'How much more can your family take?' Lebanon family reeling after fire destroys home

In the two weeks since a fire destroyed their home in Lebanon the day before Thanksgiving, the Smith family has had to frequently remind themselves how lucky they are.

"I'm just glad that we got out safe; that's most important," said Kevin Smith, a father of seven and grandfather of one. 

The attic in their rented home was destroyed, and water or smoke severely damaged most of their belongings on the second floor of the house, including clothes, bedroom furniture and Smith's computer he used for his work-from-home job as a technology troubleshooting technician. 

But, gesturing to several of his kids piled on a hotel bed watching the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" reurns on a recent Saturday morning, Smith noted the fire could have been much worse.

"Material things can be replaced, they can't be," he said of the kids. 

That's also what his wife, Diashanna "Dee" Smith, has tried to keep in mind when the stress over finding a new place to live and handling getting all her kids to school has become too much.

With the closest family in Allentown, the Smiths have had pile into small rooms at the Clarion Hotel. 

"We were overwhelmed," Smith said. "We don't have family here. Where are we going to go? Where are the kids going to go?"

But, even facing an uphill battle to get their lives back together, the Smith family is trying to stay strong, for the kids and because they've been through struggles before. 

'Mom, the attic is on fire'

Dee Smith had just left the house in the 500 block of Church Street with two of her daughters to pick up some last minute supplies for Thanksgiving and their daughter Imari's 9th birthday on Friday. 

They were at the store when Smith got a call that no mother would ever want to get:

"Mom, the attic is on fire."

Smith thought her oldest daughter, Imani, was kidding around and told her to stop playing. 

"No, mom the attic is on fire," she said. 

Smith dropped the food she was about to buy, grabbed her daughters, and took off running back to their house. On the way, fire engines screamed past them as neighbors filtered out on the street to see what was going on. 

Inside the house, Kevin Smith and his two older sons had been messing around on his computer, laughing at a silly meme, when they heard the second-floor smoke alarm go off. They looked at each other, confused. No one was in the kitchen. What could possibly be on fire?

Then, seconds later, a second alarm went off. They could smell smoke once they got to the second floor, Smith said, and his oldest son yelled that he could see smoke coming out of the attic door. Smith grabbed his two youngest kids, napping as the fire raged above them, and ran out of the house. 

They spent the next several hours waiting outside as firefighters put out the blaze. Duane Trautman, the city's fire commissioner, said the cause of the fire is undetermined. 

It wasn't until their landlord pulled Kevin Smith aside to tell him they would have to terminate the lease that Smith realized how extensive the damage was. 

"In my head I thought that since they put the fire out, we can go back in and have Thanksgiving," Smith said. 

But even though the fire didn't spread much beyond the attic, the second floor — where the family's bedrooms were — was rendered uninhabitable by all the smoke and water damage. With the Red Cross's help, the Smiths left the house they had just moved into in August and moved into the Clarion Hotel. 

Now, 1-year-old Imyjah, 5-year-old Khadir, 7-year-old Imyra, 9-year-old Imari, 13-year-old Khalil and 15-year-old Kevin, who goes by Malik, are all crammed into two rooms with their parents. Over the weekend, they had to downsize from three rooms to just two for all the kids and the parents — it's so crowded that 18-year-old Imani Smith, the oldest, had to take her 6-week old son, Israel, and stay with friends.

It is less than ideal, but at least they are all safe.

'Overwhelming love and support'

From the beginning, the support has been overwhelming, Dee Smith said. 

With just microwaves in their rooms to cook food, the Smiths thought that frozen food from Walmart would have to suffice for their Thanksgiving dinner. But they got a bit of normalcy when a mother of one of their son's friends came by to drop off the leftovers from her family's holiday meal.

The Smith's didn't have a home to eat it in, but they did have turkey, macaroni and cheese, potato salad and stuffing. 

"I was talking to my mom before that and I said, 'No turkey for us tonight,'" Kevin Smith said. "So it was very appreciated. It made me smile."

Their son Malik's basketball coach has also offered his help, and they've gotten some donated food from the kid's schools. While working at Rite-Aid last week, Dee Smith was talking to one of her customers about the fire when she got an unexpected surprise. 

A few minutes after the customer left, a woman came back in the store and gave Smith a gift card, saying she had overheard the conversation and wanted to help.

"It almost brought me to tears," Smith said. "The overwhelming love and support for my family, that doesn't even have family here. The community coming in to help us - I am forever grateful to them."

Once they find a home, Smith said the biggest thing they will need help with is replacing their kids' clothing and household items. 

"We welcome anything to help us get back on our feet," Smith said. 

Facing another challenge

But for now, the biggest challenge for the Smiths is finding a place to live. They hope to be in a house at least by Christmas, and hope they can stay in Lebanon School District so their kids don't have to change schools again.

In the last five years, the Smith kids have had their share of change. After Dee Smith's parents died within three months of each other a few years ago, they moved from down South to Allentown, to live with Kevin Smith's sister. 

But there wasn't enough room in the house for both families, so they found a beautiful house in Jonestown. Blown away by how perfect it was for his family, Kevin Smith said he didn't take note of any of the landlord's behavior that, in hindsight, would make sense once they received a foreclosure notice. 

It turns out that even though the Smiths were paying rent to the landlord, no one was paying the home's mortgage.

So, they had to move. They found a house in Lebanon, but, perhaps now a bit more wary of landlords, they decided to move out after the house's owner kept stopping by a little too frequently to inspect the property. 

Compounded by the recent death of Kevin Smith's father when he was in Lebanon visiting for one of his granddaughter's birthdays, the last few years have not been easy for the kids. 

"For them to go through this now? It's like, how much more can your family take, that you can still be strong enough to keep going?" Dee Smith said.

Even with their struggles, Kevin Smith said he was raised to keep going even when times are tough. 

"That's not to say that I don't cry, because I do," he said, joking that he didn't pretend to be a sort of "macho man" who didn't show his feelings. 

But the Smiths are trying to be optimistic. Kevin Smith has been looking for houses and found one for rent he thought would work. But its current inhabitants will be there until January, and the family can't wait that long. Dee has continued to work, trying to push through the feelings of hopelessness that sometimes settle over her. 

They had a small celebration for Imari's birthday, taking her to pick out a Barbie and enjoying a small ice cream cake. But it wasn't the same as when they celebrate at home. 

"You go through so many emotions at one time," Smith said. "You're mad, you're sad and you're angry; and you're happy and grateful, grateful that your kids are here and everybody made it out safe. 

"And you're mad because now you have nowhere to go, and you're angry that you can't do the things you're used to doing for your kids."

But, even though their kids are crammed into two hotel rooms, Kevin Smith can't work and they yet haven't been able to find a house, the Smith's are trying to keep going. 

"Got to keep pushing," Kevin Smith said. 

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