Quoted: Little Left for Some Mt. Pleasant Fire Victims

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"THEY CAN'T GO IN, but we take them around to the back to show them how it was destroyed. The good thing is that they get closure and that they've got their lives."

— Randy Moses, an emergency management coordinator for the D.C. Department of Human Resources, speaking to The Post's Sylvia Moreno about the scene that's greeted many former residents of a Mount Pleasant apartment building that was gutted in a five-alarm fire on March 13. About 200 tenants were displaced because of the blaze.

Officials say some residents, like Cristobal Hernandez, pictured at right, were able to retrieve some of their belongings on Monday. Others, however, are in the group Moses describes above: residents of the north side of the building, which was so heavily damaged that contractors were ordered to demolish all but the exterior wall and a few apartments behind it.

Last week, D.C. Council member Jim Graham said that material donations had poured in at an astounding clip, but that money was still needed to help fire victims find new places to live. Serve DC, a city agency that coordinates with volunteer and nonprofit groups, is accepting donations of materials like new clothing, furniture and gift cards from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, tomorrow and Thursday at the D.C. General Warehouse, located at 1900 Massachusetts Avenue SE, Building 6. Get more information from Serve DC here.

» "Victims of Fire Pick Up Pieces Of Their Lives" [WaPo]
» EARLIER: "Money Still Needed to Help Mt. Pleasant Fire Victims" [Free Ride/Express]

Photo by Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post