Layna Diehl, Plant Fund Accounting

Layna Diehl had the same reaction that everyone else has when her supervisor called her at 1:30 a.m. She was in shock. "I think the worst-case scenarios run through your mind, and in our case that was correct." She had worked in Suite 10, which was heavily damaged and deemed unsafe. No one was allowed to go into the burnt office to retrieve any personal items; only firemen could go in and get files. Diehl says, "Nothing was recovered from my office at all."

Luckily, having just moved into Suite 10, Diehl had taken home a lot of her personal pictures, so they were not in the office. However, she did lose some pictures and a peace lily plant that she got from a friend when her grandfather died several years ago. "This sounds so unimportant compared to everything else that was lost," but the sentimental value of the plant made it irreplaceable to her.

After returning to work in Wellington basement on Tuesday, Diehl and her colleagues had to re-create "lots and lots of files," because so many files had burned while others that were recovered were significantly water damaged.

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