PHOTOS: There was a persistent beeping.
Renee Reed assumed it was a cellphone. She and her husband, Chris, were settled in for the night in Room 218 of the Harborside Inn, just above the hotel's kitchen. They had a friend’s wedding at the Spring House the next day.
Then, an alarm sounded. She flicked on the lights. Smoke was filling the room.
“Get up,” she told her husband. “There’s a fire.”
It was just before 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 18, and fire was rapidly spreading unseen through the Harborside Inn.
Kristen Hutton, returning home from dinner with friends who serve on the island's all-volunteer fire department, saw one call: the Harborside Inn was on fire. At first, she wasn’t concerned — surely the firefighters would put out the blaze before it spread to the Mad Hatter, her store on the ground level.
“It’s bigger than you think,” her friend told her. “You should come down here.”