Hazmat cleanup still bars North Bay fire victims from entering their homes
SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- In the wake of tragedy, there is comfort in old routines.
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For John Triglia of Santa Rosa, that means pruning his roses before spring. "This is a grand illusion. Nothing has changed," said the 91-year-old retired mailman.
Except, for his neighborhood. John 's rose garden lies between two of only forty-three surviving mobile homes in Journey's End.
He and other residents remain locked out by red tags and an ongoing hazmat, asbestos clean-up. They make up the largest single group of fire victims still unable to go to standing homes.
They may also be the most desperate.
Journey's end is mostly a rusted, twisted, metal remnant of the fiery cataclysm. That any homes survived on Sahara Avenue is a miracle turned slow-motion nightmare for residents, who have no indication of what the park's owner intends to do.
Evans Management, which runs the facility, gave ABC7 News no indication, today.
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"Either way, we're screwed," said Michelle Trammel, who shared a mobile home with her mother. They see it every day from a FEMA-funded motel across the street. Michelle owns the unit but she worries that the park closing could make her homeless by default.
"I would pull the unit out if I could, but it would fall apart. It's a 1961 mobile home." She hasn't the money, even to try. What would she do? "I guarantee I will come back here if there is nowhere else to go. I have a perfectly good home, here."
One with a perfectly horrid view.
In a miserable circumstance.
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Still, in a mobile home park where two people died in the fire, outsiders tell Michell and John they are lucky.
He is not so sure. "This depresses me," he said. "They tell me at least I survived the fire. Then again, I could have burned up with the place and all of this would be over...the turmoil is debatable."
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