COLUMBIA, S.C. — Single mother of three, Omeisha Johnson, says she and her children have been without heat or water in their home at Colony Apartments since Christmas Day.
"I've been dealing with this all day," Johnson said. "My son, he's sick. His nose has been running but it's gotten worse because I can't heat my home. Earlier he started throwing up, and he just kept saying 'Mommy I'm cold', and we've been wearing jackets around the house all day."
Police were called to Colony Apartments, off West Beltline Blvd., Tuesday afternoon to investigate the shooting death of a woman who has not yet been identified.
While on scene residents asked police for help.
The City of Columbia immediately sent out public works crews, fire, and police officers to help repair the busted pipe that supplies water to the complex and check on residents, and to get a count of how many people were without these necessities.
Mayor Daniel Rickenmann says the conditions he and other staff saw were unacceptable.
"We will be going after the owner for any violations on a daily basis. I am very disappointed, shocked, and upset that over a holiday weekend, their residents were left like this. It's a very unfortunate situation, but we're not going to leave until we've got some resolve," Rickenmann stated.
Several residents were found to be using space heaters or ovens to try to heat their homes, but Columbia-Richland Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins encouraged residents to evacuate instead.
"Those are a no when you live in an apartment complex. We want to make sure that people have some type of conventional heat so they don't have to use alternative heat because that can cause death," Jenkins explained.
As for Johnson and her three children, they were given a paper by the fire department telling them to report to their management office for placement in a hotel for the night.
And as of Tuesday evening, Chief Jenkins tells us that all apartments in the complex have been evacuated.
Mayor Daniel Rickenmann told me tonight that if you're a renter and the thermostat inside your apartment cannot heat above 68 degrees, you are not legally required to stay there. He encourages anyone still experiencing outages of water or heat to contact the city for a connection to help and resources.
News 19 also reached out to the Monroe Group out of Colorado which owns Colony Apartments but we have not received a response.