BRYAN, TX — ”Although we don’t have anything anymore," said Myra Castelan, whose family lost their mobile home to fire. "We’ll make new memories, and we’re blessed that we have so many people, so so many people that are helping us,”
In the aftermath of the winter storm, one family loses their mobile home and a year's worth of memories. However, one local business... is not letting them go this journey ahead alone.
A family of five has lost everything in a mobile home fire that ignited Wednesday morning during the arctic freeze temperatures.
”We have four kids, our oldest is thirteen, an eleven-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a seven-year-old,” said Castelan. “We haven't had electricity since Monday, the electricity has been coming on and off, on and off, and it was really cold,”
Myra suffers from pneumonia, so when she came to terms with the unbearable conditions, she moved quickly, unplugging all appliances in the home before rushing to book a hotel room while they still held occupancy.
“We checked, we checked. To make sure that we had disconnected everything just in case the electricity came back on, we wouldn’t have left anything connected and I guess we forgot that heater,”
Without any light to see clearly, and rushing to get someplace warm, the family mistakenly left a portable heater plugged into the room they were congregating in to stay warm.
At around 4:30 in the morning, they returned to see the damage done.
“They were turning the fire off from that end of the house," said Castelan. "That’s our room, that’s where it started because that’s where we were staying at,”
Usually, someone has 15 minutes to exit a home on fire, the family would have had two minutes, according to the firefighters that responded to the scene.
The family has since received so much support they never knew they had.
“For me, my customers are not only my customers but my friends,” said Rudy Sorto, Owner of Easy Phone Repairs. ”When one of my friends is having this situation, and you know suffering through this situation, it’s like I need to do something,”
Easy phone repairs will be donating 25% of all their proceeds made on Tuesday, February 23 to the family. The owner has also coordinated to collect monetary donations and goods to support the family with their new beginning.
“I know we’re going to start fresh from zero, but we’re okay," said Castelan."We’re going to go, we’re going to be able to survive this and stay strong,”
The family is simply thankful to be alive and grateful for all the help that has been provided by the community.