NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - An elderly woman is recounting the moments she and her daughter were forced out of their Northwest Miami-Dade home after a fire broke out.
Edward Clayton returned to his 93-year-old mother’s home to salvage what he could after flames ripped through it Sunday morning.
“This is my mother she’s holding one of her grandkids,” said Clayton as he points to a family photograph.
“These are memories. We can’t get back. My grandmother and her best days. It’s a beautiful house. From 40 years ago… Still the same,” said Mae’s great-granddaughter Tashawna Brown. “Everything is just gone. Everything.”
Cameras followed the family around as he showed what’s left of the home located off 79th Street and 10th Avenue.
The house has been in the family’s history for 40 years. On Monday, it was covered in smoke and soot.
In place of his mother’s cherished belongings were ashes.
Edward said his 72-year-old sister, who has some mental disabilities, plugged in a space heater and somehow it caught on fire.
“They had a space heater somewhere in this area here and it just caught fire,” he said.
Mae Alice Clayton also returned to her home Monday morning to see the aftermath.
“I was in the kitchen fixing my dinner, and all of a sudden my daughter said my room is on fire,” she said.
In the video taken from Sunday, flames were seen shooting from the roof and ripping through her home.
“Maybe about 10 to 15 minutes it was on fire, everything was on fire,” said Mae.
Firefighters used ladders to climb to the roof and douse the flames before they spread to neighboring homes.
The aftermath was devasting for Mae, who could barely stand to go inside her burned home.
“My mom going to have to come out and see this her personally and decide exactly what she want to do,” said Edward. “See what damage is and see what the loss is and see what it’s going to cost because she didn’t have any insurance. The home was paid for.”
“What’s left inside?” asked 7News’ Jordan Kissane.
“The photo’s you’re looking at,” said Brown. “When the fire was over, I crawled on the floor, I found her old wedding picture, it was here. My grandmother was 14 years old.”
Now decades of memories are gone and although the two women aren’t hurt, they are shaken up and unsure what to do next.
“I don’t have anything. I don’t have anything,” said Mae.
“We are all not exempt from […] disaster happens. California, look at all those people suffering so, structure is still there[referring to his mother’s home] in some of those places no structure,” said Edward.
Despite the loss, the family remains hopeful about rebuilding the special home together.
“This is where it started. This is my roots. This is what we praise. She still here and that’s all I wanted… That’s all I wanted for her to be here,” said Brown.
“We can rebuild if that’s what my mama decides she wants to do,” said Edward.
A GoFundMe has been created to assist the family as they had no home insurance. If you would like to donate, click here.
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