OIB ANNIVERSARY: Iron cross placed outside house

State investigators continue their work to figure out exactly how and where the fire started that killed 7 people in an Ocean Isle Beach home Sunday morning.

By: SCNow Staff | SCNow
Published: October 31, 2007

State investigators continue their work to figure out exactly how and where the fire started that killed 7 people in an Ocean Isle Beach home Sunday morning.

Wednesday, people continued to drive by the charred home where insurance adjusters put up a fence until all the investigations wrap up.

Some stopped to snap pictures of what’s left, some stopped and got out, a few placed flowers outside the temporary fencing and one man and his two sons placed a handmade aluminum cross in front of the home.

The cross came from Charlie Lea’s steel fabrication shop in Shallotte, North Carolina.

Lea told news13 he saw a news report Wednesday and knew he had to do something to memorialize the young lives lost there.

News13 spoke with Sue Sapp, who has called Ocean Isle Beach home for more than a decade.

Sapp told News13, “To know that somebody got up Sunday morning not knowing that their whole world was going to change shortly, “speaking about the families of the dead.

As a mother, Sapp says she can’t imagine what the parents of the 7 are going through.

“It’s the worst thing you can think of because no parent expects to bury their children. You always expect to out live your children, which is the natural flow of things. I just can’t imagine anything worse than this happening to somebody,” Sapp told News13.

For Sue Sapp and the Ocean Isle community, One Scotland Street is becoming a memorial to the 7 who died there.

“The people that lost their lives here and the ones that got out that’s got to live with that; all of them. Their lives have changed dramatically and I can’t imagine having to deal with that,” Sapp said.

Sapp said what happened in Ocean Isle Beach Sunday morning should serve as a reminder that tomorrow is not a guarantee.

Brunswick County emergency management officials told News13 the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation could release a preliminary report on the cause of the fire sometime Friday.

Count on News13 to keep you covered as this story develops.