Mom in Tears After She Has to Tell Her Sons, 5 and 10, Their 'School Burned Down' amid L.A. Fires (Exclusive)

When Eileen Haniuk and her family learned about the high winds and fire in Eaton Canyon on the night of Jan. 7, they quickly packed three changes of clothes and important documents. As a precaution, they drove to Haniuk's parents' house in Orange County.

At first, the 41-year-old mother, who lives with her husband and their two young boys, ages 5 and 10, thought they were overreacting. "We were in a pretty urban area of Pasadena, in Altadena, not even close to the hills," she tells PEOPLE exclusively. "But then, our community was placed in a mandatory evacuation zone, which felt almost unheard of."

The next morning, after safely arriving in Orange County, Haniuk and her family watched on the news as the fire barreled toward their neighborhood. The mom of two anxiously kept watching, wondering if her house would be among those destroyed. Thankfully, as of now, their house is still standing.

"We don’t know if there’s any damage or not," she says, adding that they’re able to monitor the house remotely via security cameras. "We’re going to try to go back today and see if we can grab some photos. We didn’t grab sentimental things because we thought we’d be back the next day."

Related: UCLA Student Posts Video of Flames from Palisades Fire Visible from Her Dorm Room as She's 'Trying to Stay Calm' (Exclusive)

However, Haniuk says that while her house is still standing for now, so much has been lost in her community. Their local grocery store is gone, her favorite coffee shop, Cafe De Leche, is gone, friends' homes are gone, and her son’s school, Aveson School of Leaders Elementary, is gone too.

In the midst of everything, Haniuk turned to TikTok to share updates on the situation, including how she's handling talking to her kids about what’s happening. Her video has garnered more than 165,000 views and 300 comments from parents and educators offering advice.

"I am living a literal nightmare right now," she says through tears in one clip, set against video of fires ranging in her neighborhood. "I am trying to find a way to tell my little boy that his school burned down. The community was so amazing, and it's just gone, and I don't know how to tell him."

"As a 40-year-old ECE (Early Childhood Education) teacher, I daily take the advice & wise words of Mr. Rogers, who said when he was little and something scary was happening, his mom told him to look for the helpers. Find the good. ❤️" one person commented.

"I’m so sorry for your family. You don’t have to tell your little guy anything about his school right now while you’re so emotional. Take the time to process it yourself 💔 Sending love," someone else wrote.

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"I’m still trying to process everything myself," Haniuk admits. "Once I fully understand what happened, I’ll probably look into ways to explain it to my kids. But when we were leaving, my kids were really scared. I told them, 'It’s okay. We’re safe, and that’s all that matters.' "

She continues, "As a parent, the hardest part is having to be strong in situations where you just want to fall apart. I try to stay strong, but it’s okay if you need to fall apart. And as long as we have our family, that’s what matters. So many of our friends have lost their homes. They’ve lost everything. It's hard to offer advice in situations like this."

Before the fire, Haniuk says her family had already been struggling financially. She and her husband both work in the entertainment industry and had been affected by recent layoffs. While Haniuk recently found work, her husband is still unemployed.

"I’ve heard people on the news lacking empathy, assuming we’re wealthy because we live in Pasadena," she says. "But we’re just a working-class family. Well before this, we were already struggling to survive. Now with this, I don't know how we’ll manage."

"I never would have thought we’d be at risk for something like this," she adds. "This fire is catastrophic. A lot of people might think, 'Oh, you live by the Hills, you’re asking for this. You knew the risk.' But we live relatively far from the foothills — about three-and-a-half miles away. We don’t even live against the foothills. The fire came so quickly into the urban areas and just decimated them."

She adds, "The whole community is shaken, but everyone is tight knit, and I think we'll get through all of this together and rebuild."

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

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