LAKELAND, Fla. — Several Polk County residents are displaced after an early-morning fire Friday.

What You Need To Know

  • FEMA disaster survivors were displaced by an early-morning fire at Imperial Swan Hotel and Suites on Friday 

  • The Lakeland Fire Department says the fire started on the second floor of the hotel

  • Displaced residents can search here for participating FEMA Transitional Sheltering Assistance hotels

The Lakeland Fire Department says it happened at about 5:40 a.m. at the Imperial Swan Hotel and Suites, which was providing temporary shelter to disaster survivors through FEMA Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA).

Resident Mariah Brooks stood outside the hotel with what was left of her belongings. She says she and her children were asleep Friday when they were startled by fire alarms.

“I was completely unprepared,” she said. “No time to grab bottles, no time to grab formula, no time to grab a diaper bag.”

Brooks says she initially thought the fire was a hoax after experiencing false alarms since October. She says the incident didn’t feel real until she saw water shoot from a second-floor window.

“And then we couldn’t go back up. There was no going back up. Once it happened, it happened,” she said.

It is forcing her to relive a nightmare similar to the day her home was flooded during Hurricane Milton.

“When you gain a loss, you expect to gain improvement from it. You expect there to be a silver lining,” she said. “Coming here, I thought it would be a safety net, a house, and a roof over my kids’ heads, which has turned into the most disastrous situation you can imagine.”

While the blaze was contained to one hotel room on the second floor, Stephanie Lewis with the Lakeland Fire Department says firefighters shut off the building’s water main after its sprinkler system was activated. She says people can no longer stay inside until the owner repairs the system and addresses several pending fire code violations.

“Standard procedure — we do have places with fire code violations, and we work with them. It’s not an immediate shutdown,” she said. “If it’s something that we think is a life safety concern, obviously that’s when it gets shut down, and currently, that’s the state of this particular facility.”

In the meantime, Lewis says survivors were able to grab as many of their belongings as they could. They can also search here for TSA-participating hotels or contact a TSA agent at 1-800-621-3362 for assistance.

However, it is ultimately left to each family to secure accommodations, which Brooks says is unfortunate.

“It’s very defeating. I feel like I don’t know where to turn or where I’m going to go but pray to God that he’ll get me there,” she says.

State fire marshals are currently investigating the cause of the fire. Officials say there were no casualties except for a dog that was in the hotel room at the time of the fire.