'The worst thing': Neighbors struggle to move on 3 months after Evansville house explosion

EVANSVILLE — It’s been three months since an explosion killed three people and damaged 39 homes along North Weinbach Avenue in Evansville, but residents are still grappling with trauma, repairs and rehousing.

Rebecca Kamali, a hair stylist at Cut Loose Salon, located at 1013 Oak Hill Road, still thinks about the moment the blast knocked her glasses off her face and blew the salon’s door wide open.

“My coworker and I, we kind of had a little break between clients, so we’re both sitting there talking,” Kamali said. “That’s when the explosion went off.”

What happened next is hazy, but Kamali remembers stumbling out of the salon to check if anyone needed help. At the time, she thought the blast may have been a bomb. She feared another explosion could happen at any time.

“We kept thinking, is another round going to come through?” Kamali said. “Is something else going to blow up?”

More:Some questions about Evansville home explosion may never be answered

Kamali still thinks about the moment the blast hit – an experience she never expected to have and describes as “traumatic.” Doctors said she had a concussion in the weeks after the explosion. Her ears rang and her head hurt.

Investigators eventually determined a natural gas leak inside a home at 1010 N. Weinbach Ave. caused the blast on Aug. 10. The explosion killed Charles Hite, 43, Martina Hite, 37, and Jessica Teague, 29, all of Evansville.

According to the Indiana State Fire Marshal, investigators found a "leaking gas line in the basement of the home.”

"The line was found uncapped, with the valve in the open position," an Indiana State Fire Marshal news release stated. "Meter data taken after the incident showed a sharp increase in gas usage beginning two days before the blast. No additional evidence was found to determine how the valve was opened."

The fire marshal's office declined to elaborate much beyond what was in the statement. And CenterPoint repeatedly refused to answer questions the Courier & Press posed after the fire marshal released the cause.

Of the 39 homes and businesses damaged by the explosion, the city deemed 11 to be “uninhabitable.” In September, the Evansville City Council voted 7-0 to allocate $110,000 to raze five homes along North Weinbach, several of which have already been demolished.

The blast site is already sodded over with fresh green grass.

More:Cause of Weinbach Avenue explosion remains unknown, money approved for razing nearby homes

Insurance

Crystal Harper, of the city’s code enforcement office, previously told the Courier & Press each of the five homeowners have insurance to cover the losses.

But for Ron Ryan, of 1011 North Weinbach Ave., navigating the insurance process wasn’t so straight forward.

The blast destroyed much of his home, and he was forced to live in a Winnebago RV for more than a month while he tried to find new, long-term housing.

“Ideally, you want to keep a receipt for everything,” Ryan said as he recounted complicated insurance proceedings. “Every last little detail, even down to the wash rags. Because the insurance company is going to say, ‘Well, how long did you own it?'”

Ryan said it was no easy task to receive a payout from the insurance company after his home was damaged. When all was said and done, he received the “cash value” of his home: a sum less than its undamaged worth, had he sold it to a regular buyer.

The payout was more than the remaining balance Ryan had on his mortgage. But the insurance company required the entire payment be sent to the mortgage company before Ryan could get a cut of the difference.

“The whole thing was just nothing but stress,” Ryan said. “In the end, it took about 30 days before we could get access to any of that money.”

More:'Surreal': For those displaced by Evansville explosion, struggles are just beginning

Even once he had recovered some of his financial losses, finding a new home wasn’t easy in the current housing market. It took until early November for Ryan to be able to close on a home.

He’s very happy to be out of his 240-square-foot RV.

The investigation

As soon as police and fire crews cleared the scene on Aug. 10, investigators began searching for any sign of what caused the massive explosion.

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, some residents claimed to have smelled natural gas days prior, a common occurrence after a home explosion, according to natural gas system expert Ricahrd Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc.

