Survivor returns to find home in flames after flooding
By Claire Metz
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EDGEWATER, Florida (WESH) — The city of Edgewater in Volusia County had massive flooding on streets and plenty of power outages.
For one resident, that was bad enough, but then her home caught fire.
“In the big scheme of things, we’re lucky, but we’re not lucky. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s awful,” Lauren Brazee said.
Brazee has good reason to be overwhelmed. She, her husband and two children evacuated their Edgewater home while they could as the storm flooded streets, eventually making it into the house and swamping at least half of it. When she returned to check on things, the second disaster struck.
“As soon as I opened the door, the smoke hit me in the face and I couldn’t understand why,” Brazee said. “We didn’t have power, so what’s on fire?”
Her family home was on fire. Flames shot through windows and doors. As it turned out, just 15 minutes before Brazee came back, the power came on.
“The power turned on. That, mixed with the water damage and everything else, it just made the perfect storm in my home,” she said.
What water didn’t ruin smoke and flames did — 99% of their belongings were ruined, including collectibles that belong to her daughter who has autism which Brazee says will be hard to explain. Also precious items like Brazee’s wedding rings.
“The things that are inside are gone and irreplaceable,” she said.
Brazee is a blogger with a large following. She’s already gotten significant support — some of it financial — from some of those followers. And she’s got friends and family close by helping ease the way through this double whammy of flood and fire.
Brazee says she and her family were prepared to dry out the house and live through repairs, but she says there’s no coming back from this total destruction. The future will be a challenge but Brazee stands on the side of hope.
“I really believe that we’re going to be OK,” she said. “We’ll be OK.”
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