Deck Eyed In Deadly Beach House Fire

For the group of college buddies spending a late-season weekend at a friend's beach house, the deck overlooking a canal was the center of their good times.

It was where they talked, listened to music and danced late into the night. But investigators fear the deck just two blocks from the beach may also have been the starting point of a fast-moving fire that killed seven people, including a group of high school friends who went off to college together.

"It sounded like they were having a good time. Unfortunately, the fire didn't show any mercy," said Terry Walden, whose 19-year-old daughter, Allison, died in the blaze. "They probably never woke up."

Firefighters arrived just four minutes after the 911 call, yet were too late to save seven young lives, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

Neigjhbor Betty Smith felt the fire's heat from her porch, seven houses away and across the canal.

Six of the seven students killed went to the University of South Carolina, adds Strassmann. Alison Walden was a sophomore. Cassidy Pendley and Lauren Mahon were both freshman sorority pledges. Amanda Palacio was Mahon's roommate. Also dead: Justin Ansderson, a sophomore, and freshman William Rhea. His older brother Andrew survived.

Classes went on as scheduled Monday at South Carolina's Columbia campus, but grief counselors were available for the 27,000 students. Clemson also offered counseling.

In an interview from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Walden said his daughter picked USC for its warm weather and vibrant Greek life. Officials have said many of the dead were members of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

"It's an awful loss for someone that had a pretty good future in front of her," said Walden, 56, an environmental engineer.

The house is so heavily damaged, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Krasula, that investigators have told Mayor Debbie Smith the cause of the inferno may never be known. Arson is not suspected.

Though students heard through word of mouth which students survived, the names of the victims had not been officially announced.

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As authorities removed the bodies from the charred home, they found most of the victims in the home's five bedrooms. The only person on the top floor who survived did so by jumping out of a window and into the adjacent canal, said Ocean Isle Beach fire chief Robert Yoho.

The fire was discovered by a newspaper deliveryman, who called 911, reports Strassmann.

Investigators quizzed dozens of college students who filled several homes near the site of the disaster. Rebecca Wood, the president of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity at the University of North Carolina, said she and her friends spent more than two hours talking with police about the deaths of the people they met just hours before.

Authorities wanted "descriptions for anything about the people in the house," Wood said. "We had just met them that day and didn't have last names for anybody ... But they interviewed everybody that set foot in the house."

Police in the beachfront community, which has only about 500 full-time residents and had gone at least two decades without a fatal fire, are working with the State Bureau of Investigation and federal officials. The victims' remains are being sent to the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill, where autopsies will take place.

"It may be a few days," spokeswoman Sharon Artis said. "We have not identified any of them yet."

Neighbor Bob Alexander, who lives directly across the canal from the burned home, said the first group of students arrived at the beach house late Friday afternoon. By the time the sun set, the group was out on the deck listening to music. They were up the next day, back out on the deck and getting ready in the afternoon to watch South Carolina's football game at Tennessee.

"We met them that afternoon," Wood said. "The back (decks) faced each other and we were out there joking, making football jokes because both of us had games that day. It was all in good fun. Later, they came over to introduce themselves."

Alexander remembered seeing two people, a college-aged man and one young woman, dancing on the deck around 11 p.m. A short time later, South Carolina's loss to the Volunteers was over, and the Gamecocks had the neighboring Tar Heels over to commiserate. Wood and a few others from UNC stayed up late dancing and munching on leftover football snacks with their new friends.

"For them to open up their house to us was just so nice," Wood said. "We gave them hugs and said we would Facebook later. That's the great thing about the online stuff now, friendships could grow without seeing each other. We got along really well."

Wood left around 1:30 a.m., but Alexander said the lights were still on at the doomed beach house as late as 2:30 a.m. He awoke to the sound of sirens a few minutes after 7 a.m.

"Flames were halfway across the channel," Alexander said. "The fire was roaring and cracking. You could already see inside the house."