Residents Are Picking Up The Pieces After Devastating Tragedy

WEST POINT, Miss. (WCBI)- A fire early Wednesday morning claimed two lives, and left multiple families without a home.

On Thursday, the landlord at the apartment complex moved some of the victims into vacant apartments.

“It’s a relief knowing that you have a roof over your head and you have somewhere to lay your head every night, it’s just a blessing that I was placed this quick,” said Carla Foster, one of the victims who was placed in a new apartment.

Thursday marked a day of new beginnings for Foster.

Not only did she receive a new home, but also a new outlook on life after the fire broke out at her apartment building.

“When I seen that fire everything was going through my head,” Foster recalled. Where am I going to stay? I don’t have anything, what am I going to do? But God, that’s only thing I can tell you, but God.”

Foster lived one door down from where the blaze broke out that claimed the life of Shayla Swain, 24, and her one year old daughter, Serenity Cox.

Now, She’s moving into an open apartment just steps away from where the deadly fire occurred, but she still hasn’t been able to get her belongings from the charred one.

“They won’t let us in,” she explained. “They say our foundation is not stable enough for us to go in and see what we can salvage, they say we’re going to have to wait on the fire marshal to let us in for that.”

Foster said she grateful for the new roof that’s over her head.

However, though she’s in a new place, she said a new beginning can’t wipe away the painful memory from the past.

“It’s not going to erase it at all because I’m going to constantly think about her and that baby,” Foster expressed. “We used to be sitting up at night talking. She would talk to me, we would watch movies, and act crazy and then I would get up and go home and go to bed. I would say to her, I’m not going to stay up with you all night, and then I would get up and go home and go to bed. I’m going to miss doing that, I’m going to miss that.”

Foster hopes to be fully moved into her apartment within the next few months.

All throughout the week, the community will be taking donations for the victims at Renasant Bank.