By Jane Hawes
he Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
DELAWARE, Ohio — A duplex on Delaware’s east side exploded and burned to the ground early yesterday afternoon, but the owners walked out of the wreckage, barefoot but alive.
“I was turning the corner in my truck,” said Fred Bennett, who lives a block away from the wood-frame duplex, which exploded at 145-7 Cheshire St. “I saw all kinds of smoke and debris, and then I saw Vickie and Rick coming out, and I got them into my truck. They were shook up good, but they were fine.”
Bennett, returning home from a dental appointment, picked up his neighbors, Vickie and Rick Rice, and kept them in his truck until firefighters and medics arrived. The Rices were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Delaware and were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, said Delaware City Fire Chief John Donahue.
The call from Bennett’s grandson, Nick Gale, had come into police at 12:28 p.m., and units from six fire companies across Delaware County began arriving within six minutes, Donahue said.
The cause of the blast is under investigation, Donahue said. Gale said the explosion seemed to come from the back of the home where a Columbia Gas meter was located. The north side of the duplex was unoccupied, said Gale’s grandmother Dorothy Bennett.
“It sounded like someone had dropped a bomb,” said Gale, whose home is less than 200 yards east of the explosion site. Mrs. Bennett said that many in the neighborhood, particularly to the east of the Rices, had noticed a strong smell of gas earlier yesterday, but her husband said the Rices told him they had noticed nothing within the home.
“They said they had just been watching TV in the living room, and the next thing they knew, the whole world around them had exploded,” Mr. Bennett said.
Burnt shreds of pink insulation hung from trees throughout the neighborhood. The windows of another neighbor’s home at 139 Cheshire St., on the adjacent north lot, were blown in and the siding had melted. The Rices’ garage also was severely damaged by fire. The neighbor’s house was unoccupied, Donahue said, and no other homes were damaged.
The explosion was felt as far away as St. Mary School and Delaware City Hall, 1 mile west. Fifth-grade teacher Diane Blasko, whose classroom is on the top floor of the three-story school, said she and her students felt the blast.
“It almost felt like a mini-quake, and you knew something had exploded,” Blasko said. “I just can’t believe no one was hurt.”
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