Since then, a recovery fund has been established by the United Way of the Coastal Bend <\/a>to help those impacted by the fire. The organization has already raised thousands of dollars in donations.<\/p>\n\u201cSome people are still telling me they can smell the smoke in their homes,\u201d said Blyth Swartsfager, the administrator for the city of Gregory.<\/p>\n
Swartsfager said it\u2019s not just the damage left behind by the cotton gin fire that remains visible \u2014 but also the ongoing strain felt by families.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we had a lot of families that in addition to homes that were lost, we have a lot of families that had some severe smoke damage done to their homes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the fire, a recovery fund was created for residents. But just a few days later, another blow came: a hailstorm.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we had a lot of people that had like a double dose of damage, right. They had the fire that happened to them and then we had the hail that came down on top of that. So some homes, they had fire damage and hail damage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Jordan, president and CEO of the United Way of the Coastal Bend, said that\u2019s where their relief fund comes in. So far, the organization has raised just over $40,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople a lot of times have to replace those items. Anybody who has moved into a new apartment or a new home knows that those expenses really add up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jordan said donating is simple \u2014 all residents have to do is visit the organization\u2019s webpage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no fees, there\u2019s no overhead costs, it\u2019s just a service that we provide in the case of a disaster,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With the holidays now here \u2014 and many families still juggling repairs, Swartsfager hopes the fund can bring much-needed relief to those who need it most.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would help them with being able to make sure that they have some funds for the holidays,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since then, the United Way of the Coastal Bend has established a recovery fund to support those affected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-72446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}