Family left with nothing after fire
By Shelby Myers
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MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — The word “home” hangs on the walls of the Scotts’ Chunchula residence, but it doesn’t feel that way tonight.
“I came home, and my house was not the way I left it,” said Whitney Scott, whose home was damaged by fire. “It’s been an emotional rollercoaster. You have your minutes where you’re like, ‘I’m a blessed individual,’ and then you walk through your home, and you don’t feel so blessed.”
Scott and her two children are staying in a hotel room tonight. Their home for the past 12 years burned from the inside yesterday afternoon.
Scott said she went to pick up her son from school around 2 p.m. and 20 minutes was all it took to do all of this:
“The master bedroom is burnt to a crisp and everything else, the plastic that was burning, the smoot that you see is the plastic smoot, so what didn’t burn in the home was destroyed by the smoke and smoot. You can’t put a Band-aid on it. You gut that out,” Scott said.
Fortunately, nobody was home at the time.
Scott’s husband, all the way in Saudi Arabia working offshore, is now trying to get back.
She says her 1-year-old and their family dog were with her when they went to pick up her son from school.
“The loss of material things is devastating but the loss of life is irreplaceable, so we’ll get through it,” she said.
Ken Waites, a Georgetown volunteer firefighter who also happens to be the Satsuma fire chief, told me the fire likely started by a tower oscillating fan that plugs into the wall. The Georgetown Volunteer Fire Department was able to keep the blaze contained to the master bedroom and hallway, but Scott said everything else is contaminated by smoke.
Scott told me she thought she smelled a burning smell beforehand but couldn’t find the source and shrugged it off. Now she’s warning others to pay attention!
“If somebody has one of those fans or anything with a motor, make sure you’re looking for it,” she said. “Watch out for those weird smells because it happens, and it happens quick to the person you don’t think it will happen to.”
The good news here: the Scotts do have insurance and their home isn’t a complete loss, but it will have to be gutted and rebuilt which could take a year or longer.
If you would like to donate to the family, you can donate on Cash app: $whitneyscott100 or Venmo: @whitneyscott88
The family needs clothing sizes: girls: 2t/3t, boys: 7/8, women’s medium shirt, small/ medium pants and men’s XXL top, XXL comfort clothes and size 42 pants.
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