LAKE CHARLES — A family of eight in Lake Charles is thankful for their last minute buy, a carbon monoxide detector.
The Brown family returned to their home on Sunday. They're currently living off of a generator, and they thought they were doing everything correctly, until they heard it go off Sunday night.
"I was having a hard time staying awake, I had a massive headache, I was very fatigued" Chris Brown said he had gotten home days before his wife and kids, leaving him the most exposed.
Brown says he and his family were getting ready to go to sleep when it started beeping.
"We thought maybe it's a faulty alarm, so we put the other one where it was, it started going off too, so it was like ok out of the house" Brown says they opened up windows, turned off the generator and waited outside for the fire department.
They set up the generator away from their house, about five feet away from the garage, but that didn't leave them in the clear.
"The exhaust was pointed towards the wall, so it was climbing the wall, coming through the attic vent, putting it in the crawl space, and coming through the holes in the ceiling, that were there from the water damage" Eva Brown said.
This family is thankful for their decision to buy the detectors before coming home.
"Without it, we really wouldn't have woken up this morning. It's awful to say, but it saved us, and the kids too." Eva said.
Crews continue working to restore the power, but the Browns aren't expecting to have power for the next several weeks.
