Fire levels home in Waterford


Thursday, April 26, 2012
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Fire levels home in Waterford

By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer

Photo by Sue Watson

The family cat turns toward the camera as the house smolders in the background.

Six members of a family in Waterford and their cat are safe after an early morning fire Wednesday, April 18, wiped out their home.

Kenneth and Kandye Barkhurst, of 37 Bethlehem Road in Waterford, and four children escaped the home after detecting smoke upon arising to go to work.

“We woke up running late right before 6 a.m. and noticed smoke in the middle room of the house,” Kenneth Barkhurst said. “We opened a closet and smoke poured out and the attic was full of smoke.”

Barkhurst thinks the fire started in the attic in front of the house and spread rapidly through the attic. The house is believed to have been built in the 1930s.

The house was a total loss and was completely involved when firefighters arrived, according to Kenny Holbrook, chief of the Holly Springs Fire Department.

The call came to the Holly Springs Fire Department at 6:05 a.m. and a pumper, and three firemen were on the scene at 6:24 a.m., he said. Firemen left the scene at 7:17 a.m., he said.

Two pumper trucks with the Potts Camp Fire Department also assisted, Holbrook said.

“The lady said two daughters escaped through a window,” Holbrook said.

Red Cross reported soon after the fire to obtain information, he said.

Barkhurst, from Ashland, said he and his wife are relatively new to the home. They bought the home from Kandye’s family after her mother, Joyce Smith, died on October 3, 2010, he said. The house was the home place of Betty Huey and Martha Oglesby of Waterford. Their father, Oscar Seal Rogers, raised the two and another daughter, Martha, in the house, according to Conway Moore, who grew up and has spent her life in Waterford.

Wrecks

Byhalia High School senior Terrica Davis died following an accident Monday, April 16, on Highway 309 North in the Barton area, according to school officials. She was involved in a head-on collision near Farley Road and airlifted to The Memphis Med where she died. School officials said Davis was en route to Kroger in Collierville, Tenn., where she had an after-school job, when the accident occurred.

The jaws of life was used to extricate the victim, Holbrook said. Rescue teams arrived on the scene at 3:35 p.m., and the jaws of life was used at 3:38 p.m., he said. Byhalia, Barton, Cayce and Holly Springs first responders turned out to work the accident, he said.

Several other accidents were reported shortly after that one.

Three sheriff’s department officers, responding to a Code 3, left the Highway 309 North accident to respond to an accident on Bubba Taylor Road, according to Maj. David Cook with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office. He said two squad cars had passed an SUV, with the driver pulled over for the officers, and then when the driver took a U-turn his vehicle was involved with the third responding deputy’s squad car. Deputy LaDaryl Odum was transported to Baptist DeSoto and later released after treatment for minor injuries, Cook said.

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