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Explosion ignites neighborly deeds
Girard House Explosion
Gallery
A House on the Corner of Townsend and Washington Streets in Girard Exploded Thursday, July 18, 2008 around 6:30 p.m. Photographers James Hughes and Steve Meyers contributed to this slide show.
Girard Explosion
Video
Residents put safety ahead of property concerns
Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of Thursday’s blast.
1At about 6:15 p.m. Thursday, residents in the immediate — and not so immediate — area of Washington Avenue near Church Hill Road were pulled from the dinner table, outdoor activities and evening television by an explosion that could be heard and felt about a mile away.
The house at 824 Washington had exploded. A home immediately next to the 824 address caught fire and burned to the ground.
Firefighters, gas company representatives and the state fire marshal were on the scene Friday morning and through the afternoon looking for clues.
Fire Chief Kenneth Bornemiss said officials have no definitive answers to questions posed about the explosion, but they are working on it.
“They have a lot of work to do. Everything is preliminary right now,” he said.
Investigators left the scene late Friday afternoon, but still no cause has been determined.
It is the responses of everyday people, however, that was of note.
Doug Beach lives five houses away from the destroyed residences and felt the explosion rock his home. He immediately ran out to see if anyone was injured and who needed help before returning home to put on shoes and look for his teenage son who was out playing with other children often seen playing in the area.
Kenny Moran, Washington Avenue resident and street department superintendent, was shopping at a grocery store a few blocks away when the call about an explosion near his home came across the radio. He left his buggy in the aisle as he raced to make it back to his neighborhood.
“My house I wasn’t worried about. I was more worried about the neighbor kids because we had a lot of kids who would play ball in the street and stuff around here every day,” he said.
Brian Mazzella, another Washington Avenue resident, said personal property seemed to be the least of anyone’s concerns.
He said the home at 824 Washington had been rented but the tenants had not yet moved in, but the house next door contained a family of five.
Mazzella said that in the home that burned to the ground lived a woman, her husband, her mother and two young boys. The boys, he said, were playing in the rear of the home during the explosion and the two women were inside.
Mazzella and Beach said the efforts of all neighbors in the area were nothing short of heroic in getting the two women out of the house and to a safe area before the home was engulfed. Both men said the effort paid off with both women safely taken across the street mere seconds before fire took over the house.
The women and children were not seriously injured in the explosion or fire; however, according to Mazzella, the family did have two mixed-breed dogs that did not make it out. He said one of the dogs nipped at would-be rescuers, refusing to be taken out of the burning home.
Bill Reinhart, who lives near the explosion, stood near the site of the explosion Friday reflecting on what had taken place. He said moving into action should be second nature for any close-knit neighborhood.
“If you see there is something you can do you better react — you have to react,” he said. “If there is anything in your ability to help someone, you just have to do it.”
Anthony Perry, a Smithsonian Street resident, was concerned about his 82-year-old friend and her son, who suffers from Down syndrome, after the family witnessed virtually all of the windows in their Washington Avenue home blown out by the force of the explosion.
He said the woman and her son ran out of the house after hearing the blast thinking a portion of their home had exploded.
The woman and her son are now staying with relatives a short distance away on Lincoln Avenue.
Early Friday and throughout the day residents congregated on various parts of the street discussing the issue. Moran said neighbors gathered on his porch until the early morning hours the night of the explosion discussing the matter, speculating and thinking of what may have caused such an explosion.