Tonight, three people are homeless after their rental house went up in flames.
It happened at about 10:00 this morning on Mahogany Street when the lady of the house, Deborah Sutherland was hard at work at the KHMH.
That's when she got the call, and knowing that she's left a sick brother at home, she rushed there in a panic. Here's Cherisse Halsall's recap of the scene she found when:
The fire on Mahogany street this morning left 3 residents homeless with all their belongings reduced to rubble.
And in the aftermath of the flames, we spoke to renter Deborah Sewell who stood in horror at the sight of the second home she's lost to fire.
Deborah Sutherland, Fire Victim
"I got into one of my vehicle from work and I got home and when I reached here I saw that it was my house and I started to bawl because I know what I went through before, you know, and it hasn't left me with anywhere to go and nothing to eat or stuff like that, only one clothes on my back, this is my uniform only one clothes I left with but right now I literally don't have anything. I don't know where I'm going I can only look at my house and imagine that that was my home you know, my comfort."
It's a terrible outcome for a woman who has been one of the unseen heroes of the pandemic.
Deborah Sutherland, Fire Victim
"I am a dietary aid worker; I work at the kitchen at KHMH. They were giving me my assignment, what I was supposed to do for my 10'o clock duties and I saw everybody knocking up, calling me, but I wasn't thinking about my house burning down and when I came out that is what they told me and just ran out and I started to cry."
And ahead of Deborah's arrival her neighbors had kicked into action.
Voice of Neighbor
"We were there fixing a car and on the streetside we were just fixing a car and messing and when we look we saw a room on fire from the roof top, me and the guy who was fixing the car ran upstairs of the house and when we went upstairs we saw the door had padlock and we try to get open the door but we couldn't get open the door and we met the old man up there fulling some buckets to try to out the fire, but the whole place was surrounded by smoke and all we could have done was plug out the gas tank and take it downstairs and took the old man out the house and took him downstairs."
"Just one gas tank they ended up being able to save, because we didn't want it to explode and we bring down the man."
Deborah Sutherland, Fire Victim
"I just want to thank them very much, I want to thank them for taking it up, because I left my brother sleeping and he didn't feel good because he is sick and so when I heard, I started to cry, because I left my brother in there, please make him make it out - all I was looking to see the first person when I ran here was to see him and when I saw him, I ran and hug him, because he is the most important to me."
For Sutherland it was a harrowing day the kind you don't get over. And her question now is how to go on?
Deborah Sutherland, Fire Victim
"I need to try and re-build back something, it's three of us, it's me my brother and my boyfriend, three of us so we really don't know where we're going tonight or what we will eat."
But how did this raging fire even start?
Deborah Sutherland, Fire Victim
"They say it started from in my room because they said they saw the flames and the smoke but I don't know because like I said I didn't leave on anything because I'm a person, every day, every minute even if I'm home I go to my gas thank and I turn it this way because it's not just me who uses the stove sometimes and you know I usually check everything and I like plugging out the electrically stuff and things just to make sure that, because I know what happen to me before, this is my second time so I know what happened. And the first fire, the fire chief ruled it out what had happened to me in Hattieville the first one they say it was electrical problems so I learned from that and I always check I make sure I check to make sure that didn't happen to me again."
But it did happen and while Sutherland says she's super careful, Station Supervisor Kenneth Mortis can't agree with her version of events.
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor
"There is something that in our expertise field of work we believe that something that was left on in that room, maybe an iron per say. The iron overheated which produced smoke before the fire. On the controversy Miss Sutherland is choosing to voice differ, She believes that the fire started as a result of electrical flaw. Unfortunately, we cannot support that cause as yet, we are still trying to have her be open to us and tell us exactly what went on prior to her leaving for work."
And whatever the cause the fact is that Sutherland and her family had nowhere to go, that is until their area rep came to their rescue
Hon. Anthony Mahler, Area Rep for Pickstock
"It is a very very difficult situation for anybody to go through and this family is a hard working family and now they've lost everything in their home. We'll try to do everything possible to help them to get back to a normal life."
If you want to help Sutherland, you can call 633-2294.
