Bad News Concerning Gail Swart

[Guest guest]

Good Morning Everyone,

Gail called me a little while ago and said that she is unable to post at this time as she is homeless due to a fire that totally destroyed her home last Sunday night.

Her, her roommate and her son Jay got out with just the clothes on their backs. Thank the Lord no one got hurt.

She said it was an electrical fire and it started in Jay's room. Her room mate was asleep at the time and she went to wake him up and could not stay up there so she went back downstairs to get air and then went up again and he finally heard her screaming and woke up. She said you could see his body outline on the bed from where the smoke was around him. She fell up against Jay's door and it opened and the back draft threw her across the hallway and up against the wall into a window. She is OK just devastated.

She said Red Cross was useless to her and that she went to Social Services for Temporary help and they told her she was over income with her SSD. She told them she is not applying for permanent help just to get food, clothes for her and Jay--She was approved and will get her food stamp card in a few days. Now listen to this they gave her a clothing allowance of $89 for her and $89 for her son. They are allowing $22 for a bed for each of them $5 for bathroom items and $ 122 I think she said for a couch and living room items.

Then RoadRunner gave her a hard time about the modem and black electrical box if it does not work she is going to be charged almost $200 for the items.

The fire dept. was able to save her appliances and they took the pictures off of her walls and put them on her table and covered them with a heavy tarp. She had no insurance.

There is nothing left upstairs and there is a lot of smoke and water damage downstairs. She also has a $40,000 Precious Moments collection that they saved also.

She is just so lucky to be alive. Her room mate they had to put up a ladder and break the window to the room in order for him to get out safely.She has lived in that house for 16 years and the landlord never raised her rent at all in all those years.

Jay feels so devastated about the fire because it did start in his room in his stereo. She said he told her that part of the power was out upstairs and she had him go to the basement to check the breakers and when he came back up she noticed the smoke. I asked her about the smoke detector and she went to Family Dollar last Sunday to get batteries and came home with everything but---

The good thing is that all 3 of them are OK>Take care

Dorothy