Flash flooding, fire leaves disaster for Daphne family
DAPHNE, Ala. (WKRG) — Two disasters strike a home in Daphne's Lake Forest neighborhood, due to flash flooding Sunday, the water damage caused a fire late Monday.
'It sucks when it rains,' said homeowner, Matthew Morris. 'It comes up and it happened so fast.'
Nearly 2.5 feet of water filled the living room of the home and the rest of the downstairs.
'We get up what we can and start with the most valuable things and move them upstairs,' said Morris regarding cleaning up the mess.
Morris told WKRG News 5 he and his family spent all day Monday cleaning up the damage only to wake up to another problem.
'My sister-in-law heard a loud noise,' said Morris. 'Woke my brother up, and he came and woke me up.'
'He said, 'there's a fire!' We looked out of his bedroom window and saw a fire,' he continued.
After noticing the flames from outside the window, the family ran outside. They saw their new ATV was on fire.
A boxed up lithium battery placed inside the ATV, may be to blame.
Due to recent flooding throughout the Gulf Coast, Daphne Fire Department released a statement:
'Lithium-ion batteries are known to pose great fire risk when exposed to water. Please use caution when using, charging and storing these batteries especially if they have been exposed to water.'
– Daphne Fire Department, Facebook
Despite the tragedies over the last couple of days, Morris and his family are keeping a positive attitude.
'Now we're focused on cleaning it up, get everything that's damaged out,' said Morris. 'Get it going, save what we can.'
The family has created a GoFundMe for donations to help with the damage.
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