NEW ORLEANS — 22 people are displaced after a fire ripped through a Mid-City neighborhood, the New Orleans Fire Department said.
The fire started around 6 a.m. on Sunday near South Solomon and Ulloa Street.
On Sunday evening, friends and family were salvaging what was left of Desiree Andrews' home.
“Thank you. Even though we lost a lot of things, we got a lot of good support, and I wanted to thank everybody for it," Andrews said.
The family rolled appliances out and stacked up the furniture that was unharmed. Everything they could salvage from the double shotgun home fit in a box truck.
“I told them I would bring the truck over. Don’t worry about any UHaul or anything like that," Bryant Jarrow with Jarrow's Transportation said.
Jarrow wasn't the only Good Samaritan.
Andrews said a woman alerted her neighbor, Yolanda Coffil, about the fire.
“If it wasn’t a lady banging on the door trying to get me out, just thinking about it, I wouldn’t be here talking to you," Coffil said. “And please, if you’re watching, come back so we can thank you. Please come back.”
In a cellphone video Coffil shot, you can hear her desperately ask firefighters to get the two dogs that were inside the home out.
NOFD said they rescued the dogs and temporarily put them on oxygen due to the smoke.
68 firefighters were on the scene, and it took more than two hours to get it under control, NOFD said.
It scorched three homes, destroyed a shed and melted several cars.
“I hope God bless us in the near future because we need to get back on our feet with clothes and she needs furniture cause she lost everything," Andrews said about her neighbor.
The women were thankful everyone made it out alive and no one was hurt.
“Everybody is ok. Thank God," Andrews said.
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