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Just before 1 p.m. Wednesday, residents of a neighborhood in Evansville, Indiana, heard and felt an earth-shattering rumble.
“It sounded like a sonic boom,” Dorthy Waters told WFIE. “I thought a bomb had fallen on us or like a tree had fallen 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 injured, officials said. Thirty-nine houses were damaged in the blast.
Authorities have not determined the cause of the explosion that 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 a “blast analysis” at the site, temporarily suspending the search for possible missing residents.
“There could be other victims,” Connolly said. “We haven’t finished our search yet.”
It is unclear if the search has been resumed. Evansville fire and police 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 previously confirmed the three deaths to news outlets, told The Post that no additional information was available as of Wednesday evening.
Authorities have not publicly identified the victims.
Silent video of the explosion, shot from down the street and released by WFIE, showed gray smoke and debris billowing high into the air above a house shrouded in trees. Surveillance footage from a nearby home, released by the Evansville Courier & Press, showed a snowstorm of debris raining down on the neighborhood immediately after the explosion.
“We thought a tree had fallen on the building or a car had hit the site,” Jackie Baumgart, who works in an office about two blocks from the blast site, told The Associated Press. “Debris fell from the ceiling.”
“Everybody here immediately ran out of the building,” she added. “We thought the building was going to collapse.”
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 completely gone,” he told WFIE.
The fire department said 11 of the 39 damaged homes were uninhabitable. The fire chief told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the houses closest to the explosion were in “poor condition” and that some residents may not be able to return to their homes until the end 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. Survivors of the explosion sued CenterPoint Energy, claiming the company was at fault, but lost after a judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence, the newspaper reported.
Wednesday’s explosion happened just blocks from the site of an explosion in 2017. The Evansville Police Department said in a Facebook post that the area will be closed for the “foreseeable future,” adding that its “thoughts are with those closely involved in the explosion”.
Other officials have voiced their concerns.
“My heart goes out to the family and friends of those killed or injured in the devastating explosion in Evansville today,” Congressman Ryan Hatfield (D) tweeted Wednesday. “I am in contact with local authorities and following this tragic situation closely.”
Connolly said the Red Cross responded and set up a shelter for affected residents at a nearby elementary school.
Roxanne Weber told WFIE she worries about her neighbors as well as the condition of her own home.
“It’s mostly older people from there,” Weber told the station. “It was like a bomb went off near us. The entire left side of our house windows blew out and I have cracks everywhere. It’s like we have an old plastered house.”
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