Tuesday’s fire that blazed through an apartment complex in Woodbridge Township left residents with nothing but the clothes on their back but many of those residents are immigrants who lost far more than their belongings . Now, they’re without vital immigration documentation .
Over a dozen residents this morning gathered in front of their apartments to take in the wreckage caused from Tuesday’s massive fire which destroyed more than 50 units and left over hundred people homeless.
“You can see the kind of damage happened. It did not look like a fire accident, it looked like some bomb went up or something like that,” said Chandra Jatamoni, a resident who surveyed the damage.
If the sight of their apartments and belongings in shambles wasn’t bad enough, affected residents must now deal with replacing important documents that were destroyed or made irretrievable because no one is allowed into the building.
“I can clearly see my things in my apartment which have not been damaged. I see my documents over there,” said Jatamoni, who, like many of the fire victims , is in the U.S. on a work visa .
WATCH VIDEO:
Finding a new home isn’t his first priority . It’s getting the important immigration documentation. Woodbridge Township Mayor John McCormac said he called Sen. Bob Menedez’s office right away to ensure the tenants were getting the help they needed.
“Yesterday at 3 p.m., the Office of Immigration and Naturalization Services came in from Newark and met with about 40 or 50 residents,” said the mayor. “There’s different people with different issues, some have work visas, most lost passports, drivers licenses, all forms of ID. And they promise to work with the residents and put them at the top of the list to get their paperwork done as quickly as possible to get those documents replaced.”
The mayor’s office plans to contact every tenant to ensure each has met with immigration services. The Colonia Garden Apartment management company says they’ll meet with residents every morning .
Still, the assistance is not enough for another resident displaced by the fire, Srinivas Sudari. “We are seeking 100 percent help from management and government officials. Please help us,” he implored.
Today, tenants wondered, if and when, they’ll ever retrieve their belongings.
To that end, Mayor McCormac said “we are going to have the guys who operate the machinery pick sections and put it on the sidewalk and let people sift through it, if possible, if that can be done safely.”
McCormac expects the investigation will take some time, due to the severity of the fire along with the potential lack of evidence because firefighters had to knock down the apartment walls to fight the blaze.
Lauren Wanko files this report from Woodbridge Township.