Investigators would eventually confirm that gas had been leaking inside 1010 N. Weinbach since at least Aug. 8, when a basement gas line appeared to have become uncapped. Detectives also found a valve on the gas line in an “open position.”

More:Evansville house explosion on Weinbach Avenue ruled 'accidental'

Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Hosick told the Courier & Press “there wasn’t anything to indicate, despite exhaustive investigation from multiple departments over several weeks, how the line became uncapped and open.”

No ignition source was ever found.

While it may be impossible to fully reconstruct what happened in the runup to Aug. 10, residents do still have questions about the cause of the blast.

Kamali wonders how the line could’ve “just come off?” Her coworker, Henry Ballard, wants to know more, too, and Ryan hopes the state will eventually release additional information.

Sam Hart, of 1013 N. Weinbach Ave., said the investigation did little to soothe his concerns about what happened that day.

Nearly three months after the explosion, the state fire marshal sent a news release with little more than a few paragraphs of information: no detailed report, no diagrams, no photos. Experts said such an outcome is normal for a home explosion investigation, but it can be frustrating for residents.

“I’m convinced there is more to what this is,” Ryan told the Courier & Press. “I don’t know, I just don’t see how that pipe could leak for two days and no one in the house smelled it.”

Ryan claims his wife smelled gas about two weeks before the explosion and said she even had him search their home for a possible leak. In the end, he didn’t find anything.

“She didn’t call (CenterPoint Energy), but she said it smelled like gas,” Ryan said. “And then I got up and checked everything around the house, but we didn’t have any leaks.”

Kuprewicz, the natural gas expert, said it is common after a gas explosion for nearby residents to remember smelling gas in the days and weeks prior. Sometimes those recollections are accurate, but oftentimes it's just the brain’s way of comprehending a tragedy. ‘

In the moments after the explosion, Kamali said she saw a cloud of white vapor rising out of the ground. A few moments later, it had dissipated. She sent photos of the mysterious vapor to the state fire marshal, who interviewed her about what she saw, heard and smelled.

“When I showed them the pictures, they did ask, you know, ‘did you smell anything?’” Kamali said. “Which, no… no we didn’t.”

Rebuilding & Recovery

It took several weeks for Kamali’s and Ballard’s headaches to go away.

A doctor told Kamali the blast likely shook her brain, bouncing the soft tissue off the walls of her skull. Her ears rang for days, and a pounding headache served as a constant reminder that she’d just survived a massive explosion.

Ballard still thinks about Aug. 10 often, even if he would prefer not too. Loud noises set him on edge and make him think back to those initial moments of uncertainty and bewilderment.

More:Family of couple killed in Evansville house explosion said sudden loss 'is hitting hard'

“I was going northbound on Green River Road the other day, and we were waiting for the light to change, and a motorcycle revved its engine real loud and I screamed,” Ballard said. “It freaked me out.”

The blast felt like having his “insides blown up," he said. He described the explosion as being like an “earthquake” and “bomb explosion." It was "powerful." And when he learned the explosion killed three people, he said he got “emotional” and cried.

What should happen to North Weinbach?

The salon where Kamali and Ballard work is still damaged, but it reopened to clients relatively quickly, they said. In the near future, a contractor is going to repair some of the remaining cracks in the structure. City inspectors have examined the building inside and out.

When it comes to what should happen to the 1000 block of North Weinbach Avenue, opinions differ. Ballard would like to see homes rebuilt on what are now vacant lots. He’d also like to see the remaining police tape taken down – it serves as a constant reminder of the tragedy.

Kamali would like to see homes rebuilt too, or maybe a park. But what residents want most of all is closure.

“I think it’s the worst thing I ever experienced in my entire life,” Ballard said. “It made me cry. Innocent people died… You can’t ever get away from it.”

Houston Harwood can be contacted at walter.harwood@courierpress.com with story ideas and questions. Twitter: @houston_whh.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Neighbors struggle to move on 3 months after Evansville explosion