Investigators search for cause of explosion that wrecked house

Jace Radke

Friday, Dec. 11, 1998 | 11:34 a.m.

Police and fire investigators today were to begin looking into the cause of an explosion that destroyed a home near downtown Thursday afternoon.

The resident of the home at 1402 E. St. Louis Ave., a 76-year-old man whose name has not been released, was taken to University Medical Center where he is listed in good condition this morning.

A spokesman for Southwest Gas said their own investigators won't be able to begin their work of inspecting the scene until the city investigators are finished.

"Right now, there's lots of debris on the ground were our lines are," said Roger Buehrer. "We can't get to the lines till the debris is moved."

And the debris won't be moved until the city completes its investigation.

Just before 3 p.m. Thursday the home, east of Maryland Parkway, exploded from what investigators believe was a faulty gas heater.

"I was in my front yard and I saw a huge chunk of the house that was as big as my carport fly into the air," said Robert Barnett, who lives one street over from where the explosion occurred. "Furniture and pieces of the house flew twice as high as the trees and then got sucked back in like a void."

The roof of the house was blown off in the explosion, and both police and gas company investigators had to deal with an unstable environment as they made their way into the home, Buehrer said.

The resident in the home at the time of the explosion suffered moderate injuries, and two children who were outside next door were hit by some debris but suffered only minor injuries, Metro police officer Steve Meriwether said.

Between 20 and 30 people were evacuated from their homes for a few hours Thursday afternoon until the gas to the home could be pinched off, Meriwether said.