Explainable fire leaves 100 victims, of those victims 28 were announced dead, 29 are non- critical and 28 were very critical.

At around 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 27 a fire started at the Swanson center on the campus of Piedmont college. Shortly after the fire started an explosion occurred. The cause of the fire and the explosion is unknown. Public information officer Rob Moore reported at a press conference of the heavy victim count. Most the victims were Piedmont college students.

“There were pretty extensive damages that took awhile to put out,” says assistant fire chief Jason Davis from Habersham Emergency Services. “We’re still putting out spots, we’re definitely going to be here for the next couple of hours.”

The extent of the devastation was reported at a press conference outside of the Swanson center at 11:10 a.m. It was announced that the reasoning behind the fire and the explosion were still unknown.

Emergency recuse and 200 Piedmont nursing students arrived on scene shortly after the explosion to rescue the many victims. Emergency services and the nurses were able to completely evacuate the building by around 10:30 a.m. The building was very smoky and hard to see what was in front of you, reported many nurses.

Nurses and people on the scene reported about a man in a green shirt pick-pocketing from many of the victims shortly after the explosion. The man was apprehended by Habersham Sheriff’s deputies when they arrived on scene. There were Reports of woman running around the scene screaming, looking for her lost dog, but nurses were able to calm the woman down, but it is still unreported if she found her dog. Showing that this tragedy was very chaotic.

Piedmont College will be a having a memorial service on April 4 at the Chapel to remember all the victims who were lost in this tragedy. All family members and people of the community are welcome to come.