Families finally go home
Five days after they were forced to evacuate, residents of six houses near the site of a natural-gas explosion began returning to their homes Monday night.
"It’s nice to just be able to sit down in your own house," Linda Alberts said.
Members of the Alberts family said they wouldn’t be spending the night, because the house still hadn’t warmed up after heat and electricity had been shut off. But they brought home blankets and other items they took with them while they stayed at the Quality Inn.
Alberts said that on the morning of the explosion, she heard a "sonic boom." She saw firefighters dousing the flames just down the street as she left for work.
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The residents in the damaged home — Robert Welchlin and Elizabeth Beach, and a renter, Alex Loumann — all escaped injury.
"I thought they’d put the fire out and life would go back to normal for us," Alberts said. "I was surprised when we all were evacuated."
The leak was repaired within a day, gas had been trapped under frost in the ground. It since has been ventilated.
