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Carbon monoxide scare at North Carolina public housing complex

DURHAM, N.C. — Hundreds of people have evacuated their homes at a North Carolina public housing complex.

McDougald Terrace in Durham has been plagued with health and safety issues, which include the mysterious deaths of two babies.

[RELATED: $12M settlement reached in boy’s carbon monoxide poisoning death at Boone hotel]

Many people are questioning whether the children's deaths are linked to the recent rash of unsafe levels of carbon monoxide in their homes.

A carbon monoxide alarm went off Friday afternoon and a woman and her three kids rushed out of their home.

Durham fire officials said they checked and there was no reading of carbon monoxide in the air.

There have been a series of hospitalizations in the last month.

Eleven residents were hospitalized because they had high levels of carbon monoxide in their systems.

Those cases and the recent deaths of two babies led dozens of residents and activists to march to a community meeting Thursday night and push for answers.

Resident:

"It shouldn't have took all of this for y'all to help us,” a resident said at the meeting. “We live in the projects, but we’re humans, too."

A top city leader isn't ruling out that the two babies died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

He said the city won't know for sure until the autopsy reports come back.

"It concerns me a lot, as a parent, because I’m a single mother of four kids, and I know what it's like,” resident Ashley Canady said. “This is supposed to be somewhere where you can be comfortable, where you can go to sleep."

The Durham Housing Authority is putting residents up in motels until the carbon monoxide risks have been eliminated.



State reaches $100K settlement in boy's carbon monoxide poisoning death at Boone hotel State reaches $100K settlement in boy's carbon monoxide poisoning death at Boone hotel

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