“Well, my ‘building’ under repair, right now we don’t know how long it will take.”
Christina Valle shows us how her apartment looked after the great fire on Tuesday.
Valle lived on the first floor and his family managed to get out on time. With the help of her son she was able to rescue her pets and some money. But he did not arrive in time to take his bird ‘Panchito’ that remained in his kitchen.
“I’m going to see but they didn’t let me in and my little bird stayed, he died,” said Christina.
La de Valle is one of the families that have lost everything in the spectacular fire that started on the sixth floor of this block that burned for 12 hours.
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Of the 90 displaced families, 75 are of Mexican origin.
Just a year ago we spoke with Christina asking for a handicap ramp in this building for her daughter Joana. The ramp was achieved but now they must find a new place with access.
“Well, right now to look for an apartment to be able to take my daughter since she is disabled and give her something where I can take care of her because we are with my sister-in-law but it is not the same,” Christina explained.
“My apartment is white, the one that is completely white, they were repairing it,” said Maria Giraldo, another victim of the fire.
Giraldo’s apartment on the sixth floor was close to the one where the flames broke out.
Giraldo was at a funeral in Pennsylvania and her husband managed to escape from the house by emergency stairs with their two dogs.
“It’s sad, painful, confused, there is nothing, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, but we have to move forward,” Giraldo said.
Maria had lived here for 30 years in a two-bedroom apartment. He has lost everything in the fire. The Red Cross got them a room in a hotel in Astoria, but only until Tuesday.
“Let’s hope they give us back the apartments because I lived there for 31 years and they have to give it back to me, I hope in God they do,” Giraldo said.
If you want to support the families that were affected in this fire, you can search by name 89th Street Tenant Association on GoFundMe.
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