Fire at Chapin facility unravels 7 fragile lives

By CLIF LeBLANC - cleblanc@thestate.com

Seven poor, largely forgotten people had become their own little family until a Wednesday morning fire left them dazed and, worse, forced them apart.

The seven had lived together for the better part of a decade in Open Arms Community Care Home, an assisted-living facility tucked in a family farming community that still looks like Chapin did 20 years ago.

All seven, including a married couple, got out without physical injuries when flames broke out about 4 a.m. in an attic above an activities area, authorities said.

State and local arson investigators were called in as a cautionary move, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state agency that licenses such homes.

He said early indications are the fire was electrical, though the exact cause is undetermined.

As investigators combed through the ashes after sunup, residents huddled next door in a clapboard home owned by the father of Open Arms operator Frances Theresa Bowers. Jasper Bowers ran the facility before his daughter took over in October 1996, records show.

Bowers said staffers got the residents out and notified her. She lives next door.

“There were no signs of any fire,” she said. “But the alarms alerted and everyone was evacuated. We stood by our fire evacuation plan.”

Yet records of licensing violations show regulators warned Open Arms at least twice for failing to have documentation that fire drills were conducted once per quarter as required.

An 11-page violations order in February 2006 fined Open Arms $3,750 because it was notified in July 2005 about the lack of fire drill documentation.

Overall, the facility was fined $31,300 for infractions that range from keeping poor paperwork to having rodent droppings on top of a refrigerator.

Other violations cited included not recording the administration of medicines, failing to show that criminal background checks had been done on staffers and that at least two staffers had received CPR training.

The violation records were obtained from regulators at the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The 2006 fines were reduced to $15,130 after Open Arms appealed, Berry said.

Bowers said she operates a reputable facility. “I’ve run a good, clean place,” she said.

The list of infractions did not matter Wednesday to those seeking to help displaced residents as they sat in rocking chairs on Jasper Bowers’ wraparound porch.

Local charities and churches, as well as the Red Cross, delivered cool drinks and hamburgers donated by a Chapin Hardee’s.

“They had nothing to begin with,” said the Rev. Ben Sloan of Lake Murray Presbyterian Church. “Now they have absolutely nothing except the clothes on their backs.”

Volunteers sized residents for replacement clothing.

Sloan is among volunteers who visit the home to talk, play games or dance the hokeypokeywith residents.

“Most of them are very indigent,” the minister said. “They don’t even get Social Security; maybe a little Medicaid.”

The seven, two of whom are mental health patients, are frightened and confused. They were being relocated Wednesday to two facilities in Lexington and Richland counties. The married couple was picked up by relatives, Berry said.

That disbanding might be more traumatic than the fire, said Sloan and Sue Madden, director of GOoD Works, a local charity.

“All these folks but one have no family that ever come visit them,” said Madden, who has been helping there for 11 years.

“We love them. This is my family. Chapin is their family.”

Madden said she grew up in an orphanage and seeks to repay kindnesses extended to her.

She leads GOoD Works, which she said was founded in 2001 and has improved or renovated 300 homes in Chapin, Little Mountain, Prosperity and Irmo. Nine homes were razed and rebuilt by volunteers.

Open Arms is on Meadowlark Road, just a few feet from the Newberry County line. It sits among small plots of land where families water their produce fields with lawn sprinklers.

One neighbor stooped Wednesday plucking some of his harvest while a nearby plastic porch chair sat empty among growing vegetables and stalks of corn.

Less than a mile away along a winding asphalt road, new homes with manicured lawns have encroached.

Madden and Sloan agree the fire that gutted Open Arms’ roof will require it be torn down. They said the community would help rebuild the home.

Frances Bowers relinquished her operator’s license Wednesday. Berry said that’s not unusual when a facility is so damaged that residents must be moved.

Open Arms was licensed for up to 15 residents. The seven current tenants are the smallest group Madden can recall.

They all have some measure of independence, but need help with medications, with dressing themselves or other daily chores, Berry said.

As the investigation continues, the community worries about what will become of them.

“The question,” Sloan said, “is what’s going to happen in the long haul?”

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.