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Explosion levels Youngstown house
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An unidentified person is loaded into an ambulance immediately after the explosion. It is unclear if the person was injured from debris when the house blew up about 3 p.m. Wednesday.
House Explosion
Video
YOUNGSTOWN
Officials from the Youngstown Fire Department and Dominion East Ohio Gas Co. are trying to determine what led to a house explosion that rocked a West Side neighborhood.
Peace in the area surrounding Hazelwood and Connecticut avenues was interrupted shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday when neighbors heard an explosion that sent dozens of people running out of their homes to investigate.
Children in the Lopez family were already outside less than 50 yards from the corner house when it exploded and crumbled. The four children, ranging in age from 9 to 14, were sitting on their front porch at the time of the explosion.
Yesenia Lopez, their mother, said she is grateful that none was injured by flying debris.
“I was down in the basement, and I heard what sounded like three explosions: a small boom, another boom and then the big one, a loud bang. I heard my daughter scream and just came running upstairs,” Lopez said.
Maria Lopez, 9, said she heard the explosion and saw only smoke and rubble before covering her eyes and running in the house toward her mother.
Frank Rosa, fire department battalion chief, said the explosion seems to have been set off by escaping natural gas. He said fire crews could still smell natural gas in the air when they arrived at the Hazelwood Avenue location.
Rosa said firefighters were told that someone may have been in the house trying to remove pipes from the basement — something most neighbors in the area seem to believe. He said firefighters checked the rubble for victims but did not find anybody in or near the house.
Firefighters stood by waiting for representatives from Dominion to arrive at the scene and completely disconnect any gas service to the house. They also called for heavy equipment to be supplied by the Youngstown Street Department to move large pieces of fallen debris and do a more thorough inspection for potential victims.
Police also were on the scene. A transformer that malfunctioned at City Hall earlier in the day that caused portions of the building to lose power didn’t delay police response to the explosion, said police Chief Jimmy Hughes.
Several ambulances were at the site immediately after the explosion, and at least one person was placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance, but Rosa said he is unsure if that person was being treated in relation to the explosion.
Youngstown police, according to scanner traffic, dispatched officers to a nearby hospital to speak with a man who said his car windows were blown out by the explosion, and he was now having trouble hearing.
Lopez said the now-destroyed home has been vacant for at least the last five years. She said there had not been any problem with vagrants at the home. Only the owners would be seen coming and going from the house, she said.
Residents from as far as four blocks away heard the explosion. Mike Clemens, who lives several blocks away, was resting inside his home when he heard the explosion and ran outside with several members of his family.
“It shook everything in the neighborhood. It was loud. We didn’t know what happened out here,” he said.