Crews battle fire in Cobb County apartment complex

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Firefighters and investigators with Atlanta Gas Light are at the scene of a Cobb County apartment complex where residents say an explosion caused a massive fire that has destroyed nearly 20 apartments.
 
Firefighters were called out to Crestmont Apartments on Williams Drive in Marietta all day around 10:15 a.m.
 
Residents told Channel 2's Wendy Corona they heard and felt the boom that they say physically shook them.
 
"I fell to the floor. I thought somebody drove a car into the building but they didn't, it was an explosion," neighbor LaToya Wilson told Corona.
 
Wilson said shortly before the blast, the apartment management knocked on her door.
 
"They wanted to know if we had any trouble with sewage and we didn't. Seconds later, boom," Wilson said.
 
Fire engulfed building 300 at the rear of the complex.  Neighbors scrambled to help one another.
 
"I pulled the fire alarm and I alerted everyone to get out the building because it's on fire. My wife just kept saying, 'Let's go, let's go, let's go,'" neighbor Tavarus Wilson said. "I didn't want to see no one get burned up in a fire."
 
Wilson said neighbors, management and maintenance crew were screaming to get everyone out. One woman was coughing on a second story balcony.
 
"I said, 'Ma'am, just jump. Jump. I will catch you. Don't worry I will catch you,' and she jumped," Wilson said.
 
At the neighboring building, Ann Anderson said the boom did not wake her, but the screams from neighbors to get out.
 
"I watched the roof fall in and everything," Anderson said. "My best friend pretty much lost everything. It's material stuff but she just moved there less than a week ago."
 
Officials with the American Red Cross told Channel 2's Ross Cavitt they are providing housing for 26 adults and 12 children that have been displaced by the fire.
 
Fire investigators where finally able to go into the burned out building shortly after 4 p.m. Monday to see what may have started the fire.
 
Two people inside the apartment where the fire started have been taken to a nearby hospital for their injuries.