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“You Need to Get
Home”
“You need to get home. Your unit is on fire.” Heather's
landlord called her at work on a chilly October afternoon with the
heart-stopping news. By the time she got home the fire trucks were already
there, and her apartment was a blackened shell.
Heather had moved just four months before into the Queen
Anne neighborhood building with the great view. It was the height of
summer, and she didn’t realize that the older heating unit in the bedroom
would kick on automatically, or how hot it would get when it did. The
Seattle firefighters who responded to the alarm told her the fire probably
started when the bedspread pushed against the heater got too hot and
ignited, creating a wall of flames that destroyed Heather’s apartment in
minutes.
“I lost everything except what I was wearing, and I didn’t
have insurance,” she says. “That was an expensive lesson.”
A naturally vibrant and outgoing woman, Heather was
shocked by the disaster unfolding in front of her. “I was just standing
there, so out of it, when two people from the Red Cross showed up. They
stayed with me, got me a toothbrush, got me a hotel, set me up with a
debit card for clothes and essentials.”
Red Cross Disaster Action Team members Pat Morgan and Joe
Karl stayed with Heather while firefighters put out the flames and
surveyed the damage. Caseworker Mary Baker Scott met with her the next
day, and several times after that, to get Heather set up with vouchers for
clothes and basic necessities. “I lost my glasses in the fire, and the Red
Cross helped me get new ones. They gave me vouchers to buy shoes, pants
and jackets so I could go to work. I had no idea any of this was
available.”
Heather lived with her parents and commuted twenty miles
each way while she waited for her apartment to be repaired. Despite her
own unsettled state, she started the process of becoming a Red Cross
volunteer.
“I am in awe of how much the Red Cross gave me,” she says
now. “The hotel, the vouchers, the glasses, the gas. I don’t have a lot of
money, but I want to give back to the community this way.”
On average, the American Red cross
Serving King & Kitsap Counties responds to an emergency like this
every 48 hours. All Red Cross assistance is provided free of
charge. Click here to find out more
about our disaster relief services, or make a
donation to help us support
families like Fran and Kathleen.
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