Deadly blast devastates Indianapolis neighborhood

[mrclose]

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Splintered beams and boards on a piece of charred earth were all that remained Sunday where at least two Indianapolis homes were leveled in a blast that killed two people and rendered homes for blocks uninhabitable.

A backhoe raked through the rubble in the middle-class subdivision as clusters of firefighters and rescue workers weary from a long, chaotic day that began late the night before waited for their next assignment.

The two-story, brick-faced homes on either side of those demolished by the blast were ruins. One home's roof was gone, a blackened husk left behind. On the other side of the gap, the side of a home was sheared off. Across the street, garage doors had buckled from the heat.

It wasn't yet clear what caused the blast that shook the neighborhood at 11 p.m. Saturday. Residents described hearing a loud boom that blew out windows and collapsed ceilings. Some thought a plane had crashed or that it was an earthquake.


Associated Press

[Revolution]

Holy CRAP! I wonder if it was muliple gas lines under the house? Maybe they interfered with sewage lines, and methane under that one house that got the worst of it?

Wonder if Bob&Tom will cover it on Kristi's news this morning? I know they're out of Indy.

Wow...

[zeitgeist]

I remember seeing similar results from a blast caused when a propane tank, stored in a cellar, had leaked filling the cellar with the right air fuel mixture.  One spark and ka-boom.  I am always very leary of gas, natural or otherwise as I am with other highly volitile combustables.  Things that can go boom usually do at some point.  That said, I loved making hydrogen and oxygen in chemistry class then playing with a burning splint.

[ColonelCarrots]

Some people at church we talking about it. This lady has friend who live in Indianapolis and said they heard it the explosions 15 miles away and felt it.

[jtyangel]

I remember seeing similar results from a blast caused when a propane tank, stored in a cellar, had leaked filling the cellar with the right air fuel mixture.  One spark and ka-boom.  I am always very leary of gas, natural or otherwise as I am with other highly volitile combustables.  Things that can go boom usually do at some point.  That said, I loved making hydrogen and oxygen in chemistry class then playing with a burning splint.

See this is why I drain any gas before winter out of the 2 gallon jug I keep for the lawnmower(goes in the car) and keep the empty propane tank(assuming it's mostly empty) on the side of the garage where there's plenty of ventilation for any escaping leftovers if it leaks at all. I still am leary of natural gas though and I have it here, but there's only so much one can worry about and it's needed to heat and cook. As a side note, a girl I worked with many years ago lost her fiancee and a good portion of his family in a gas explosion(oven was cooking Tgiving dinner no less and something happened with it--faulty something or other) Think this was in Chicago area back in the '90's. She was also badly injured and took the better part of 2 years recuperating. We met her fiancee just a couple months before when he visited her out in Arizona and we all went to a ballgame together with other folks from work. :-(

[Kyle Ricky]

They were saying this morning that it wasn't a gas leak, and they have no idea how it happen?

[DefiantSix]

They were saying this morning that it wasn't a gas leak, and they have no idea how it happen?

Does anybody know if there were Amish radicals in the neighborhood? 

[Kyle Ricky]

Does anybody know if there were Amish radicals in the neighborhood? 

Horse manure and fertilizer? Where was Eric Holder at yesterday? Did he supply the stuff to these people also?

[jtyangel]

I read something today that said they think it was a faulty furnace in the house that exploded. The people were not there at the time. The two casualties appear to have been the house right next door to that that was also demolished:(

[longview]

Anyone know where exactly the Richmond Hill subdivision is?  I'm headed to Indy and Louisville in two days.

My sympathies to the families who lost loved ones or had their homes damaged.

Oh, frick, no problem (Google is my friend).  That's way too close to where I'll be.  No wonder no one mentioned it today on the phone.  They know how much I hate going anyway.  Nice people out there(mostly), just too many of them.

My first thought was too big a house and subsidizing their income with meth.  

[debk]

We had this happen here. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/dec/03/parents-sue-kub-over-09-home-blast/

Relatively new million dollar home they had only been in for a year. It was finally determined there was a gas leak in the house, which the owners had reported and someone had been out to check a couple of times and found nothing.

Destroyed the house. Daughter had been home, but left to go back down to campus. Husband and wife were not only blown out of their bed (they were asleep) but all the way out into the backyard. Teenage son was in basement, and was killed.

There was nothing left of the house, and it blew out windows and did significant damage to neighboring homes. We lived about 4-5 miles away as the crow flies and it shook our house - we thought it was an earthquake.

[txradioguy]

Same kind of thing happened in Indy when I was there for AIT in 1992.