SUMTER, S.C. — A Sumter apartment complex has now officially been reopened after it was closed for two weeks. Residents were evacuated from the Garden Circle Apartments on Nov. 8 after the Sumter Fire Department found the sprinklers and smoke alarms had not been inspected and the elevator was broken.
Tuesday, News 19 reported about how the property owner and a local nonprofit were paying for the residents to stay in motels, but now they can finally move back home.
Exactly two weeks from the day that 47 residents were evacuated from the complex, they're able to move back home. The building is now open just in time for Thanksgiving.
“I'm really excited to go home,” Siri Taylor smiles. “It's a great Thanksgiving.”
Taylor says her and her dog Piglet are excited to be going home.
“I keep telling her, ‘We’re going home! We’re going home!” Taylor laughs. “I'm very grateful and I'm glad that…I'm just so grateful for everything that everybody's done because this is a difficult situation. And the amount of people is just astronomical. So I'm so grateful and I'm grateful to be going home and I hope we don't ever have to deal with this again.”
Excitement that resident James Edward Lee also feels.
“We’re feeling good now. We’re going back home,” Lee shares. “That’s all we prayed for: being home for Thanksgiving.”
The caution tape that was on the side of the building has officially been taken down. I spoke with the property owner, Amalfi Gayosso, who says she’s paying for transportation to make sure all the residents can get back home after being unsure of what the future held for two weeks.
“We’ve been in an uproar ever since this happened. I mean everyone wasn’t feeling right because they were put out of their home and all, you know?” Lee says. “And now I’m feeling good. I'm feeling good. I can go back home. I’m back in my neighborhood.”