‘God’s community’ steps up for hard-working Coast car wash employee after lightning fire
Before Brennon Colson even had time to set down his keys after arriving at work Sunday morning, he got a call from his girlfriend at home.
She had just seen a bolt of lightning, and it felt like it struck right next to the house. Then, she shouted, “Fire, fire, fire!” and hung up the phone.
Colson got back into his car and raced from the PitStop Carwash in Waveland where he works (while still obeying traffic signals, he noted) to his home in Bay St. Louis.
His girlfriend, Kristen Henley, her younger brother, his girlfriend and the family’s pet dogs and ferret were all safe. But smoke was billowing from the top of their duplex.
“I kind of started breaking down immediately, seeing my home on fire, that I worked so hard for,” said Colson, 25.
But almost immediately, Bay St. Louis neighbors, friends and regular PitStop customers started pitching in to help, and they haven’t stopped since. People who know Colson from the car wash said they wanted to give back to the man who turned his workplace into something of a community hub through sheer force of cheerfulness.
Bay St. Louis Police Officer Bailey Ordoyne, who responded to the call about the fire, gets his car washed at PitStop twice a week. That’s how he got to know Colson, who always seemed to be smiling. Sometimes, if he sees Colson’s Toyota Scion parked out front, he’ll stop in just to say hi.
When he responded to the fire call on Sunday, he saw Colson and realized the call was about his house.
“It blows my mind that a guy who just works every single day and all he talks about is his girlfriend, getting his house together, he’s always worried about me — to have his house light up on fire for no apparent reason other than a lightning strike, it hurts,” Ordoyne said.
‘That dude’s always hustling’
Colson, a 2014 graduate of Bay High School, has worked at PitStop for almost two years.
In a small town like Waveland, he sees the car wash as more than a place to take care of a chore. It’s also a place for conversation with a wide range of people. You never know who you’ll meet, he said.
“Showing them, like, look, this person just truly wants to make sure you have a good time at your car wash and you have a smile before you leave here,” Colson said. “That’s my goal.”
Even customers who don’t know his name took notice.
“The blond haired dude at the car was in waveland deserves employee of the month, EVERY month... that dude’s always hustling,” Bay St. Louis resident Cody Seal wrote in a Facebook post in June.
Seal said he takes his car to PitStop about once a week and noticed Colson never seemed to stop moving. On the day he made the post, he recalled seeing Colson help someone swipe their card to pay, and then run across the lot to start cleaning their car.
“I’ve seen him do that 100 times over,” Seal said. “It’s kind of motivating to see somebody that’s always working that hard.”
Colson saw Seal’s post after a friend tagged him. To him, it was a reminder that something small could change someone’s day, even if you never find out.
“It’s just very motivating,” he said.
A bolt from the blue
Sunday started as an ordinary, drizzly summer morning in Bay St. Louis. Colson left for work around 11:20.
He stopped at Bay Tobacco to pick up drinks for himself and the car wash employees — BODYARMOR sports drinks with caffeine, Powerade for electrolytes and bottled water.
Shortly after he got to work, a lighting bolt split the sky. Henley called. For a few minutes, everything seemed fine. The lights looked normal, and she didn’t smell anything burning. Then, in the next room, her younger brother and his girlfriend saw an “orange light” coming from the attic. It was engulfed in flames.
When Colson got home, everyone was safe. But inside the burning duplex were so many things the couple had carefully saved to buy: a new mattress that had cost $1,200, a washer and dryer they’d just paid off, a living room set. It was easily $16,000 worth of items, he estimated.
A neighbor named Tommy had rushed over with a fire extinguisher to start fighting the blaze before the fire department arrived. Colson believes he contained it enough to save some of their belongings.
As Colson was standing outside his home, overwhelmed and starting to cry, he saw two Bay St. Louis police officers who were regulars at PitStop. He tried to stop crying and “be positive,” like he always is at the car wash. He collected himself and tried to say something to make Ordoyne laugh.
“I gave him a hug and told him to shut up,” Ordoyne said in an interview.
Colson started crying again, and didn’t try to stop.
“It just made me feel good,” Colson said. “He knew I was trying to be positive.”
Ordoyne got Colson some water and let him sit in his car to cool off. He talked him through what would happen next with insurance claims, and told him he would help however he could.
The couple was able to save some documents, items like their PlayStation 5, and their high school diplomas. They bought an air mattress and have been staying with friends. Colson’s grandmother, whom he called his “last parent,” died when he was 16.
‘God’s community through another person’
Bay St. Louis community members and PitStop customers posted on Facebook about the fire, helping the couple raise money to begin rebuilding their lives.
One of those customers was Cody Seal. Seal wrote that about two months ago, he’d posted about a young man who was always “extremely polite and helpful.” Now, Colson had lost everything.
“If any of my friends can help out, it would mean the world to me,” Seal wrote. “I can promise he’d do the same if the roles reversed.”
When Colson saw Seal’s post, he started crying.
“I’m a very emotional person,” he said.
Colson sent Seal a message thanking him for the support.
“You put yourself out there and made sure I was alright just because I simply took care of you at a car wash,” he said.
Seal said he just wanted to help a good person going through a bad situation. He’d seen the same impulse across Bay St. Louis.
“It’s definitely a special place,” he said.
So far, Colson said, he and Henley have gotten hundreds of dollars through PayPal and CashApp donations, and people have donated clothes and other items, too.
The financial support is crucial as they look for a place to live while the duplex is gutted and renovated, a process their landlord estimated could take months. Real estate is tight in Bay St. Louis now, as tourists crowd in for the summer and housing prices soar nationwide.
Colson said he and Henley are trying to focus on the good: They’re safe, and grateful for the Bay St. Louis community.
Colson is still thinking about the gentle “shut up” he got from Ordoyne as he tried to hide his tears during one of the most difficult moments of his life.
“I knew exactly what he meant when he said that,” Colson said. “If anything, that was God’s community through another person.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
