help.

All things considered there was a minimal amount of damage and it was contained to only one Villa. The plus side of this sad event completes a full page! There was minimal exterior damage around the villa, most of the personal belongings of long term residents Dan Polley and Cesar Paniamogan were saved, there were no injuries from the fire (a few burns and scrapes suffered by our local heroes,) and no guests were in the villa at the time of the fire.

We experienced a wonderful team effort by all of Piedras y Olas and once again, amazing care and concern from the community of San Juan del Sur. We are very grateful to all of our wonderful employees and the townspeople, locals and foreigners, who came to help us fight the fire.

As luck would have it, a guest in the hotel, Dan Fisher, a third generation fireman from the Phoenix, Arizona area, was here and helped guide our Sailboat Captain Denny Meijering in a well orchestrated team effort. As well, George Knight was his usual indispensable self with help and organization.

Dan and Cesar have posted a lot of pictures, not taken by Dan and Cesar personally, but by three of our employees and owner Peter Gould. The pictures are posted on their website: www.dancesar.com. We believe all of you will be amazed at the coordinated efforts of all of these great people.

Casa Jocote is fully insured, as are all of our fully constructed, privately owned villas as well as those that are currently under construction. Reconstruction plans for Greg’s villa and Dan and Cesar’s home are in process now.

Our water supplies are adequate to the cause and we now know what systems need to be fine-tuned. We are extremely proud of our Piedras y Olas family and San Juan del Sur friends. Everyone is to be commended for a job well done. To thank our town friends, Piedras y Olas will be donating to the Fiestas Patronales. Within Piedras y Olas we’ll be a long time repaying our debt of gratitude to our own family.

Thanks to everyone involved!

Jean Brugger, Chris R.A. Berry, Jiff Cornwell, Vilma Bustos and All of the Piedras y Olas Staff