Hurricane Irma: Man Killed In Decatur House Fire Went Days Without Power

DECATUR, GA -- A man who died after he got trapped in a house fire in Decatur early Wednesday had been without power for days, according to news reports.

DeKalb County fire officials said the blaze occurred in the 2300 block of Appomatox Drive in the Panthersville area.

Fire units responded to the scene and found a "confirmed entrapment," DeKalb Fire and Rescue said in a statement. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

In an update, the DeKalb Fire and Rescue said that the "confirmed entrapment will be deceased," meaning that the trapped man died. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the victim's name was Wendell Bailey.

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The 74-year-old was likely trying to warm up after Irma had caused mass outages in DeKalb. “As far as we can tell,” his daughter Franca Tweedy told the AJC. “he was trying to, I guess, create some light and heat because he had been without power for three days.”

Tweedy told WAGA-TV that she had been keeping tabs on her elderly dad, knowing that he was in need during and after the storm. “I was just over here yesterday. I brought him some food because he couldn't cook and he was hungry,” she said.

“Why has it taken so long for power to be restored to not just this subdivision, but this community? This entire south DeKalb community?” she was quoted as saying.

DeKalb was hit especially hard by Irma, withthousands of power outages extending across the county. Power crews have been working feverishly to get things back to normal.

The cause of the fire has still not been released by authorities, who continue to investigate.

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