Family separated after 3-alarm fire destroyed home in east Houston
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A three-alarm fire destroyed a mattress supply warehouse Friday evening in Houston's East End.
It also turned a family home into little more than a mass of charred wood and possessions.
Cindy Morales and her three children lived with her parents in the modest house on Drennan Street. It was just a few feet from the large metal warehouse that went up in flames.
On Saturday, the family gathered outside and accepted food and clothing that was brought by neighbors.
"It'll break us in so many ways," said Morales. "My dad put a lot of effort to give us this home and for it to burn down, it's pretty hard. Especially for him."
The family lived at the house for 30 years.
Morales was at a hospital with her special needs daughter Friday when she got a call from her sister.
"She said the house was on fire. When dad and I were driving home, we saw that huge cloud of black smoke. We knew it was bad."
PHOTOS: Three-alarm fire destroys warehouse in east Houston
The roof was burned and flames spread throughout the small one-story home. Nothing was spared, not even her daughter's wheelchair. Angelyn, her mother said, is essentially paralyzed, and needs a lot of medical equipment.
All of it was destroyed.
"We have to start over," she said. "And that's pretty hard."
The hardest part, Morales said, is for the family to be separated.
"We're all living with different relatives until we know what's going to happen and what we have to do," she said.
That, she said, hurts the most of all.
