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"Mom, Mom," he screamed, "I see smoke!"
His mother, Dahlia Campbell, 32, jumped up to look out the window, as did a neighbor, Cynthia Green, 39, in the apartment above her. Green said that she could smell it.
At 11:11 a.m., both women dialed 9-1-1 to report the fire. Campbell grabbed her coat, purse and daughter, Jenelle Wilson, 5. Downstairs, Green slipped on her boots while she scooped up her 3-year-old son, Jamel.
As the moms and preschoolers headed out the door, they screamed "fire!" to rouse their neighbors.
Javoun saved their lives, said his mother, a private duty nurse. "I'm just grateful no life was lost."
Miraculously, 113 residents escaped without injury from the seven-alarm, seven-hour fire, which raged through the four-story, four-building Grange Manor Apartments, on Grange Avenue near Broad Street, collapsing parts of the buildings.
A firefighter suffered a minor injury when he fell, according to fire officials.
"I lost everything," said Andrea Jackson, 55, who had just moved in last July. Her six children had grown and moved on, and the private-duty nurse had moved on to a new stage in her life. She bought new furniture and planned to buy new drapes today
"When friends ask, 'Do you need anything?' I don't know what to say," Jackson added. "I need everything."
Due to extraordinary cooperation between a church, two city agencies, the landlord and the Red Cross, 70 of the 113 people in 47 units had been relocated by today in other apartments. They were equipped with emergency funds for clothing, food and medical supplies and advised where to find furniture.
On Saturday, Green worried that she couldn't reach her car to pick up her son, who was studying for the statewide school exams, but got someone to pick him up. When she returned to the apartment building, the Red Cross was there handing out cocoa and had a van filled with coats. A nearby McDonald's opened its doors to those temporarily displaced.
The Red Cross set up a shelter at Philippian Baptist Church, on the east side of Broad Street and Grange, where many residents stayed overnight on Saturday.
"They were just fantastic," said Tom Foley, CEO of Red Cross' Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter. "The soup was warm before we got to the [church] basement
Then came workers from the city Office of Emergency Management and Department of Licenses and Inspections, and an official from Philly Gardens Realty Corp., which manages Grange Manor and 13 other apartment buildings in the city.
Yesterday, Red Cross was continuing to hand out emergency funds for clothes and food. And "John," whose last name was unknown, from Philly Gardens, interviewed tenants to relocate them in their 13 other buildings.
Overnight, L&I inspectors visited the apartments to make sure there were no code violations, and OEM was keeping everything moving.
Meantime, an appeal over the radio, TV and Internet for clothes, food, toys and household goods prompted area residents to drop off donations.
By yesterday, the church had filled two rooms nearly to the ceiling, and a mountain of hundreds of bags of clothes grew outside the church. It could not take any more donations.
Last night, OEM and other volunteers were waiting for trucks to take the donations to a place where they could be sorted and made available for the tenants.
Any tenants who did not receive disaster relief services should call the Red Cross at 215-299-4889 for disaster relief services, said Janice Winston, Red Cross spokeswoman, last night.
"Thank goodness for the Red Cross and everybody," said Green. "People just kept coming and giving and giving. Everyone kept bringing stuff for the babies, and soap and mouthwash and food. I'm just grateful for that." *
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