'The filing of a lawsuit is imminent': Windsor Green victims take action after fire
Residents from Windsor Green say they plan to file a lawsuit after a fire destroyed a building in the Carolina Forest apartment complex.
Attorney Benjamin Wilson said a bird nest in a light fixture caused the fire. "It heated to the point of ignition and that ignition took off," he said.
Morgan & Morgan attorneys Benjamin Wilson and Dylan Bess held a press conference Tuesday morning in wake of the Windsor Green fire that destroyed an apartment building on April 12. The lawyers are representing clients Brian and Krisha Alewine and their children who were victims of the fire.
"The filing of a lawsuit is imminent," Bess said.
The lawsuit will be against Windsor Green, Benchmark CAMS and possibly others, Wilson said.
"They are operating under a code from the '90s," Wilson said. "It's unacceptable."
On April 16, Morgan & Morgan announced the Alewine family had hired its attorneys to investigate the catastrophic apartment complex fire that destroyed 9 units and injured seven people.
"The fire that occurred at Windsor Green was an awful event," Bess said. "We don’t believe any resident had any part in starting the fire."
Brian Alewine thanked first responders and the teenager who caught his son from a third-story balcony during Tuesday's news conference.
"Moving forward is slow and steady," Alewine said. "My wife is doing rehab, she won’t be able to put any weight on her leg for six weeks. Right now, it’s taking it day by day."
Horry County Fire Rescue spokesperson Mark Nugent said several people jumped from balconies during the fire. Those injured did not suffer burns, but did break bones jumping from balconies, Nugent said.
The blaze started about 9:15 p.m. at 4970 Windsor Green Way in Carolina Forest. Nugent said the fire originated on the exterior wall of the second floor breezeway, near unit 201. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, and there is no evidence indicating the fire is suspicious, Nugent said.
Sixteen buildings in Windsor Green do not have a fire sprinkler system, including the building that burned. The buildings weren't required to have sprinklers when built in the late '90s. Starting in 2000, the International Fire Code that Horry County uses required apartment buildings with more than two stories tall and more than 16 units had to have sprinklers.
Lawyers also spoke about the upstairs units only having one exit — the front door.
Complexes in Windsor Green that have six or more units do not have back stair exits for upstairs units. About 23 four-unit buildings have stairs off the back of the upstairs units.
Sarah Gambill, a Windsor Green resident who lives several buildings from where the fire occurred, said the fire "scared her family to death." Gambill and her husband live on a third-floor apartment with five children.
"Now we've been planning," she said, adding they went and bought a hook ladder after the latest fire. "It's something you don't think about until something bad happens."
Gambill said she was shocked when she realized the building she and her family live in does not have sprinklers.
"We had never had that conversation before," she said.
The fire was the second to hit Windsor Green in the last five years. A fire in 2013 destroyed 26 buildings. It took crews nearly four hours to get the blazes under control.
Hannah Strong: 843-444-1765, @HannahLStrong
This story was originally published April 24, 2018 at 11:45 AM with the headline "'The filing of a lawsuit is imminent': Windsor Green victims take action after fire."