CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — During Friday's report of a fire that broke out at the Villa Del Sol condominium complex on North Beach, residents told 3NEWS that the fire alarms were not working.
"There's a lady knocking on doors two units down, the hallways filled with smoke and she's yelling, 'fire,' " resident Anna Guerra said. "So I grabbed my mom, my daughter, my purse and I ran out of there. We were pulling fire alarms and not one worked."
On Monday, Corpus Christi Fire Marshal Randy Paige confirmed that to be true.
"Their file alarm system has been out of service for several months because it's being replaced, Paige said. "And in this particular building, building three, it was almost completed and then some constructors came in and did some work on the inside of the building and affected some of the fire alarms so they didn't get to finish it."
The fire marshal said there was a backup plan in place, an employee assigned as a fire-watch person since the alarms were not working.
"And they were on 24-hour fire watch," Paige said. "And what fire watch does -- and it's common for buildings where it's occupied with people overnight -- is that we require them to do a fire watch, and that's someone that's walking the premises 24/7."
He said the employee was doing rounds when the fire broke out.
"[If they] see or smell smoke, they have three main duties," Paige said. "One of them is to roam and look around for the fire, if there is a fire, number two is to call 911 and number three is to start knocking on doors to get residents out."
Fifteen condos were consumed by flames resulting in a response from 18 City fire crews.
Executive Director of The American Red Cross of the Coastal Bend Angelina Garcia said the organization was able to arrange shelter for displaced residents.
"The first night we identified seven families that would possibly be sheltering with us," Garcia said. "We did open a shelter at our Corona office and that was only for Friday evening. We ultimately had one individual join us for sheltering because he had no other options."
3NEWS reached out to Villa Del Sol for a comment but have not heard back from them.
Paige said every building in the city must by law have the alarms checked every 12 months so at this point, no charges will be filed and the investigation will continue.