Nine lives were lost in a Starkville apartment fire in December. Four Mississippi University for Women freshmen perished in a hotel fire in Hoover, Ala., in January.
There have been others. Apartment fires in Starkville and Columbus caused damage but no casualties.
Caught in the rash of recent fires were the Langs, a family of six whose house on South Pickensville Road in Columbus burned Jan. 8.
Lisa Lang, a Columbus deputy Municipal Court clerk, knows her family is lucky in the sense that they”re all alive and healthy. But standing amid the charred remains of her home Saturday, her voice was filled with emotion.
Traces of despair are discernible as she speaks of the loss of all her family”s worldly possessions. Optimism and gratitude accompany her tales of community support. Uncertainty creeps into her voice as she ponders her family”s next move.
For now, Lisa, her husband Michael, their boys Marques, 23, and Jamarcus, 21; and their girls Shalisa, 13, and Michaela, 12, share a two-bedroom townhouse at Smithville Townhouses. Mayor Robert Smith, owner of Smithville, is renting the apartment to the Lang”s at a reduced rate.
The accommodations are less than ideal, but that Langs are in no position to turn down help. They”ve received more than $5,000 in assistance from the community thus far and a lunch-plate fundraiser sponsored by the Columbus Police Department on Friday sold so many plates that customers were at times forced to wait in the lobby while more hamburgers and hot dogs were cooked.
Lisa Lang acknowledges her family”s blessings. She knows very well how much worse that evening in January could have been. But there are still some hard lessons to be learned.
The first came that evening as the fire broke out in the Langs” laundry room. Either the family”s dryer or faulty wiring in the room sparked the blaze.
Lisa, her family and her two brothers were sitting in the den when she noticed smoke whirling around the ceiling fan.
She tracked the smoke to the laundry room and discovered the fire. Michael tried to douse the flames with wet clothes as Lisa rushed him water from the kitchen, but nothing worked.
Forced outside, she says it took nearly 20 minutes for the first fire truck to arrive, and despite a fire hydrant located less than a block from their house, the fire department ran out of water several times.
The family could do nothing more than watch from across the street as their house was engulfed in flames. They heard the glass break as the windows popped. And they saw their ceiling collapse on everything they owned.
The Langs had spent 10 years in their house on its three-acre plot of land. They owed just $3,500 to pay it off.
The Langs say they”ll rebuild on their land but they don”t know when that will happen. For now, said Lisa, they”re living life one day at a time.
How has this event affected your family emotionally?
We”re still in shock. It has changed our life dramatically. We”re just trying to find a starting point.
How are you doing financially?
We”re struggling to get back on our feet. The money we have in the bank is all we have so we”re just having to start over. We had a little savings but not much. Not enough to build.
What are your initial plans as far as rebuilding?
We”re going to see what we”re able to do and what we have. We”ve got to talk to some construction people and see where to go from there. My husband and a lot of people in the community are just waiting on the weather, then we”re going to tear (the remains of the house) down. A lot of people have been calling to assist in the cleanup.
We are going to rebuild, but how long from now we don”t really know. If we have to put a mobile home here temporarily, we”ll do what we have to do to support our family.
What happened with your insurance company?
We thought we had flood and fire insurance. I found some of the paperwork and that”s the heading on it. But when we called and my husband spoke to a couple of people, they stated we were only covered for flood insurance.
That hit us pretty hard, because we were thinking all along that we were covered. My husband was like, “Well, at least we”ve got insurance and that will be a start to something else.” That there was some type of promise of future money to get things started. But when we called and they told us we didn”t, it”s like it just knocked us back down to Step One, not knowing what to do.
(At this point, Michael Lang pulls up to the house and joins the interview.)
Will you make sure to carry fire insurance on your next home?
Lisa: Yes! Oh my God, yes. We”ll probably do that before we even pay the first payment down on it. Definitely.
Nine people passed recently in a fire in Starkville. How has that affected your outlook on your own situation?
Lisa: First of all, I just feel so sorry for those families. We feel we are truly blessed. The Lord has spared us and given us another chance at life. But my heart goes out to those who lost their loved ones.
As far as our situation, we never though we would be homeless or that this would happen to us. When you”re on the outside looking in, you never think it could happen to you. But when it hits home, it brings a lot of reality to you.
How has the community responded to your situation?
Lisa: The community has been great from Day One. We”ve been getting phone calls and words of encouragement. The schools, Hunt and Lee, have been real good to the girls. Some of the teachers took them shopping. People we don”t even know have been sending checks.
Michael: We”ve basically just been blessed. It”s hard to really name all the people who have given us support. Local churches. People have really been reaching out.
Is there anything about being burned out of your home that you didn”t expect to have to deal with?
Lisa: Being homeless, basically.
Michael: When you lose everything you have, you just have to start from scratch. It”s different, but we adapted. We have to make it work.
Is there anything in particular you need from the community at this point?
Lisa: Just continued prayer and support the community has been giving us.
Michael: A home.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
