A Florida man should have been relieved after surviving the hurricane.
But he found out his problems were just beginning.
A scary video showed the worst nightmare a Florida man faced after the hurricane.
Tesla goes up in flames in a Florida garage
Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm with winds that topped out at 140 miles per hour and torrential rain.
Helene turned into a tropical storm as it continued its path of destruction throughout the southeast.
The hurricane brought record storm surge to parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast.
More than 7 feet of storm surge was recorded in some parts of the Tampa Bay area.
Florida authorities warned electric vehicle owners to move them to higher ground to keep them from contact with seawater.
But one Florida man decided to leave his Tesla parked in his garage in Tampa.
A video showed the vehicle catching fire and going up in flames.
WILD VIDEO: @pinellasgov shared a video of a Tesla catching fire in a flooded garage during Hurricane Helene.
The county said electric vehicles flooded in saltwater can catch fire.
Read more: https://t.co/vr4agOytVD pic.twitter.com/yHG0qmNKJu
— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) September 29, 2024
The fire starts at the bottom of the vehicle where the compartment that houses its lithium-ion battery is located.
It quickly grows until the garage is filled with smoke and the entire vehicle goes up in flames.
“Electric Vehicles that have been flooded in saltwater can catch fire,” Pinellas County wrote on social media. “If you evacuated and left an electric vehicle or golf cart in your garage or under a building and you are not able to get to it or move it, we want you to let us know.”
Electric vehicles are a serious fire hazard during hurricanes
The batteries for electric vehicles are often in compartments that are low to the group where a traditional internal combustion engine would be.
Seawater can cause lithium-ion batteries to short circuit and the salt can conduct electricity.
National Transportation Safety Board highway safety official Tom Barth warned that the problems are just beginning if seawater reaches the battery.
“If the saltwater is able to bridge the gap between the positive and negative terminals of a battery, then it can cause a short circuit,” Barth explained.
The fire can start to spread to the different power cells in the battery causing them to explode in a process known as thermal runaway.
Florida Chief Financial Officer and State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis warned that electric vehicle fires are a nightmare to put out.
“We saw a number of fires associated with EVs from Hurricane Ian,” Patronis said. “We know that the salt water from storm surge can compromise these batteries, causing fires which cannot be easily suppressed. The best fire teams can do is keep water on the battery until the fuel burns out.”
The lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles store a tremendous amount of energy.
Battery fires burn hotter than a typical car fire and require as much as ten times the amount of water to put out.
Firefighters can spend up to half a day battling the blaze from an electric vehicle.
And the batteries can spontaneously reignite days or even weeks after the fire first occurred.
Electric vehicles have more headaches associated with ownership than their supporters let on.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
