Navy Wife Just Grateful Her Family is Safe

By Amy Lester, NEWS 9

MIDWEST CITY, Oklahoma -- Neighborhoods were hit hard throughout Midwest City by the fires. The strange thing is you have one house burnt the ground, and the houses next door suffered only a small amount of damage. Hard to make sense of why, especially for those who lost everything.

One of those families who lost everything in Thursday's wild fires is the Waxenfelters. They've lived in their Midwest City home for about a year.

Valerie's dealing with the loss without her husband. He's in the Navy and deployed to Iraq. Thankfully, the Navy's coordinating to bring him home to Oklahoma by the weekend, a relief for Valerie who says this is especially tough without her husband here.

"He was shocked and upset but what can you do? There's nothing he can do, nothing I can do you know? You just have to take it day by day and see what happens," Valerie Waxenfelter said.

The family is happy for one thing, a firefighter and neighbor pulled the old ford truck out of the garage and saved it from the fire.

"My son's thrilled they got this old truck out. He loves that old thing, been in the family long time," Jack Waxenfelter said.

The Waxenfelter's neighbors can't believe their home was spared.

"It's hard to even understand how it could burn up to your brick and not your house and burn your neighbor's down, it's just hard to comprehend," Kristin Lovinggood said.

Both families are just grateful their families are safe and the Waxenfelt's are thankful they had insurance to cover their lost home.

Another family in Midwest City is just grateful for the small things they find that they can put back together. Like the family's nativity set, they dug out just about every piece. That will serve as a reminder of the blaze for the rest of their lives.

"I'm going to keep the nativity set a little bit charred but mostly in tact, it'll be a reminder of what's important in life, set your priorities, this is an inconvenience but we're gonna be okay," said Patti Tanksley.