Two families are homeless tonight after a fire gutted a home on Nurse Seay Street this morning. One home but two residences, one upstairs and one downstairs. And while these families already have the difficulty of rebuilding their lives, they have one more problem: each family blames the other. It's making an already very bad situation that much worse. We start our story at the scene of the fire.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
Doreen McKoy and her 4 children are homeless tonight. They used to live in the upper flat of this home on Nurse Seay Street.
Michael Middleton, Fire Department
"We received the call at eight minutes after eleven o'clock, according to our clock and we got here a minute after and we found to the rear of the lower flat engulfed in flames. We got into operation and in twenty minutes time we got the fire under control."
But in those 20 minutes, two families lost everything.
Doreen McKoy, Fire Victim
"I lost everything upstairs there, nothing is saved. Only this I came out with. My baby didn't come out with a piece of clothes on his back. Everything I worked hard for in this hot sun hot is gone. I have nothing. Birthday just fixed, Social Security for the kids just fixed, everything is gone."
While Doreen has been working at SEL for three years, Denton Jenkins is a surgical assistant at Universal Health Services.
Denton Jenkins, Fire Victim
"What can I say actually? I've seen it happen to other people, we've seen it on the TV, it happens but it never happened to you. Once it hits home it is a different story so."
Jules Vasquez,
You lost everything.
Denton Jenkins,
"Everything, everything but once there is life, there Is hope. You need to make a start somewhere so basically its like that. Life, you got to move on, it's a revolving process. If you put God behind you, you can move on forward."
Jules Vasquez,
Were you able to get anything from in the house, documents, photos?
Denton Jenkins,
"Nothing in there, nothing. This is where it bucks. There is nothing inside at all. The shoes I have is the last pair of shoes I have."
And as he trod through the remains in those shoes, like the Fire Department, he's trying to find out what started the fire.
Doreen McKoy,
"I smelt something burning and I wanted to know what was burning because I didn't anything on cooking, nothing I had on cooking because I cook when my pickney come home in the evening. I smelt beans or something burning downstairs there."
Denton Jenkins,
"According to my wife, she wasn't cooking because I left some money this morning for her to buy some food for the kids so she said that when she would go pick up the kids at 11:30, she would have bought food and taken it for them. Her niece was staying here with us for the past couple days and she says she was clearing up the stuff for here, she would have put it outside, the stuff for the chair. She would put it outside to get sun. You know how those people behave, she is from the village. And the stove wasn't on. We have a policy that when we are not using the stove, the tank is usually turned off. So basically that wouldn't be the problem. She said in a short while she started smelling smoke and where there is smoke there is fire. She decided to run out."
Michael Middleton,
"At this point we do not know what started the fire. We have our investigating officer conducting his investigation and from that he will determine what basically caused this fire."
