TILLMANS CORNER, Ala. (WKRG)- Theodore Dawes Fire Rescue responded to a fire at the Delta Self Storage, Sunday morning.
Officials say that at least 26 storage units were destroyed by the flames and others were damaged by smoke and water.
Melissa Toomey told WKRG that she has been keeping her belongings in two storage units for the past three years since she moved in with her family. Now, everything she owned is destroyed.
“It’s all in flames,” Toomey said.
She says she was planning to keep the items in the unit until she was ready to start her new life. Collecting mugs from her mission trips across the world. As well as childhood items like Christmas ornaments and furniture.
She says she was planning to open a coffee shop and would use the mugs she had gathered in her new business.
“It’s not going to happen now, so it’s really hard, I know it’s just stuff, but it means a lot but it’s the best I can do to put it in storage until I had somewhere else to take it and have room for it to be and a place to call it home.”
Jimmy Barrett says it’s normally a quiet neighborhood.
“I heard sirens, that’s all I heard, a bunch of them. I didn’t know what was going on until I rolled over here to look and see what was going on,” Barrett said.
But this isn’t the first time the storage unit has seen flames.
In 2006, Mobile Fire-Rescue responded to a fire at the storage unit.
According to the MFRD website the fire in 2006 was caused by a meth lab. One person was trapped inside of the storage unit and died.
Melissa Toomey’s mother, Charlotte, also had belongings in a storage unit.
“When I saw the fire trucks at that end down there. I knew that was my storage unit at the very end,” Charlotte Toomey said.
She says that she doesn’t remember exactly what was in the unit, but she does know that her rocking chair was in there.
“I had bought when I was pregnant with her, used it for all four of my children and three of my grandbabies,” Charlotte Toomey said.
Melissa says although they are just material things, there was a lifetime of memories attached to them.
“When you lose something that you were hoping to build a life on one day it just really makes it hard,” Toomey said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
