Dramatic cell phone video shows flames shooting from the houses along Hazel Street
"I heard my neighbor start screaming that the house is on fire, the house is on fire," said Michelle Long.
She runs a cat rescue and scrambled to save her animals while watching the fire rip towards her home.
She and a few of the pets escaped, but the house is a total loss.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing, everything is either charred or burnt, some of it is ashes," Long said. "Our whole lives, everything we owned was in the house."
A reality more than two dozen people are now living. Their homes gone, family photos destroyed, and feeling hopeless.
"When you lose everything, especially when you're renting and you don't have a lot of income, your first instinct is what do I do and where do I go,” said Pastor Anthony Petini with Restoration Church. “So we're here to kinda connect the dots and fill in the gaps."
Restoration Church has been helping the fire victims since day one, handing out food and water while crews battled the flames. Now the organization is committed to getting everyone back on their feet and the block rebuilt.
Petini started a GoFundMe page with a goal of $30,000 to make sure the area can bounce back from this tragedy.
“We want to rebuild and put people back in their homes."
Help and support Long and her family call a blessing.
She wants to be back in her own space, and hasn't lost hope that some of her rescued felines escaped the fire.
"Very upset, we're devastated that we can't find our animals, the house and everything in it, it’s all objects, but we all spent every day with these animals they were our whole lives," said Long.
She says about 22 cats and kittens are missing, as well as the pets of a few other neighbors.
