Support for Ashley & Family

My name is Ashley and I'm 23 years old. I live in Fort Worth, Texas and my family was greatly affected by the recent winter storms that tore through our state. 

We lost power on the 15th of February. We were told it was supposed to be rotating power, but after being in the dark and cold for over 15hrs, my fiancé's father brought us food and said we should come with him back to Allen. Reluctant at first due to us having 6 animals, (2 dogs, 3 cats, and 1 bird) we didn't want to make him have to go out of the way for us to house our animals. We decided to go, packed up small things, our pet family, and left our house. 

The next day we saw our security system was up and running around 1pm. Excited to go home, we packed our things, picked up our animals, and set out to Fort Worth to go home. We arrived around 7pm that night, animals in hand, we got to the door and saw water pouring out. I felt my heart sink in my chest, Brandon ran to find the main water valve, and I opened the door to our house and saw the ruins. Water was falling from our attic in our kitchen and living room. A good portion of the ceiling and insulation had already fallen and the water was about ankle deep. Hours of work we put into our home was gone in a moment, due to water lines in the attic freezing and bursting. About half of our home is damaged due to water and debris. I'm so thankful we were not there when it happened. I keep thinking back to us almost choosing to stay home.

We only grabbed changes of clothes for ourselves before we headed back to Allen. We've begun the process of the insurance claim but due to the weather here and the situation I know we are not the only ones who had home damage during this time. We don't know what the next steps are but we need to find housing that will accept our 6 animals and the two of us, and that's what we find ourselves struggling with now.

I hate having to ask for help. I wish I could say we could handle this all on our own but I know we would push ourselves into debt if we did. Insurance should hopefully cover most of our damages but we're currently looking at a deductible of 3000$ out of pocket to begin the process. 

Any amount donated will help us tremendously. Brandon and I are both stubborn and feel extremely bad having to ask for help but I'm putting myself out there because I feel we truly need help. Thank you so much for reading our story, please consider passing it along if it's not too much trouble. 

Thank you. 

Ashley