On the morning of March 8, 2017, the law firm of Matheny Hahn Denman & Nix in Huntington, Indiana, had backed up client files to the cloud. In file cabinets and in the basement, they had older client files yet to be scanned.
By that evening, the roof of their office was burned away and the basement was filled with water.
Five days earlier, another northern Indiana fire destroyed the offices of three lawyers. Upon hearing of the fire, John Kocher drove to the site where he saw water gushing out of his office.
“You can’t dwell on it,” Kocher said. “You’ve got to accept it and move on. It’s hard but not impossible.”
Fortunately, neither fire caused any injuries. One fire had started in a neighboring warehouse and spread in high winds while 75 firefighters battled the blaze. The other was caused by an electrical malfunction on an upper floor.