CLEVELAND — A house explosion shook a neighborhood and leveled a home on the city’s East Side, and crews are still trying to figure our what caused it.
The Fire Department and Dominion East Ohio Gas are investigating the scene, and spent hours going through the rubble.
The debris from the explosion scattered all across the streets and into neighbors’ yards.
Nothing remains of the home, and the Fire Department is still working to determine the cause of the explosion.
Fortunately, no one was living there, and no injuries have been reported.
But some neighbors were pretty shaken up.
“There was a boom and a big flash,” a neighbor said. “Something I never heard in my life. Boom! That’s how it went.”
“You looked across the street and the whole house was crumpled down,” a woman who lives across the street said.
Neighbors say it shook their homes. The Fire Department got the call around 12:45 p.m. They arrived at the corner of East 112th Street and Sandusky Avenue within minutes.
The house was engulfed in flames, and smoke spread through the neighborhood.
“We’ve very fortunate, the time of day — kids were in school, people at work. Had this been a different time of day, had it been early morning or late afternoon, it could have been a lot more strenuous and dangerous,” Cleveland Fire Department spokesman Larry Gray said.
No other homes had to be evacuated, but a few were damaged. Windows were blown out by the explosion, just part of the debris that landed in neighbors’ yards and kept demolition crews busy for hours.
The Fire Department thinks it may have been a gas leak, but that hasn’t been determined yet. Dominion East Ohio Gas confirms their records show an active account at the house. Despite no one living there, the neighbors say it was much more than a vacant piece of property.
“It’s hard to put into words. I don’t know what to say. I grew up in this house, ever since I was 6 months,” homeowner Debbie Jenkins said. “It’s part of us.”
Everyone is thankful that it appears no one was hurt inside the home, but the Fire Department is still searching the rubble to make sure.