Oct. 24--WATERLOO, Iowa -- A garage fire that broke out amid Sunday night's thunderstorm has destroyed a Waterloo woman's life work.
Jill Davis said he had just left her detached garage shortly before 7 p.m. and went into her Scott Street house to check on food she was cooking when she heard a series of lightning crashes.
She looked outside, and the garage was on fire. She said flames shot some 50 feet in the air, and the heat cracked a window of her home.
"It's amazing how your whole life can go up in a matter of minutes," Davis said.
The two-stall garage was more than just a garage. In the back was a game room with a pool table. A hot tub was in another room. Thrown in the in-ground swimming pool in her back yard, and the setup was a retreat for friends and family.
And the garage housed two antique cars and two motorcycles that had been her life.
"I had my son in that one," she said, pointing to the charred remnants of a 1937 Chevrolet two-door sedan. "My water broke, and we went to the hospital."
She has had the vehicle since 1975.
Across the garage is the blackened body of a 1932 Chevrolet Roadster Deluxe she's had since 1978.
She had put a lot of work into the cars, stripping down one and repainting it three years ago. Davis took the vehicles to shows and drove them at the annual Fourth Street Cruise event. They also chauffeured friends and relatives for weddings.
In the garage, between the Chevies sat what remained of a of a Harley Davidson and a Honda motorcycle.
Davis has been interested in cars since she was a child. Her older brothers raced, and she took the show car path. Many of her trophies and awards were also destroyed in the fire.
She credits Waterloo firefighters for limiting the damage, and keeping the fire from spreading. Although the official cause hasn't been determined, Davis suspects lightening caused an electrical short.
