CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Joey Wells lost his home and his business in one night.
Wells, who operated a small one-story secondhand shop called J&R Furniture, on Hardwick St. in South Cleveland, said he was adding gas to the generator underneath his business Wednesday evening when the machine caught on fire, ignited the floor, and hurled the store into flames.
“It’s chained up on a pipe in there to keep people from stealing it,” he said. “I couldn’t get it out from under the building. I yanked it, pulled it, and I remembered that I had it chained. By then all I could do was get out.”
Wells, who ran the business for 11 years, said he lost everything.
“This is the only way I made my living,” he said. “I have no mother, no father, no relatives. This is it, man. This is all I’ve got.”