By Alexis Stevens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CALHOUN, Ga. — Investigators aren’t sure what caused an explosion that annihilated one Calhoun home and damaged 18 others. No serious injuries were reported Thursday night.
Officials from Atlanta Gas Light, the Georgia Public Safety Commission and the state fire marshal’s office will return this morning to the scene of the explosion, said Terry Mills, assistant fire chief for Calhoun. They will continue trying to figure out what caused the blast, he said.
“You start a piece at a time and dig from one piece to the other and hope you find a clue,” Mills said. “It’s a slow, tedious process. And sometimes you never know.”
The North Georgia neighborhood was evacuated.
“We have turned off all of the utilities until we can determine how safe the structures are,” Mills told the AJC.
The blast, which happened just before 4 p.m. at a three-story home in the 100 block of Saddle Mountain Drive, affected nearby homes.
Eighteen other homes in the upscale neighborhood were also affected by the explosion, officials said. The neighborhood is just east of I-75, about 65 miles north of downtown Atlanta.
“Every house has the windows blown out,” Mills said. “It’s really, really incredible.”
Although some people suffered bumps and scrapes because of the force of the explosion, no serious injuries have been reported, Mills said. Many residents were not home at the time, he said, and students had not yet gotten off the school bus.
Front windows from one nearby home were blown out through the rear of the house, he said.
“It’s a miracle that all of these people were gone when this happened,” Mills said.
Footage of the explosion site recorded from above Gordon County by WSB TV’s News Chopper 2 showed only scattered shards of wood and plaster where a sizable house once stood.
“It just made your head hurt, it was so loud,” Calhoun resident Linda Rogers told WSB Radio.
“I was sitting in the backyard in our swing, and all of a sudden we heard an awful boom,” said Rogers, who lives about a mile from the source of the explosion. “The ground shook and my back door glass fell out ... neighbor’s windows were broken out.”
Donna Hooper said the explosion shook her mobile home, off of nearby Lover’s Lane. “It shook it like a bomb or something,” Hooper told the AJC. Gordon County building inspectors are checking each home before any residents will be allowed to return to them, Mills said.
Staff writer Marcus K. Garner contributed to this article.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution