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Shortly before 1:00pm on Wednesday, residents of an Evansville, Indiana neighborhood heard and heard an earth-shattering rumble.
“It sounded like a sonic boom,” Dorthy Waters told WFIE. “I thought a bomb fell on us or like a tree through the house; it shook so hard it went through my chest, it shook my windows.”
A house in the center of the city of about 116,000 had exploded, sending debris 100 feet in every direction. At least three people were killed and one was injured, authorities said. Thirty-nine houses were damaged by the explosion.
Authorities have not determined the cause of the explosion, which occurred in the 1000 block of North Weinbach Avenue, Evansville Fire Chief Mike Connelly told reporters at the scene Wednesday afternoon. He said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was conducting an “explosive analysis” at the site, temporarily halting the search for possible missing residents.
“There could be other victims,” Connelly said. “We have not yet completed our search.”
It is unclear if that search has been resumed. Evansville’s police and fire departments did not immediately respond to messages from The Washington Post. A message left with ATF was not immediately returned. A representative of the Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office, which had previously confirmed all three fatalities to the media, told The Post that no further information was available as of Wednesday night.
Officials have not publicly identified the victims.
Soundless video of the explosion, captured from the street and released by WFIE, shows gray smoke and debris shooting into the air over a house surrounded by trees. Surveillance footage from a nearby home, released by the Evansville Courier & Press, shows a storm of debris raining down on the neighborhood immediately after the explosion.
“We thought a tree fell on the building or a car drove into the place,” Jacki Baumgart, who works in an office two blocks from the blast site, told the Associated Press. “Debris has fallen from the ceiling.”
“Everyone here immediately left the building,” he added. “We thought the building was going down.”
Vincent Taylor, who was working on a roof two blocks away, described the scene as “total devastation”.
“A lot of people lost everything down here. Their houses are totally gone,” he told WFIE.
The fire department said 11 of the 39 homes damaged are uninhabitable. The fire chief told reporters late Wednesday that homes closest to the blast were in “poor condition” and that some residents may not be able to return to their homes for the rest of the week. He said debris covered a 100-foot radius around the blast site.
The house explosion is the second in Evansville in recent years. In 2017, a natural gas explosion destroyed a home, killing two people and seriously injuring three, the Courier & Press reported. Surviving victims of the blast sued CenterPoint Energy, alleging the source was to blame, but lost after a judge dismissed the suit for lack of evidence, the newspaper reported.
Wednesday’s explosion happened just blocks from the site of the 2017 explosion. The Evansville Police Department said in a Facebook post that the area will be closed for the “foreseeable future,” adding that his “thoughts are with those closely involved in the explosion.”
Other officials echoed his concerns.
“My heart goes out to the family and friends of those killed or injured in today’s devastating explosion in Evansville,” state Rep. Ryan Hatfield (D) tweeted Wednesday. “I am in contact with local authorities and following this tragic situation closely.”
Connelly said the Red Cross had responded and set up a shelter for affected residents at a nearby elementary school.
Roxane Weber told WFIE she was worried about her neighbors as well as the condition of her home.
“It’s mostly seniors on that end,” Weber told the station. “It was like a bomb went off near us. The whole left side of our house the windows blew out, and I have cracks everywhere. It’s like we have an old plastered house.”