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At least two people were killed, and more than a dozen homes damaged or destroyed after a large explosion rocked a south side neighborhood late Saturday night.
At least four other houses were set ablaze. Homes for more than a block in each direction of the explosion were also damaged, reports CBS Affiliate WISH.
Indianapolis Fire Department spokesperson Bonnie Hensley said a couple of firefighters said it looked like a war zone.
Hensley said about 200 people were taken to a shelter at Mary Bryan Elementary School. About 15-20 people remained overnight and were being assisted by the American Red Cross.
“I was in the area when I heard the explosion,” said Marion County Sheriff John Layton. “I just followed the flames, along with several other IMPD officers, off-duty and retired officers were going door-to-door to clear homes . . . even for an old cop it was surreal.”
Fire crews said four people have been transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
A loud explosion leveled a home in Indianapolis and set four others ablaze, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012.
/ AP Photo/The Indianapolis Star, Matt Kryger
Citizens Energy shut off gas to all the homes in the subdivision and investigated potential gas issues in the neighborhood. An official said the company had received no reports of gas odors in the area, and no gas leaks had been discovered as of early Sunday morning.
Indianapolis Fire Department planned to continue investigating Sunday morning when daylight was available.
Residents living near the scene recounted their experiences after the explosion. Kurt McDonald, his son and nephew lived near the exploded home and rushed to the scene to help rescue a trapped family. He told WISH correspondent Dustin Grove that when they went outside, “It was like it was snowing, all the insulation falling down from the sky.”
Another neighbor, who lived across the street, told WISH correspondent Teresa Mackin how his family escaped their home after the explosion.
“We were in the house and glass went flying everywhere and the ceilings came down,” he said. “We don’t have a home, it was damaged beyond repair.”
© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Concerns about furnace fuel Indiana blast probe
AP) INDIANAPOLIS – As investigators try to determine what caused a deadly explosion that ravaged an Indianapolis subdivision, an expert says people shouldn’t be alarmed by a homeowner’s suggestion that his faulty furnace could be to blame.
Investigators have been looking at gas meters and pipelines as they try to figure out what happened Saturday night when a blast killed two people, obliterated two homes and left dozens more uninhabitable.
John Shirley and his ex-wife own one of the homes leveled in the explosion. Shirley, 50, of Noblesville, said his daughter told him recently that the furnace had gone out in the house she shares with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. He said his daughter told him the furnace was working again, but he wondered if a leak from the furnace could have led to the explosion that killed a couple next door. No one was in Shirley’s home at the time of the blast, he said.
Scott Davis, president and principal engineer of GexCon US, an explosion investigation firm in Bethesda, Md., said it’s hard to believe a furnace could cause the damage seen in the Indianapolis neighborhood. He noted that most furnaces have multiple safety switches that must be triggered before any gas is used.
“For a furnace to allow that much gas through, you’d have to defeat many of the safety features,” he said.
Public Safety Director Troy Riggs said investigators will treat the area as a crime scene until they rule out foul play. Local and federal investigators say it’s too soon to rule on a cause but are slowly weeding out some possibilities.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to check the integrity of a gas main and other lines serving the neighborhood, and local gas supplier Citizens Energy said it also was checking gas lines.
“It’s too early to speculate that this might have been caused by a gas leak,” Citizens Energy spokeswoman Sarah Holsapple said.
Gas explosions have leveled neighborhoods before, including a 2011 explosion that killed five in Allentown, Pa., and a blast in 2010 in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes. Both of those cases were tied to gas pipelines. A gas leak in a Colorado home last month sparked an explosion that sent five people to a hospital and damaged several nearby homes.
Davis said he’s seen a home explosion caused by a malfunctioning furnace before, but it did not level the house.
For an explosion to occur, he said, the amount of natural gas in a confined space must reach a certain level before it can ignite. In many cases, ventilation or a low flow of fuel prevents an explosion from being strong enough to level multiple houses, he said.
Holsapple said investigators are looking at the gas meter for the home believed to have been the starting point for the blast, but she wouldn’t comment on whether the house had unusually high gas usage in recent days.
The blast Saturday sparked a massive fire, blew out windows, collapsed ceilings and shook homes up to three miles away, forcing about 200 people out of their homes. The bodies of Jennifer Longworth, a popular second-grade teacher in the nearby suburb of Greenwood, and her husband John, a product developer for a consumer electronics company, were found in the basement of their home, which was destroyed.
Some residents who survived have been allowed to reoccupy their homes, and others will be escorted in to spend an hour to retrieve belongings in the coming days. Adam Collins, the city’s deputy code enforcement director, said 29 houses remained uninhabitable Monday.
Barry Chipman, whose house was damaged but is still habitable, hopes those who’ve lost their homes will rebuild. But he acknowledged Monday that the fabric of the close-knit neighborhood has been altered permanently.
“It’s never going to be the same when you’ve had people lost their lives,” he said.
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Associated Press researchers Lynn Dombek and Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
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Owner: Furnace may be behind Indiana blast that killed 2
INDIANAPOLIS – The owner of a house that exploded in Indianapolis, killing two people and damaging dozens of homes so severely officials say they must be demolished, said Monday that a problem furnace could be at fault.
John Shirley, 50, of Noblesville, told The Associated Press that his daughter sent him a text message last week complaining that the furnace in the home where she lives with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend had gone out and required them to stay at hotel.
But Shirley also said when he asked if the furnace had been fixed, his daughter said yes, and he wasn’t aware of any additional problems until he heard from his daughter again Sunday morning.
“I get a text from my daughter saying `Dad, our home is gone. Then I called my ex-wife and she said what happened,” he said.
His ex-wife, Monserrate Shirley, declined to comment Monday.
Investigators said they have not determined a cause for the Saturday night blast that sparked a massive fire, blew out windows, collapsed ceilings and shook homes up to three miles away. Public Safety Director Troy Riggs said the search for answers could take some time.
Utility workers have been inspecting gas mains in the neighborhood but so far have detected no leaks, a spokesman said.
The blast forced about 200 people out of their homes in the once-tidy neighborhood of one- and two-story single-family houses.
Some were allowed to return Sunday, and others were able to retrieve a few belongings. But those whose homes suffered the most damage will never be allowed back inside, officials said. They have estimated about 30 homes will need to be demolished.
Indianapolis code enforcement officials met Monday with homeowners at a nearby church to discuss insurance and demolition procedures and to make arrangements to take some to their homes for an hour to collect more belongings later in the day.
The blast flattened the house Shirley co-owns with his ex-wife and one next door that belongs to second-grade teacher Jennifer Longworth and her husband, John. The coroner’s office has not yet identified the two people killed in the blast, but a candlelight vigil was held Sunday night at the school where Jennifer Longworth teaches.
Indiana real estate records show Shirley’s house had been for sale for a year until it was taken off the market in March.
