Fire in Nyack, New York leaves dozens displaced
A dozen families remain displaced after an apartment building caught fire Tuesday in Rockland County.
The Nyack community is coming together to support those families.
The fire started around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at Nyack Plaza. Flames blazed across a single, long roof that was attached to three buildings.
A woman named Anastasia lives in the building. She was able to return Wednesday to get a look inside her third floor apartment, where pools of water lingered from the effort to fight the fire. Her children's blankets and toys were wrecked, and the scope of destruction took her breath away.
"It feel like exactly what you think it feels like. Everything's gone," she said.
The Red Cross is helping with temporary lodging for the displaced families while Nyack Mayor Joe Rand is working with the county to find long-term solutions.
"We're trying not to have a situation where they need to be in a shelter. So we're looking for opportunities to place them in more long-term housing," Rand said.
Nyack Center, just down the road from the fire, is accepting donations - items to be given out free to those who lost everything. They're taking donations of personal hygiene items, clothes, and food.
"We're encouraging people to do gift cards. Then people can get exactly what they need, whether it's clothes or food or whatever," Kim Cross of the Nyack Center said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but it is believed it may have started from a shorted-out vent fan in a top floor room.
