Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal Greg Click, executive director of Sierra Place Retirement & Assisted Living Community, listens as Hope McComas talks Friday about the assistance she's received following the Angora fire. McComas is on dialysis and was in Reno when the fire broke out and couldn't get home. Click offered her a place to stay, free of charge, where they could get her to and from her dialysis treatments.
The Angora fire couldn't have come at a worse time for one Lake Tahoe woman who found respite at a Carson City assisted living facility.
Hope McComas, 60, of Meyers, said she and her daughter Melissa Liggett came into Carson City from their Cree Street home so McComas could undergo dialysis. The plan was that Melissa would pick her mother up in Reno on Sunday, but by Sunday afternoon, 2,500 acres were burning and more than 200 homes were gone.
While Melissa's husband, Matthew, drove back to Tahoe, Melissa found her mother a room at Sierra Place Assisted Living.
Not only did Greg Click, executive director, give McComas a place to stay, he also arranged for transportation to McComas' thrice-weekly dialysis sessions, made sure she had toiletries and her meals are free.
"This is like a three-star hotel," McComas said Friday from her free, spacious room on the third floor of the College Parkway complex. "I needed not only a place to stay, but help to get to dialysis, so Melissa found this place here in Carson that would help seniors. And really, It's a miracle to find not only a place in Carson, but a place that would take care of me."
Click said when he heard about the fire, he knew seniors would be affected.
"I thought it would be a nice thing to do to offer our space and I had empty apartments," he said.
McComas said she isn't the only Tahoe evacuee staying at Sierra Place, a husband and wife have also taken up residence there.
"Isn't it wonderful," she said. "It's so sad to think that my family might lose their home, but there are so many people to help that we'll get through this. You have empathy for people when you watch something like this on television, but when it's happening to you, your whole world is turned upside down."
"We were thrilled we are able to help her," Click said.