ANDERSON — More than 30 hours after flames destroyed the two-story entrance to an Anderson apartment complex, residents huddled outside Monday waiting for their turn to re-enter their apartments and retrieve belongings.

“I’ll take what I can and do what I can,” said Lucy Perry, 78, who sat in a sport utility vehicle in a parking lot and a few feet from her apartment Monday, waiting for her family to bring news about what was left of pictures and furniture that she had just purchased.

Flames heavily damaged apartments and caused the evacuation of 45 residents from the Heatherwood Apartments at 1025 W. Whitner St. in Anderson. Eight people, including two Anderson police officers, were taken to AnMed Health Medical Center in Anderson for treatment of smoke inhalation and a fractured ankle, officials said. The patient with a fractured ankle was transferred from Anderson to Greenville Hospital System for treatment.

By mid-morning Monday, officials were allowing residents and their family members to enter the affected apartments and retrieve possessions.

“They’re giving us five minutes to snatch and grab,” said Joan Smith, who has lived in her apartment in the Heatherwood complex since 1999.

The 45 displaced residents each have received a voucher to another apartment by the Anderson County Housing Authority, $108 from the American Red Cross and three days at a local motel, Smith said.

For many residents, Monday was important as they stood in the parking lot waiting for a chance to retrieve priceless pictures. Some stood draped in the same clothes they wore when they fled the building.

Around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, flames erupted on the second floor of the entrance to the complex, which features a common entrance, brick and wood exterior and sliding glass doors with each apartment. It was a second fire call to the apartment complex on Sunday morning. Around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, firefighters found a stack of magazines on fire in the lobby.

According to the police report, Officer Jada Burgin said the first floor of the foyer was the site of visible smoke and several residents stood outside in response to the 1:30 a.m. fire. A firefighter found a burning magazine on a coffee table and was unsure if it was intentional or a smoking accident before using a fan to remove smoke, according to the report.

After the second fire, both fires have been ruled suspicious, officials said.

Smith said she had no warning about the first fire.

At the time of the second fire, residents were in apartments on each end of hallways on either side of the entrance.

Perry, still hobbled from a surgically repaired hip, said she was on the second level three doors from the entrance and had no way to get out of the building.

There was no warning to her that a fire was burning, she said, until sirens drew her attention to the parking lot and an accumulation of fire trucks.

Glen Warnock, a firefighter with the Anderson City Fire Department, said the entrance was heavily involved in the fire and residents were on balconies when emergency vehicles started to arrive in response to the 4:30 a.m. fire.

“It was a firefighter’s nightmare,” Warnock said.

Smith said she was asleep and did not hear any fire alarms but was startled from her sleep by knocks at her door.

Firefighters dragged her through an emergency door at the end of the building and away from the flames, she said.

“People were on the (second-floor) banisters, screaming for someone to get a ladder,” Smith said.

David Emory said his mother-in-law, Eunice Haynie, 95, managed to escape her second-floor apartment when firefighters grabbed her and carried her down a ladder to safety.

Two of the firefighters made the difference for Perry.

“There was one on each side, and I had my arms around their necks,” said Perry, who was one of the 45 residents, four dogs and a cat that survived the fire. “I never thought I would get out. I could not see a thing but black.”