Two people were killed and one person was injured in an explosion at a house in Bel Air, Maryland, Sunday morning, officials said.
The deceased were described as a utility contractor already at the property to check out a report of a gas leak and the home’s 73-year-old owner, who was preparing that day to meet a real estate agent about putting the residence up for sale, said Master Deputy State Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire.
The injured person, a neighbor who suffered cuts and bruises, declined treatment, he said.
Identities of the deceased will be released by a medical examiner later, Alkire said at an afternoon news conference.
“He was preparing to actually list his home for sale today,” Alkire said of the 73-year-old.
The man used a wheelchair, he said, and his body was found amid the post-explosion rubble at the site. Investigators will be at the property for as long as three weeks trying to determine an exact cause, with the origin of the gas leak being a focus of the probe, Alkire said.
He said an electricity issue in the area was reported to Baltimore Gas and Electric Company on Saturday night, and BGE planned to send a crew in the morning to address the issue.
Separately, a Harford County Public Works employee went to the area Sunday morning to mark the ground with spray paint above water and sewer lines in order to alert anyone working there to avoid digging there, said Joe Cluster, the county’s chief of executive staff.
The worker’s assignment had nothing to do with reports of gas or electricity issues, which would be under the purview of the utility company, he said. Amid that task, the county worker smelled gas and made an initial report, Cluster said, by notifying BGE.
The county worker left, and Baltimore Gas and Electric workers arrived, Alkire said. Then, the explosion happened, he said.
Alkire described the dead utility worker as a Baltimore Gas and Electric contractor. Baltimore Gas and Electric said in a statement that its contractors were “on site responding to an electric service matter at the time of the incident.”
Hammer Utility Corp., which specializes in subterranean utility contracting, said in a statement that it employed the deceased worker.
The dispatch time for the Harford County Fire and EMS Association after the 911 call about the gas leak was 6:42 a.m., Alkire said at an earlier news conference. As first responders approached the scene, they were told there had been a house explosion, he said.
The timeline could be key to an investigation joined by federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and detectives with the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, Alkire said.
County firefighters found a debris field when they arrived at the scene and called for additional help, said Harford County Fire spokesperson Jeffrey Sexton, who also spoke at the morning briefing.
Video and pictures from the scene show that the house where the explosion took place was destroyed, with piles of debris remaining in the surrounding area. A neighbor’s home also appeared to be damaged, the imagery showed.
“I’ve been on the job for nearly 18 years; this is one of the largest explosions I’ve seen,” Alkire said.
Around 60 personnel from multiple fire and emergency service agencies were on the scene to assist with the explosion, Sexton said.
Authorities were still assessing damage, with multiple structures expected to have been affected, including the residence next door, home of the injured neighbor, Alkire said.
While there is no current threat to the public from the explosion, Alkire asked the public to stay away from “the vast debris area that’s around the scene” and not fly any personal drones in its airspace.
Lisa Czawlytko and her daughter were near the explosion when it happened.
“We’re in a top floor of a condo building with no elevator, so the whole building was shaking,” Czawlytko told NBC affiliate WBAL of Baltimore. “We are about 0.3 miles from where the blast happened, and I thought it was a major earthquake.”
“I thought it was a bomb,” her daughter said.
Megan Weeks wasn’t home when the explosion happened but received a call from her wife after their babysitter told her all the windows at their house blew in.
“It was pretty scary,” Weeks said. “All I could think about was just leaving work and coming home as soon as possible.”
Thankfully, their daughter and babysitter weren’t hurt. Weeks’ home was left with damage to the roof, windows and even some of the walls and the ceiling inside.
Weeks was shocked by the magnitude of the destruction when she walked to the scene of the explosion.
“I’m actually nervous about — I mean, that could very well happen to one of our homes as well,” she said.
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