‘Everything was destroyed’: Family loses home after flooding prevents fire trucks from getting to scene of lightning strike

BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C. (WECT/Gray News) - The Sherwood family says they could hear fire truck sirens all around them as they watched their home burn to the ground.

In the end, none of the trucks could reach them.

“We found out afterward that there are three different accesses to our house, three different roads, and all three were washed out,” Doug Sherwood described.

Doug Sherwood said lightning struck his house in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, around noon on Sept. 16 during the middle of a storm caused by a potential tropical cyclone.

“I could smell smoke,” Doug Sherwood said. “So, I opened up the back door and you could just see smoke already billowing in the back about head high. We knew that the house was on fire.”

He and his wife, Debbie, and their three dogs evacuated and called for help. However, the fire crews had a difficult time reaching them.

“We were already out responding to multiple other calls,” Captain Bill Lathrop, of Boiling Spring Lakes Fire Rescue, said. “There were so many flooded roadways and they were basically starting already to become undermined and impassable at that time, especially with a vehicle fire engine. Everything was stacked against us and worked against us to prevent us from actually getting there and putting water on the fire.”

Firefighters eventually abandoned their trucks and walked with hoses to the home, but it was too late.

“By the time we actually got resources on scene, there really wasn’t anything for us to do,” Lathrop added. “There was not much of the house actually left.”

The Sherwood family has spent the past few days trying to sift through what’s left behind. So far, they’ve only found a few pieces of jewelry that are salvageable.

“Everything was destroyed,” Doug said. “What’s most important is all lives were spared and I thank the Lord for that.”

Debbie Sherwood agreed that everything that was lost can one day be replaced, but the lives of her, her husband and her pets are irreplaceable.

“At the end of the day, it’s all stuff,” Debbie Sherwood said. “And we believe that we can’t take any of it with us when we go to Heaven. We like to joke that you’ve never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse.”

For now, the Sherwoods and their dogs are staying with their daughter, who lives just two miles away from their former home. They are soaking up time with her, her husband and their new 4-week-old grandson. They say it’s precious time they never would have gotten otherwise and “a bright spot in all of this.”

Looking to the future, though, they are trying to learn more about long-term rentals. They also hope to rebuild on the land where their former house stood. Debbie said the community has already shown them a lot of support in trying to achieve these goals.

“What moves us the most is just the response we’ve gotten from, literally, people all over the country that we’ve known and some people we don’t know and some internationally, too, who have heard about it,” Debbie Sherwood said. “We just see the outpouring of love and support. We can’t even find words. It’s so amazing and we feel so supported and so loved by the community.”

Once they get back on their feet, Doug and Debbie Sherwood say they also want to find a way to help others in similar situations.

Bald Head Coffee will be a donation spot for the family for the time being.

Copyright 2024 WECT via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.