Ocean Isle mayor was face of united effort after fatal fire

Ocean Isle Beach | Things are much quieter now in Ocean Isle Beach.

News vans haven't crossed the bridge to the resort island in almost two weeks, and helicopters haven't hovered above the burnt shell of a house on Scotland Street, where seven South Carolina college students died Oct. 28 in the town's worst house fire.

Wednesday was the first full workday since the fire that Mayor Debbie Smith put in at her full-time job as owner of Sloane Realty Vacations.

Her office is just around the corner from the Ocean Isle Beach Town Hall, where Smith spent most of the days after the fatal fire coordinating interviews and meetings and delivering information to the media, emergency response workers and the fire victims' families.

No previous experience, not even hurricanes, had prepared her for this.

And though she stood before cameras and families with a straight face to deliver information, she tears up now just thinking and talking about the morning of the fire.

She arrived at the scene of the fire, 1 Scotland St., about 7:20 a.m. that Sunday, just 13 minutes after the Ocean Isle Beach Fire Department arrived.

Smith said one of the owners of the house is a friend of hers and called just after 7 a.m. to ask her to check on the canal-front family vacation house.

"They knew the house was on fire," Smith said from her realty office Wednesday. "They just didn't know what was going on."

Then Smith met with the families of the victims and survivors, who drove from South Carolina to find their loved ones.

"That was the hardest part," she said.

The daughter of the house's owners survived the fire. But, as mayor of the small, close-knit town, Smith treated the families of the other survivors and victims as if they were her neighbors.

The hours and days following were chaotic.

The town, emergency response leaders and other agencies involved met and identified Smith as the spokeswoman for the incident, Brunswick County Emergency Services Director Randy Thompson said.

"I really can't say enough about the abilities of the folks to step up to the challenge of these positions of decision making," Thompson said.

Smith, Thompson and others met just before releasing any information about the fire to families and the media to make sure they were following procedures and answering questions others might have.

Smith contacted the fire victims' family members before she publicly read the State Bureau of Investigation's report on the fire, which said that improperly discarded smoking materials could not be ruled out as the cause of the fire, although the damage to the house was too extensive to know the exact cause.

"We were speaking through one voice, and I think it worked extremely well for us," Thompson said.

He said Smith, who appeared countless times on both local and national newscasts, did an excellent job delivering information and making sure all agencies involved - the town, the county and the SBI - were collaborating.

"I think it was a really geared, measured response to the incident," Thompson said.

But Smith won't take all the credit. At Tuesday's town meeting she read a statement recognizing the fire department, police department, Town Administrator Daisy Ivey, town staff and residents of the beach town.

"It was definitely a team effort," Smith said Tuesday. "Everyone worked well together. They performed their job with a high degree of professionalism."

She said residents, both full-time and seasonal, offered their homes and cooked meals for the grieving families of the students who either lost their lives or survived the fire.

"It just really makes you proud to live in a community that comes together in a tragedy like this," Smith said.

Smith, Ivey, police officers, firefighters, commissioners and other town employees attended a memorial in Columbia, S.C., for the fire victims.

Afterward, some of the victims' family members shook the hands of the firemen and policemen.

"They were just doing their job, but they did it with such great professionalism and such great compassion," Smith said of the emergency responders.

Eleven emergency units from across the county responded to the fire call.

Thompson said the agencies are trained to coordinate with one another through several exercises, including ones that prepare them for hurricane disasters.

"We're accustomed to working together for one common cause," he said.

Thompson said the U.S. Fire Administration has had a discussion with the county about documenting its response procedures and any lessons learned through the fire - information emergency response agencies across the nation can use for training and guidance.

Shannan Bowen: 755-6307

shannan.bowen@starnewsonline.com