Steven Tittley Fire Emergency Fund

Hi, Friends,

There was a horrific and deadly fire in Yonkers on March 8th. My Godson, Steven Tittley was a resident of the building. Thankfully, Steven and his wife Keona made it out safely. This fundraiser is created for people who have asked how they can help.

Steven is truly one of the most hardworking and caring people I know and my heart aches for Steven and Keona.

Here is a first-hand account from Steven:

Hello everyone,

Keona and I want to thank you for your support during this overwhelmingly difficult time. We woke up at 1:30 am on Wednesday, March 8th to people yelling and screaming outside of our bedroom window. Keona went to look out the window (our bedroom window faces the back of the building) to see what the commotion was and saw people going down the fire escape with a couple of fire trucks lined down the block. I then went out to the front door of our apartment to look through the peephole to see if I could see any smoke, but all I saw was darkness, but my mind was still in a fog from waking from my sleep, so what I was seeing still didn’t register in my mind. As soon as I opened the door, a large billow of black smoke entered the apartment.

I slammed the door shut, and told Keona “We have to go!”, then we grabbed our coats,

backpacks and laptops and squeezed through our window to get to the street from our fire escape (thank God we had a fire escape, because not every apartment had access to one).

When we hit the street behind our building, we could see the smoke from the front of our building. As we made our way to the front to see where exactly the fire was, about 10 firefighters burst through the side entrance with one of our neighbors. As one of the firemen kneeled to the ground coughing and choking, the rest of the firemen proceeded to frantically perform CPR on the person; we now know that one person perished from the fire, but I am not 100% sure if the person we saw is the same one who died.

When we finally reached the front of our building, there were about 15 fire trucks that

lined the block below our building (which is on an elevated piece of land with a parking deck in front & under our building), and finally got a look at the fire. It was a huge, blazing fire that started in a second-floor apartment right above the building’s entrance. As we waited outside in the cold and tried to not only get answers but wrap our heads around what was going on, we watched as the fire started to slowly travel up each floor of our building. By the time it reached the roof of our apartment building (there are 7 floors and we live on the top floor of the building), the fire grew to a four-alarm blaze. We stood outside for four hours watching the firefighters evacuate people from the building while exhaustingly fight the fire against high winds, the awkward positioning of our building on a somewhat hilly street, and not being able to bring fire trucks to the front of our building because the parking deck could not support the weight of the trucks.

By the time the fire was finally controlled (some 8 hours later), our building had

extensive fire, smoke, and water damage; a good ¼ to half of the apartment building is

destroyed. A portion of the roof caved in, leaving the already damaged building exposed to the elements while crews try to clean up what they can. And while they try to drain the gallons of water that was either sprayed by firemen trying to contain the blaze or from the plumbing that burst and flooded every floor from top to bottom, it has rained and snowed a few times making the already difficult task of cleaning up debris and excess water even harder due to our exposed roof.

While our apartment didn’t burn completely, we have extensive water, smoke and soot

damage. Though we are extremely thankful that we made it out with our lives unharmed, we have lost a lot. All our furniture is gone, we’ve lost all our food, a good majority of our clothes, and many of our sentimental valuables; we’re missing wedding pictures, old family photos, and all the work that we’ve put in over the past 3 and ½ years making this place our home. On top of that, our insurance doesn’t cover everything, so we’re expected to STILL pay our mortgage while finding a new place to live, replace the items we’ve lost, and support ourselves financially. This has taken a high mental and financial toll on us, which has left us to resort to

asking for help. Any little bit counts, and while we prefer to not ask for help, this situation has become even more difficult than we can begin to describe.

I would like to thank our family, friends, friends of friends, associates, and co-workers

for their support during this time. Please feel free to share our GoFundMe, it would be greatly appreciated!

-Love, Steven