NEW HOPE, Minn. — "We couldn't believe it; we had everything there — our clothes and family heirlooms and stuff like that," said Gabrielle Schulz, who has lived at the New Hope apartment complex that caught fire over the weekend for the past four years.
Schulz is one of several families displaced, just one day after a huge fire tore through her New Hope apartment complex, destroying six units and everything she owns.
"We built a home for four years and memories of having friends over, and there's just so much that we lost yesterday," she said.
Schulz remembers the exact moment she and her boyfriend knew it was time to escape.
"We went about our morning — went to the bathroom, were going to feed our cats — and my boyfriend looked out the window and said, 'We need to move, there's smoke coming from underneath us,'" she said. "So I turned our blinds, and you couldn't see through our balcony it was so full of smoke."
She also saw others families scrambling to get their loved ones to safety.
"There was an older family — one of the members was in a wheelchair — so the grandkids live on the first floor and carried him down," she said.
The flames grew, and soon engulfed her third floor apartment. "When we got to the parking lot by our cars, it was already there. It was in our living room," she said. "The walls are torn down, it's gone; there's a big, massive hole in our living room."
Now she has to relive the horror over and over.
"Mostly, we just don't have a home," she said.
She is grateful she and her boyfriend were able to get out with their cats, the clothes on their backs, a few family heirlooms — and their lives.
Fire officials say one person was injured and the cause of the fire appears to be accidental.
The Red Cross is assisting those who have been displaced, while a GoFundMe has also been set up to help Schulz and her boyfriend rebuild. If you'd like to donate, click here.
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