By Don Richeson / Crossroads Chronicle
GLENVILLE -- A southern Jackson County couple in their 80s are unsure where they’ll live after an Oct. 26 fire destroyed their hilltop home at 357 Friendship Lane, which is off Salt Rock Road. They also lost most of their possessions and their dog, Suzie, but their two cats, George and Gracie, made it out OK. “Suzie slept under the bed with us. I thought she’d follow us out, but she didn’t make it,” Joseph Scott, 85, said last week as he and his wife, Ann Scott, 84, sorted through burned keepsakes at the site. Men working for a neighbor stopped by to help out the couple Friday. They sifted through charred debris looking for items that might be salvageable and brought them out for the Scotts to look at.
Joseph Scott said he and Ann have been married 62 years and had lived in the Glenville-area home 26 years. “You can imagine what we accumulated all those years,” the retired Marines and Navy serviceman said about the couple’s items, most of which were lost in the fire. “But God saved us and we can’t take it with us anyway I guess.”
He said moving to southern Jackson County was “the best thing Ann and I ever did.” Ann Scott is a retired registered nurse who had worked at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. “We had a home in Stone Mountain (Ga.), but it got too crowded and we had to move.”
The couple, helped in part by the American Red Cross and others, were temporarily staying in a Sylva motel following the fire. “I don’t know where we’re going to go,” Joseph Scott said. “We have family in Gainesville (Ga.) and may have to move there.”
The origin of the fire was “likely electrical in nature,” Cashiers-Glenville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Randy Dillard said last week. “The power was out and a generator was running there. (Joseph Scott) smelled smoke and saw an electrical panel box fully involved,” Chief Dillard said. Even though it was pouring down rain at the time, the home was engulfed throughout with flames when firefighters arrived to the 9:54 p.m. call, after having to travel up a steep, muddy, narrow lane to fight the fire.
Joseph Scott said he and his wife were awakened by a smoke alarm going off and he and his wife fled the smoke-filled home. He said he went to a neighbor’s house and called 911. The home was valued at $160,310 according to Jackson County tax records.
Scott said he appreciated all the help he and his wife have received. “Give (Fire Chief Randy Dillard) and those guys credit,” He said. “The neighbors have all just been great and many people have called to see how we are doing.”
Fire destroys second home
Fire also destroyed a second southern Jackson County home in an Oct. 28 blaze. That home, at 115 Hive Drive off Bee Tree Road, was a trailer converted to a home and was unoccupied at the time of the fire, which was reported by a neighbor’s 911 call at 5:44 p.m.
According to county tax records, the home was valued at $8,500 and was owned by Gary Williams.
Although a firefighter lives across road from the home and firefighters arrived in two minutes, a live, 72,000-volt downed powerline kept firefighters in their truck until a Duke Energy crew could arrive to de-energize the line, Chief Dillard reported.
“Some of our firefighters got jolted and could feel tingling while still in the truck, which itself became energized,” Chief Dillard said. However, no one was seriously injured, he added. Electrical issues appear to have caused that fire also, he said.