House Exploded in St. Clair Shores

Well it's been on all the local news channels this evening, and will likely be in the newspapers tomorrow... but a house exploded into flames on Yale St. [[near 11 Mile/I-94) in St. Clair Shores around 2:15PM Thursday. I know, since my house is only about 400 ft. from the exploding house.

I got home about 20 minutes after the loud explosion, but my neighbors [[who heard the explosion) thought there was a nuclear blast, it was so loud. It was a multi-alarm fire, since trucks were there from Roseville, as well as SCS. They had Channel 2, 4, 7 news trucks parked nearby and 4 hours of traffic gridlock for sightseeing onlookers and street closures.

The only occupant of the house, a 83 year old woman, was turning on her dryer when the explosion occurred. Luckily neighbors got in and rescued her. However she had burns over much of her body, and also broken bones.

The explosion blew all the bricks off the house, as well as tossing furniture out of the exploding windows. The wooden framing of the house and severely sagging roof of the house survive. Ironically neither house on either side of it had much damage... just rubble on their roofs, and building insulation flying at least 200 ft. in all directions.

Neighbors had been complaining for 3 days about the smell of gas, and my neighbors kids said they smelled gas on the way to school this morning. CMS Energy came by, but didn't smell anything, from what I gathered from the neighbors. And then they left without action. Later tragedy struck.

St. Clair Shores is built on a former swamp. I sometimes feel like I'm swimming in an ocean of clay, since many of me and my neighbors have had either our lawns dug up [[sewer pipe or drainage tile replacements), basement walls reinforced due to bowing, or gas lines rupturing [[4 years ago my next door neighbor had their front lawn dug up because we both smelled gas on the front lawn). It's just too bad that this particular situation wasn't resolved in a timely manner.

My neighbor lady is in my prayers, although I don't think [[at her age) that she will recover from her injuries. If infection doesn't get her, pneumonia likely will.

Thoughts and prayers to your neighbor. Glad there wasn't more harm or casualties, as gas explosions can be very nasty.

Back in 1999 or so, while I was living on University, at Harper and Morang, a house exploded a few blocks away, down the street from the old Citgo station and we felt our house shake violently.

I remember the homes on both sides were pretty messed up and the house across the street had their front windows totally blown out by flying debris.

It's good to hear she survived. From the sounds of it, she was very fortunate.

As for CMS, they should be held fully accountable for this if indeed they were negligent. It's their job to be sure these type of incidents do not happen. The thought that so many people noticed a gas leak and the professionals did not act quickly enough raises quite a bit of concern.

Channel 4 reported this morning that the woman has passed away.

Well, I was going to say, one is NOT fortunate to 'survive' such an incident at that age with those injuries. At least she's out of pain.

Thanks Maof... our prayers are with her family....

I had seen several St. Clair Shores city council members at the fire yesterday. I can imagine that the city is really going to be giving CMS Energy an earful.

I drove up to the house today to look at the ruins. The city removed the temporary orange plastic fencing and replaced it with a 6 ft. tall cyclone fence around the perimeter of the house.

While there I was talking with a couple who were standing on the sidewalk. Turns out it was the son and daughter-in-law of the poor deceased woman [[he was an only child). He lives up in northern Michigan, and we chatted for a while. He and his wife were still in shock over the incident, as can be expected.

He was allowed into the house on Friday to try to retrieve any valuables or mementos, but said that there was little that was salvagable.

He wasn't sure what his plans were, but said that he wanted to make sure that this doesn't happen again to another family.

The city [[SCS) is going to have this fully investigated, and I'm sure that includes interviewing all the neighbors.