DUBLIN, Ga. — When Helene went right over Dublin on Friday, it cut power for thousands around town, including one family that was using a candle to light their home.
Claudia Guyton said her family was recovering from the hurricane damage to their property on Deerwood Trail, and they thought they were safe using candles to light their house until power was restored.
"We had to use candles," Guyton said. "We blew all the candles out, and went to bed."
Guyton has five grandkids, and great-grandkids - and one of them forgot to blow out the last candle before he fell asleep. Around 5:00 a.m. they woke up to smoke covering everything around them.
Firefighters put out the flames, but Guyton said nothing is salvageable.
"Everything was wet and burned up," Guyton said. "It's just - it's so wet you couldn't save it and it's just smoked up and all, everything ruined."
Right now, she's trying to hold it together for the kids, who still can't understand how they lost everything overnight.
"They devastated," Guyton said. "They are really devastated. They don't wanna even look at this house again."
Dublin Fire Chief Mathew Cutler said unfortunately, fires after natural disasters aren't unusual.
"We had outdoor fires where power lines were falling down and catching the woods and grass on fire," Cutler said.
He said the biggest hurricane hazard in Dublin's been trees falling on power lines.
"I was looking over from the time the storm began until about Friday at midnight, we responded to almost 80 incidents of all sorts of different things," Cutler said.
Another danger during natural disasters is improperly using a generator, which Cutler said they have seen deaths from in recent years - and they almost saw another death after Helene.
"We did have an incident in Dublin where they had the generator positioned too closely to the house," Cutler said. "And the carbon monoxide that's generated by the exhaust actually filled the home and we almost had a serious situation."
He asks that people respect the barriers set up by first responders throughout town, because he said going around them is putting everybody at risk.
Because Guyton and her five grandchildren and great-grandchildren are starting over from scratch, her family's made a GoFundMe page at this link.
If you would like to make a donation, her sister Renee Rozier is accepting donations at her job at the Georgia VECTR Center (Veterans Education Career Transition Resource) Center in building 2 at the C.D.L. building. That address is: 1001 South Armed Forces Blvd. Warner Robins, GA. 31088
She shared everybody's sizes for clothing below.
