Red Cross helping Erie families displaced by fires

Associated Press

ERIE, Pa.

Celines Carino was asleep with her family the morning of Nov. 8 when she heard police knocking on the door.

She woke up and saw flames outside the window.

“Everything that we saw was orange,” said Carino, 24. “I grabbed my daughter, and we got out.”

A fire quickly swept through her apartment building at 2120 Gladstone Court. As Carino left, the ceiling collapsed on her 3-year-old daughter’s bed.

They made it out alive. But nearly everything they owned was gone.

Her family was among 66 people displaced in eight area fires since Oct. 27.

Officials with the Greater Erie County Chapter of the American Red Cross said it’s the most locally that have been displaced in this short of a period of time.

“This has been very impacting because of the enormity of so many fires being close together and so many people being displaced,” said Laura M. DiPasqua-Grappy, director of emergency services for the local Red Cross.

Fires have hit many homes and apartment complexes throughout the region, leaving 26 families without a place to live.

The blaze at the Gladstone Court complex displaced 18 residents. Fires also damaged homes in Edinboro, Fairview Township and North East.

Eight more residents were displaced Tuesday afternoon when an electrical fire caused minor damage to a home in Erie.

The local Red Cross assisted these families by providing hotel rooms or temporary housing. They also offered food, clothing, medication and other basic necessities.

The organization had spent more than $25,000 in aid for the affected families as of earlier this week.

DiPasqua-Grappy said she expects that number could eventually rise to nearly $40,000 for the eight recent fires. After the fire Tuesday afternoon, she said the local chapter had exceeded its entire disaster relief budget through March 2011.

DiPasqua-Grappy said nearly all residents the Red Cross assist do not have renter’s insurance. Caseworkers maintain contact with fire victims and assist them in finding long-term housing.

Along with losing their possessions, victims of fires also cope with emotional stress.

“One minute they have the normalcy of having a place to go home, and in just a matter of minutes, everything they called home is gone,” DiPasqua-Grappy said.

Carino said her daughter is still traumatized by what she saw that night.

“She saw everything,” Carino said. “She just can’t sleep now.”