SHELTON, WA (KING) — Tricellea Washington’s family is spread across three rooms in a Shelton, Washington motel. The family is large and includes 11 of her 12 children.

The motel is a temporary shelter after a fire damaged their mobile home last Thursday, but it also represents another chapter in a sad and dramatic story that has dragged on ever since the family survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“We were stable,” said Washington of her life in New Orleans before the storm, “We owned our home. Life was really good.

“I lost everything. We lost everything to Katrina.”

Since the storm, Washington said everything has gone “downhill.” The family was relocated to Colorado. A few years ago, she took the children from there to avoid an abusive situation.

They ended up in Washington state, moving between a series of shelters before ending up in Shelton in September. Washington and her children thought this would be a permanent home, the first in three years.

Then smoke and fire started filling the kitchen.

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