Millboro Volunteer Fire Department receives first guests

Flashing lights in the night, a true worst nightmare.

One the Tinglers’ experienced when their home burned a week ago. Fire under the eaves spread rapidly, and the combination of fire, smoke, and water damage left the house a total loss, wrapped in warning tape.

“My biggest concern, and my husband’s," Lisa Tingler says, "Is to take care of these children and to make sure they’re protected at all times.”

Homeless in the night, what were they to do?

“I turned around to walk back to where my Mom and my sister were," She remembers, "And it seemed like the whole town of Millboro was there waiting on me.”

“There was people everywhere, coming to us and everything," says her husband, Muttsy Tingler. "They was just so good to us, the people was.”

Including a solution to their first, and perhaps biggest problem: where to live.

“As far as we know, nobody else has done this,” says Jeff Grimm of the Millboro Volunteer Fire Department.

That is, an apartment over the firehouse. A simple solution in a time of crisis.

“We did the project with the hopes that it would never be used," Grimm explains, "With the understanding though eventually somebody would be in need.”

“People don’t realize until tragedy hits and they need something like this that it’s here," Muttsy Tingler says. "And they done so great on here, I can’t commend them enough.”

“You know this place right here, you know, if nothing else it has kept my family together,” Lisa Tingler says.

A simple thing, pulled together by a small community, to solve a catastrophic problem.