RICHMOND, Va. — A Richmond family of three is facing a difficult road ahead after a devastating fire tore through their apartment on Tuesday evening. Taquella Smith, the matriarch of the family, expressed her resolve to stay strong for her children despite the overwhelming loss.
“We have to start from scratch — and we were already not in a good situation,” Smith said. “I just try to stay strong for my kids.”
Smith arrived home on the evening of Tuesday, April 22, to find smoke pouring out of her apartment. Her dog was panicked, signaling something was terribly wrong. “I’m thinking, ‘Should I put it out, grab some water?’” Smith recalled. “But by the time I got back there, it got worse. So I said, ‘No, let me get up out of here.’”
The Richmond Fire Department responded quickly to the call, arriving at the apartment complex in the 1400 block of Clarkson Road shortly after 7:30 p.m. Firefighters reported seeing smoke coming from the first-floor apartment. The fire is believed to have started in a bedroom at the rear of the apartment, which belonged to Smith’s 20-year-old daughter, Makayla.
Makayla, a cosmetology student, had been working multiple shifts to help support her family, with plans to give her mother a break. But the fire destroyed much of her school equipment. “A lot of my school stuff got destroyed, and they’re not going to replace them,” Makayla said, her voice tinged with sadness. “It hurts, because part of the reason why I was picking up a lot of shifts was so I can help my mom out.”
The family’s immediate future remains uncertain as they face the challenge of rebuilding their lives from the ground up. Despite the hardships, Smith is determined to keep faith and remain positive for the sake of her children.
