HOUSTON — Items accumulated over many years sat charred and covered with soot Monday along Heaney Drive. They were destroyed in a matter of seconds early Saturday morning by an intense fire.
"So hot you could feel it over here in the street -- up to the door of my house," neighbor David Santos said. "So, there was nothing anybody could do.”
Santos said he and his family helped two siblings who banged on their front door in a panic.
“All we could do was just stand and watch,” Santos said.
Officials said they think 31-year-old mother Giovanna Cabrera was able to help her 9- and 6-year-old kids escape the burning home. But sadly, she died alongside her 1-year-old son, Gabriel Pena, after running back inside to try to save him.
Both are now at the center of a memorial in the front yard.
"She grabbed him," sister Giselle Bueno said. "She died with him in her arms.”
Cabrera was Bueno’s only sister. She was among those back on the scene to salvage anything they could.
"I just think about my sister," Bueno said. "I just think what went through her head, how scared she was and that she was by herself."
More than $20,000 has been raised -- so far -- to help the family, including the kids' grandparents with whom everyone lived. In fact, they considered taking the children this weekend to Mexico before Cabrera decided to stay behind with them. The grandparents plan to rebuild the home.
"And everyone is calling her a hero," Bueno said. "I know that she’s just looking at us and she’s happy and proud, even though she didn’t make it, that everyone is trying to help.”
That's something people will no doubt continue to do.
"Nobody should ever have to go through that,” Santos said.
Houston Fire Department investigators said the deadly fire is still under investigation although the family suspects it may have been electrical in nature.
HFD plans to return to the neighborhood on Tuesday to speak with folks about the importance of smoke detectors and having an escape route.