MULKILTEO, Wash. -- Salvage crews on Tuesday removed a lifetime of hard work and memories from what is left of Kevin and Teresa Kornegay's Mukilteo home. It was a lifetime reduced to a few plastic trash bags.
"Your good days are bad and your bad days are really bad," said Kevin, standing in his driveway.
If you can believe it, the Kornegays are the lucky ones.
Their next door neighbors, Steve and Noelle Nelson, lost absolutely everything they own when a battery apparently exploded in their garage last week, setting off the fast moving fire that destroyed the two homes. The magnitude of the losses became painfully evident in the aftermath of the burns Steve suffered trying to save his home.
"We went to pick up a prescription for pain pills and we couldn't get them because we didn't have picture ID," said Noelle. "We don't have anything at all."
Both families could only stand and watch on August 5, as the flames destroyed all they've worked for their entire lives.
Within hours, a small army of volunteers moved into action. Deliveries of clothes, toiletries and food started almost immediately.
"I was getting in the ambulance barefoot and a co-worker from Boeing saw me and gave me some shoes," said Noelle. "I told her that I had shoes back at home, and then I realized it was all gone. It meant so much."
"It just seems that every car that comes by is Santa's sleigh," added Kevin.
It's a spirit of giving that neighbors say permeates the Mukilteo community -- a place where you don't have to ask for help, it just comes. But when someone does ask, like 12-year-old Aungelina Aarskog, who went door-to-door on her paper route collecting contributions, it comes even faster.
"Love thy neighbor," said her mother Cyrena, as she made sandwiches to drop off for lunch.
To Cyrena and all of those involved, it's a reminder that while houses make up our neighborhoods, people make them home.
"I just think sometimes we get so wrapped up in our lives that we forget each other," she said, wiping away a tear. "And it's times like these we need each other the most."
The efforts are all deeply appreciated by the families, as their losses are just starting to sink in.
The Nelsons have been leaving out a bowl of water for their dog Odie, hoping he made it out of the fire and is trying to find his way home.
It will be a long journey home for the families, but one they will not have to make alone.
"The goodness of people comes out," said Noelle Nelson. "We're so aware and thankful of that. It's amazing."
Several Go Fund Me accounts have been set up for the families:
Meal donations are available as well at the following link:
