Help Nick & Theresa Albanese Rebuild their home

On Saturday me & my family, as well as my sister in law Ashley and her three children loaded up my SUV to go visit my sister in law & brother in law & their two kids in Mount Dora. We don’t get to see them as often as we would like & decided we should all get together for a visit to their home on the Lake. It was a perfect day filled with fun, food, boating, & all the kids laughing & playing together. During the night my sister in law saw a flashing light outside her window only to find that the entire side of the home was up in flames. The rest of us sound asleep. I will never forget the voices of my sister in laws, their screams, and the tone of their voices, it still echos in my ears. Their voices had never sounded in this tone before, in a sound sleep I hear “the house is on fire get the kids, get the kids the house is on fire”. I’m shaking even writing out these words. The horror of this is something I’ve never experienced in my entire life. In seconds we got 11 people out of a burning building only minutes later having the roof fall in on part of the home where my nephew was sleeping. Today could be so much different for my family. The amount of gratitude I feel to be alive, to have my son in my arms, my in laws, my husband, my entire world, my nieces, my nephews here in my world today is a sensation

I can’t put into words. We were in this building for about an hour & a half while it was on fire, until one person in the house woke up, had she not the firemen told us we could have easily died from the roof collapsing or suffocation from all the smoke. How close to death we were is hard to mentally comprehend. How a perfect day can turn so horrible In what felt like a second is hard to fathom. My family is everything to me, you realize even more how much you love them until you almost lose them, the fierce momma bear over took me that night as we fought to protect our family. I would do anything for these people, anything. My husband went back into this building to make sure everyone was out, my sister in law carrying out my nephew. Just the vision of this is something I never thought I’d experience in my entire life. My sweet sister in law Theresa, the strength, the grace I’m in aw of her. My heart breaks for her, Nick my brother in law & their two small children. They lost everything that they have except for each other of course which is most important. I am so grateful I still have them here & alive but I also hurt for them as they lost their home & nearly every item from their entire lives, completely destroyed, demolished. I know this is going to be a long hard road for them as they work to restore their sanity, their home, their life, everything. I’m asking for prayers for them, that God will be with them, provide them strength, restoration, stability, resilience, & eventually peace. Also remember to check your smoke detectors, annually is not enough, my family checks theirs & yet no smoke detector alarmed throughout this entire fire. Attic smoke detectors are especially important! Be safe, keep your family safe, have a plan and check your smoke detectors frequently.

Thank God for firefighters and the ones that helped us that night. Thank you Jesus for your Devine intervention and for waking up my sister so we could be rescued before it was too late. Thank you Jesus for our lives, to live another day on earth with those we love I couldn’t envision life without one of these individuals in it.

These are photos we found from a community firefighter page after the fact as none of us but one even had our phones that night.