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Guest Essay

By Josh Shapiro

Mr. Shapiro is the governor of Pennsylvania.

I woke up to yelling in the hallway.

A few seconds later, there was a bang on the door.

It was just after 2 a.m., and a state trooper in the hallway of our private living quarters at the governor’s residence said there was a fire in the building. We needed to evacuate immediately.

My wife, Lori, and I ran to the bedrooms where our kids and two dogs were sleeping. We got them up quickly and followed the trooper down a back stairwell to the driveway.

At that point, standing in the cold, damp air, knowing that all the kids were accounted for, we began to wonder what had happened.

We thought it must be some kind of accident — perhaps a candle had been left burning and tipped over, something had short-circuited or there had been a malfunction in the kitchen.

But once the fire was extinguished — and firefighters were tackling the last few hot spots — the chief of the Harrisburg Bureau of Fire took me back inside to see the damage.

As I walked through the doorway, my nose burned from the smell of smoke. It was eerily quiet, but I could hear water dripping from the ceiling. My feet sloshed on the soaked floor.

The beautiful state dining room — where my family and I celebrated our Passover Seder with family and community just a few hours earlier — was completely destroyed.

Windows were smashed in, and there was glass everywhere. Some tables were turned over, and others had just melted away. Artwork from the New Deal era that had hung on display for visitors to enjoy had disintegrated into the walls. Plates we had eaten our Seder dinner on were broken and covered in soot. The Haggadah — our prayer book for the Seder — was burned so badly, only a few short lines of text were recognizable.

The devastation was shocking, and to me, it did not appear to be an accident. The damage was too extreme. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of our home.

As I looked around in horror, I found myself picturing where each of my kids and our guests sat the previous evening........

© The New York Times