Displaced fire victims share story one day later
LATHAM, N.Y (NEWS10) -- After Monday afternoon’s fire at the Latham Village Apartments, NEWS10 met up with some of the displaced tenants from the building that was heavily damaged in the blaze one day later.
Ernest Sewell and Brian Sebesta who have lived in their apartment for the last ten years say they were alerted to the fire by a maintenance person running from door to door, pounding and yelling “Get out!”. Sewell, who just recently had his final chemo treatment for cancer March 6th said this was last thing on his mind. The fire coincidentally happened on Sebesta’s birthday.
As he showed NEWS10’s Reporter James De La Fuente a video of the fire he explained, “I see that propane tank, and I'm sitting in the adjacent building on some steps, just watching it. And I kept thinking. Should I move away? Because is this going to blow up? And God bless that firefighter that was just feet from it, trying to put it out.”
Sebesta recalled, “I heard the noise, and it’s. I'm looking at it now and it's scaring me. Just the hissing sound and, you know, and seeing that smoke.”
Thankfully, both gentlemen and their cat were able to get out safely. Brian said after the dust settled, they were allowed to go back into the building briefly to grab a few of their belongings and needed medications.
“First thing we didn't want was to have rotted food in there, because our electric is off. Everything is off. But then we got a phone call that, they wanted our keys and that they weren't going to let anybody back in,” said Sebesta.
They said that management at the complex have been forthcoming and supportive during this process. “I mean, the manager seemed really concerned. She seemed upset like it was, you know, her family and, you know, she's like that. It's nice to know that they care,” explained Sebesta.
De La Fuente reached out to management for more on when these folks can move back into their home but was kindly told they are “Not giving interviews, today.”
“I know they said there's something where they're going to inspect on Thursday and then they will have a better idea if or when we can go back,” said Sebesta, to which Sewell added, “There's a red sticker on the door that says uninhabitable.”
Both gentlemen said their renter’s insurance was a godsend. “It's very much a relief because we're greatly inconvenienced because of a fire, as people are and I said, but I still have to go into things with an attitude of being grateful that we have our stuff, we weren't burned through. And even though we're inconvenienced, we're alive, our animals are alive,” said Ernest.
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