Caught on Cam: Home Explosion Rocks Neighborhood, Multiple Victims

cam

One of those fancy doorbell cam devices caught something you don’t see every day, the house across the street exploding. Whatever it was that detonated totally vaporized a suburban home, occupied by a young couple with three children. Six people are reported hospitalized, including two adult neighbors and the couple’s three kids.

Cam records massive explosion

Law enforcement and fire officials are still scratching their heads over exactly what happened. The fact that the evidence is scattered for blocks doesn’t help. They believe a gas leak was involved but they aren’t sure which appliance was leaking or what part of the house it was in.

Another factor is possible lightning strike from an isolated storm overhead, which may have ignited a pocket of accumulated gas. The doorbell cam on the house across the street flared out from the flash as debris rained down.

The home near West Park Boulevard and Coit Road in Plano, Texas, exploded suddenly around 4:40 p.m. on Monday, July 19 as recorded by the cam across the street.

According to local residents, a “couple with three young children had just moved into the neighborhood about a month ago.” One family friend reports “the husband had to have emergency surgery to remove glass and debris from his body.”

Several people called 911 to report the blast, Fire-Rescue Captain Peggy Harrell relates. “They were using the phrase, ‘completely gone,’ so we knew it was serious,” The neighbor sharing the cam footage notes, you “can hear the loud bang from the explosion, then see smoke billow out and debris rain down.”

His own house was damaged but he’s not sure how bad because “investigators won’t let him inside. This is a disaster!”

A mile away

According to Captain Harrell, the gas leak was “isolated solely to the home where the explosion occurred,” so nobody else is in danger.

“Some windows were knocked out on homes across the street,” she explains, including the one who had the doorbell cam. Some residents reported they felt the explosion from a mile away, including staff at the Haggard Library.

A resident from two blocks away heard a “really aggressive lightning strike” followed by two big booms. “After that explosion happened, my walls were vibrating, everything in the house was vibrating,” he described.

“It felt like my whole house had shifted over.” When he saw the doorbell cam video he was glad he doesn’t live closer.

When Plano Mayor John Muns viewed the cam footage, he called the explosion a “tragedy.” Atmos Energy, Oncor and fire department investigators are all looking into the cause of the explosion.

Officials from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded, where they used a dog to rule out the existence of any explosives. Authorities have ruled out foul play, but are still trying to determine where exactly the explosion happened.