‘Everything is gone’: Hilton Head family of 7 displaced by mobile home fire. What now?
In the past eight days, Saivian Kelly’s family has lived in five different hotels.
The 30-year-old Hilton Head Island resident gets a few hours of sleep each night. In the morning, she packs up what’s left of her family’s belongings and checks out.
Then, the search begins for another place to stay that night.
Kelly works at Rack Room Shoes in Bluffton. While she’s there, she thinks about where she, her boyfriend and their five children will sleep that night. Her boyfriend, Jerod Robinson, who works as a dishwasher at Old Oyster Factory on the island, worries about what their family will do the next day, after they’ve packed up again.
Every waking moment is spent thinking about how they’ll make it through the next day.
The Kelly/Robinson family lost everything.
On March 13, a fire that started in their mobile home completely destroyed the structure.
The three who were home at the time survived. No injuries, fortunately. But none of their belongings made it out of the burning home.
The kids “know we don’t have a place to go tonight,” Kelly told The Island Packet. “They keep saying they want to go home, but we don’t have a home to go back to.”
When news of a fire spreads, the focus is on the injuries, the damage and the response of emergency services. Passersby rarely think about what comes next: Endless questions, memories wiped away and the constant, unsettling stress of where to go next.
Kelly and her family are living in that space. And it’s marked by an immense sense of loss.
The fire
On March 13, Robinson was working outside with Kelly’s oldest son, 9-year-old Kemark, when 3-year-old Kameron burst out the back door of the mobile home on Hilton Head’s Allen Road.
Behind him was billowing smoke and, somewhere not too far away, flames.
The three rushed to safety, called 911 and then called Kelly, who was working. Their other three children were at friends’ houses that day.
Minutes later, Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue was dousing the mobile home with water as the boys and their father watched. They worked for about three hours to put out the flames, according to the incident report from fire rescue.
What was left was a shell of the family’s life. The fire destroyed the $22,000 mobile home and $11,000 worth of property inside, the report shows.
The family salvaged only their bicycles, which were kept outside.
Photos from the kids’ preschool graduations were charred, along with all their clothes and shoes.
The cause of the fire is still undetermined, although the report shows that it likely began in a cabinet above the washer. Inside, a drill and battery were charging when the fire began.
The family had just traded weekly trips to the laundromat for their new washer and dryer. Kelly and Robinson were proud that they’d saved for six months to pay for the $642 set.
Along with the washer and dryer, the family also lost all the toys Kelly and Robinson had bought their kids for Christmas.
They’d spent so many hours at work, earning money to pay for a sit-in electric car, fanny packs and the newest dolls.
“Everything is gone,” Kelly said. “I think I’m still in shock. I feel really lost, just with the idea of my kids not having anything.”
Nowhere to turn
The family stayed at the Extended Stay hotel in Bluffton over the weekend.
Their shuffle from hotel to hotel is long term; they must wait for their home to be scrapped and replaced.
Robinson owned the mobile home, but the family had no insurance. That means they have no financial help demolishing their home or rebuilding it.
Calls to insurance agencies on Hilton Head revealed that mobile home policies are difficult to write because of all the risks involved. Few agents could provide details on the policies, but at least one website estimates costs between $140 and $200 per month based on the amount of coverage needed.
The home was on heirs’ property owned by Robinson’s family. Heirs’ property is historic land passed down through families without a will. Because there’s no clear title to heirs’ property, it’s difficult to get a mortgage or FEMA assistance for structures on the land.
Hilton Head’s community has stepped up to help the family, which is still unsure of the future.
The Red Cross provided $800 to pay for a hotel and essentials. Hilton Head Creative Arts, where Kelly’s eldest children go to school, helped them with new uniforms and donated toiletries. Deep Well gave them a list of apartments in the area for the future.
Those resources have helped bridge the gap in the 10 days since the fire, but the immense sense of loss — possessions, memories and their ability to feel safe — persists.
Kelly and Robinson have committed to stay strong for their children as they start to rebuild their lives.
But as any parent knows, it’s impossible to keep up a facade forever.
On a recent night at a hotel in Bluffton, Kelly put the kids to bed and went quietly out to her car in the parking lot.
There, she let herself sob for the first time. Alone, she wept for two hours as the situation’s gravity set in.
“I always haves these moments, but I try to power through it and not let the kids see me,” she said. “I don’t like them to see me stressed. I don’t want to put that burden on them.”
Kelly’s family member shared a fundraising effort with The Island Packet on Tuesday. The link is here.
This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
