‘It’s completely gone’: Neighbors cleaning up after multiple mobile home fires

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - One day after a wind-driven fire destroyed multiple mobile homes in North Charleston, people who lost everything are cleaning up the mess.

North Charleston Fire officials say nine adults and three children are displaced after the Tuesday evening fire on Beret Street.

James Miller’s mobile home burned down completely.

“I mean it’s completely gone,” Miller said. “I got the cast irons, but there’s really nothing there compared to what we had.”

On Wednesday, Miller was searching through what remained of his home in hopes of finding something valuable. He said he plans on living in his car.

Neighbors have been coming together to help each other during this time, even while the fire was raging.

Danny Holbrook lives just a few homes down from the major damage. He and his neighbor helped put out a wooden fence that was on fire behind their properties.

“While the fire truck, the fire department was concentrating on the mobile homes we were putting out the fire on the fence to keep it from spreading,” Holbrook.

He feels lucky that he was spared.

“It was pretty rough,” Holbrook said. “I walked the street twice this morning and saw all the families lost and saw them walking the street and really felt sad for them this morning.”

The American Red Cross is assisting 11 people who were affected by the fire, by providing financial assistance, a comfort kit of essentials and by referring them to other community resources they may need in the future.

“I mean if you look, I mean everything else is gone,” Bill Schmidt, a disaster action team supervisor, said. “Basically, I call us the ray of hope through the ashes. That’s all they have left.”

Brint Patrick, the executive director of the Lowcountry chapter of the American Red Cross, said last year they responded to 370 home fires.

“It’s always important for us to help get people back on their feet,” Patrick said. “To meet people in their worst day and make the day a little bit better and we can’t help fix all the problems but we can be a tangible representative of what our community does to raise everybody up together.”

The Red Cross is always looking for more volunteers. Click here to learn more information.

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