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Residents return to Flint complex

• Twenty-eight residents remain displaced by a Monday fire at an apartment complex.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — About 67 elderly or disabled residents displaced by a Monday fire at five-story Hudson Malone Towers were allowed back into their apartments Tuesday, the director of Albany’s Housing Authority said.

The fire, which started just before 11 a.m. Monday in a fifth-floor apartment, was contained inside the apartment by Albany firefighters but caused substantial water and smoke damage on the west end of the building, Housing Authority Executive Director Dan McCarthy said.

No one was reported injured, but all 93 residents of the city-owned complex were displaced overnight by the fire, many to the homes of family and friends, while the Southwest Georgia chapter of the Red Cross housed 28 residents Monday night at a motel, McCarthy said.

Resident Gloria Sweet, 57, told authorities Monday that a grocery cart in her fifth-floor apartment rolled into a stove and turned on two burners, igniting items she’d left on top of the stove while in the process of moving to another apartment, Albany Police Department Media Manager Phyllis Banks-Whitley said.

After a night away from their homes for the building to be inspected, residents of 67 units are being allowed to return, McCarthy said.

Residents of each floor, in units numbered 514, 414, 314, 214 and 114 and below, were being allowed back into their apartments Tuesday, he said.

“We have 67 units that have been released back for occupancy,” McCarthy said. “All those apartments are essentially just like (residents) left them. The power remained on. They may detect a slight smoke odor but we’re hoping that will clear out soon.”

At the west end of the building, units near apartment 517 where the fire started, and those beneath it on each floor are not cleared for occupancy, he said.

“We’ve identified seven (units) on the fourth floor that do have substantial water saturation in the walls and carpet. We will be proceeding to do cleanup, that the contractor tells us it will need probably three days to do,” McCarthy said.

The extent of damage on lower floors had not been determined Tuesday afternoon, he said.

About 28 residents from those apartments remain displaced, including nine whom the Red Cross will continue to house at Albany’s Knights Inn, McCarthy said.

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