Tea Residents Home Following Apartment Fire

Residents were back inside their Tea apartment complex Tuesday afternoon following an early morning fire.

Authorities were called to the Wood Ridge Mall early Tuesday morning. When they went inside 32 year-old Jesse Rain’s apartment, they found meth and the items used to cook the drug.

“My wife woke me up. The sirens were going off pretty good.  We ran outside,” Zachary Merrick, who lives in the apartment next door to Rains, said.  “They were like, ‘Well, this has now turned into a criminal investigation. So if you guys have someplace to go, you should try them and come back.’” 

While Rains spent his day in court, businesses in the building he lived in are cleaning up. Tea's China Massage was damaged. Workers there spent the day cleaning up water-soaked wood and carpet. But residents upstairs were back home by early morning.

“When he came out, he said it was his laptop that had started on fire, so we just thought it was something little and they had to come out anyways,” Kelsi Merrick said.

They were surprised to find out it was so much more.

Rains is charged with possessing, making and using meth. He also faces theft charges in Woodbury County, Iowa.