Local couple loses home in fire weeks before Christmas
A Gulfport couple is trying to pick up the pieces days before Christmas after a house fire destroyed everything.
The couple is asking for any help after their home went up into flames Friday leaving them with nothing.
Lisa Waltman thought she would wake up Friday morning ready to celebrate her 50th birthday, but instead she woke up to her home on Cottonwood Drive engulfed in flames. “We had an out-of-town company visitor come and luckily they were here because they woke up. They were able to get us up. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have woken up.”
According to Lisa, it all happened so fast. “I came through. He started screaming fire, fire, fire. I just came through the sun porch.”
Lisa, her husband, and the guest were all able to make it out safely, but everything they worked for was gone. “It was so bad that you couldn’t breathe. I had to put my night gown, because it was morning that’s all we had on, and I put that over my mouth to breathe and somehow, I couldn’t get the door open and by the grace of God, I was able to bust the door down.”
With Christmas only days away, Lisa says the only gift that she could imagine is to have her home back. “I don’t even see it. I don’t see Christmas. I don’t see it at all.”
Lisa is grateful for her neighbors and friends who have rallied around her during this tough time. “I didn’t have a pair of shoes until the lady next door gave them to me and that’s still the only pair I have.”
The only thing Lisa and her husband can do is pick up the pieces. “I’m very grateful to be alive.”
