OCEAN ISLE BEACH N.C.
A fire at a vacation house where college students went to take advantage of the last good beach weather may have started on a deck, an official said Monday, as two campuses waited to find out the names of the seven dead.
The home erupted into a storm of fire and smoke Sunday morning in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. Six of the seven students killed attended the University of South Carolina; the other attended Clemson University. Six other South Carolina students in the house survived.
Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith said investigators told her the fire was likely accidental and started either on or near a deck facing a canal on the west side of the house. That side of the building appeared to have suffered the most damage. Earlier Monday, Smith had said the fire started on the deck.
“They may not be able to determine what started it,” Smith said.
Though students heard through word of mouth which students survived, the names of the victims had not been announced. Anna Lee Rhea said her older brother, William, was among the dead a devastating blow to their older brother, Andrew, who made it out of the house alive.
“Everybody loved him. Everybody really misses him,” she said in a brief telephone interview from the family’s home in Florence, S.C. “You couldn’t help but love him.”
Classes went on as scheduled at the University of South Carolina Monday, where a garnet and black banner with the school’s mascot, a Gamecock, flew at half-staff outside a fraternity house. Black ribbons were wrapped around the columns of another house. The campus scheduled a candlelight ceremony for Monday evening.
