BALTIMORE—A natural gas explosion destroyed three-row houses in Baltimore on Aug. 10, killing a woman and trapping other people in the wreckage. At least four people were hospitalized with serious injuries as firefighters searched for more survivors.
Dozens of firefighters converged on the piles of rubble. A fourth house in the row was ripped open, and windows were shattered in nearby homes, leaving the Reisterstown Station neighborhood in northwest Baltimore strewn with debris and glass.
“It’s a disaster. It’s a mess. It’s unbelievable,” said Diane Glover, who lives across the street. The explosion shattered her windows and blew open her front door, bending the frame. “I’m still shaken up,” she said hours later.
A woman was pronounced dead at the scene, while four of the homes’ occupants were hospitalized — including a man who was in critical condition and two other men in serious but stable condition, officials said. Rescuers were painstakingly going through the wreckage by hand. About two hours after the morning explosion, a line of firefighters removed a person on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
Baltimore Fire Department spokeswoman Blair Adams said at least five people were inside, maybe more, when the homes exploded.
“They were beneath the rubble,” Adams said. “You have homes that were pretty much crumbled ... A ton of debris on the ground. So, we’re pulling and trying to comb through to see if we can find any additional occupants.”
While the cause wasn’t immediately clear, The Baltimore Sun reported in 2019 that dangerous gas leaks have become much more frequent, with nearly two dozen discovered each day on average, according to the utility’s reports to federal authorities. The Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. have thousands of miles of obsolete pipes that need to be replaced, an effort that would cost nearly $1 billion and take two decades, the newspaper said.
“We are on the scene and working closely with the fire department to make the situation safe,“ BGE spokeswoman Linda Foy said, without answering any questions from reporters. ”Once the gas is off, we can begin to safely assess the situation, including inspections of BGE equipment.”
Glover, 56, and her 77-year-old father, Moses Glover, were at home when the massive explosion shook their house, knocking over a fan and some of her DVDs.
“I jumped up to see what was going on. I looked out the bathroom window and there was a house on the ground,” she said. “It sounded like a bomb went off.”
Neighbors scrambled toward the rubble, calling out for survivors. Kevin Matthews, who lives on the block, told The Sun that he could hear trapped children shouting: “Come get us! We’re stuck!” Firefighters and police officers then showed up and took over.
Barry Leventhal, whose warehouse equipment business is about 150 feet (46 meters) from the blast site, said he was in his warehouse when the explosion shook his building, damaging lights and a concrete wall.
Leventhal ran into an office to check on his son-in-law. Fortunately, none of the company’s 10 employees was injured.
“We thought a plane crashed or something. We couldn’t figure it out,” said Leventhal, the owner of Everything Warehouse.
BGE asked the Maryland Public Service Commission to approve a new gas system infrastructure and a cost recovery mechanism in late 2017 to pay for upgrades.
“Founded in 1816, BGE is the oldest gas distribution company in the nation. Like many older gas systems, a larger portion of its gas main and services infrastructure consists of cast iron and bare steel – materials that are obsolete and susceptible to failure with age,” the PSC wrote in a 2018 order approving a modernization plan.
