Dozens Displaced After Fire Rips Through Apartments
DETROIT (WWJ) - The Red Cross is helping several families following an early morning apartment fire that destroyed their homes on Detroit's west side.
Fire broke out around 2 a.m. at an apartment building on Wyoming and Aurora streets, just south of Plymouth Road.
Officials say no one was injured, but the building appears to be a total loss.
Volunteers from the American Red Cross quickly responded to the scene to help residents like Shaqueenah Egnis and her six children.
"I have a 15-, 11-, a 9-year-old, a 6-year-old and I have two 5-year-olds. I had moved me and my family here because I was in an abusive relationship," Egnis said, holding back tears.
The Red Cross was able to secure short-term lodging at a hotel for Egnis and her family, as well as other residents. Egnis said her next challenge will be finding a new place to live, again.
"If there could just be a landlord or something that could help us at least with housing because it's condemned now. We don't have nothing," she said.
Much like Egnis, Darnell Long and his 29-year-old twin sister made it out of the burning building with just the clothes on their backs. The siblings have been living at the apartments since their parents died and now have nowhere else to go.
"I heard somebody threw a cocktail in here, some type of firebomb," Long told WWJ's Mike Campbell.
Other residents corroborated Long's theory, some adding that the person who threw the alleged firebomb was a relative of a woman who had been evicted from the apartment.
Officials wouldn't confirm that notion nor would they comment on a potential cause of the fire, saying they need to investigate the situation further.
Stay with WWJ Newsradio 950 and CBSDetroit.com for the latest.
