By Dinesh Ramde
The Associated Press
 AP Photo/Darren Hauck Firefighters and emergency crews respond to the explosion that destroyed a church and damaged two homes in downtown Oconomowoc, Wis., Wednesday. |
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. — An explosion in a Milwaukee suburb Wednesday demolished a church, damaged two homes and injured seven people, including three firefighters, authorities said.
Road and sewer work was being done in downtown Oconomowoc before the explosion occurred around 1:30 p.m., said Bob Duffy, the city’s economic development director. The blast and flying debris knocked over several workers, he said.
WE Energies had received a call from a contractor about an hour earlier, saying workers smelled gas and may have hit a line, company spokesman Brian Manthey said. The company sent out a crew, and at least one of its workers was injured, he said.
Another WE Energies spokesman, Rick James, said he did not yet know whether natural gas caused the explosion. But the company turned off natural gas service to about 150 customers in the area around First Baptist Church Oconomowoc, and emergency workers evacuated nearby homes and businesses.
Two investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were sent to the scene, said Christine Zortman, assistant area director in Milwaukee.
One person was flown to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital and was being evaluated, hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Bellin said. Four others, including a firefighter, were taken to Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital with cuts, bruises and abrasions, administrative assistant Jeanne Ward said.
Duffy said two other firefighters suffered minor injuries, but he did not know their whereabouts.
White smoke billowed from what remained of the nearly century-old church and a neighboring home Wednesday afternoon, obscuring the view of the 100 or so people who had gathered outside.
Joy Freudenstein, 30, was cleaning her house about three blocks from the church when she heard a boom. She immediately thought it was an earthquake.
“It shook my house,” Freudenstein said. “It sounded like someone downstairs blew something up.”
Waukesha County Board Supervisor Kenneth Herro, who works a block away as a real estate agent, said he heard and felt the explosion and walked to the scene.
“We have really large windows, all the windows just kind of bowed out,” he said.
He said he smelled natural gas and ambulances were pulling away as he arrived. One house on each side of the church was on fire, he said.
“The church basically had disappeared,” Herro said.
First Baptist Church was built in 1913, said Arlo Reichter, executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin. It has about 35 members, mainly in their late 70s and 80s, said Sam Brink, who has served as temporary pastor since January.
Congregants had been especially fond of the church’s stained glass windows and pipe organ, Brink said, but the greatest loss was to a decades-old collection of sermons recorded on CDs.
“That’s an oral history, and now it’s gone forever,” he said. “So many memories, gone.”