PHOTOS: It was 1 a.m. and Jacob Berg was watching his home burn. Heโd been sound asleep just minutes before. He woke to knocking. Then he heard the fire alarms, but he didnโt think much of it, since pranksters had been pulling them all summer. When he opened his front door though, he found a wall of smoke outside his 3rd floor condominium in South Anchorage. The beams of police officerโs flashlights bounced down the hallway.
โYou know, if the police weren’t there, I wouldn’t have made it out,โ he said. โIf they weren’t knocking on the doorโฆโ Berg is one of 45 Anchorage residents who lost their homes on Sept. 26 after a fire swept through the 21 units at the Ravenwood Condominiums. Now he and his neighbors are scrambling to figure out what comes next, asking: Will the condo rebuild? How long will it take? And in the meantime, where will they stay, in a city with a tight, expensive housing market?
