Explosion levels house in Plum, neighbors describe the harrowing scene
Residents in Plum’s Holiday Park ran to help as smoke, embers and screams filled their neighborhood Friday night.
People living around the house at 5021 Hialeah Drive reported hearing a loud boom that shook their homes.
A man living nearby thought his own hot water tank had exploded; a woman next door thought a truck had crashed into her home; a guy down the road thought a large tree had fallen onto his.
On Saturday, nothing but rubble and a hole filled with charred debris were left where the house had stood.
Two adults and three children escaped with their lives. Information on the extent of their injuries was not immediately available.
Chris Duffy was watching TV in bed shortly after 11 p.m. when he felt and heard what he at first thought was a tree hitting his house a few doors down at the corner of Hialeah and Monte Carlo. He noticed the house up the road was on fire and heard screams.
“I ran straight to the house,” he said. “I saw the dad by the garage. There was no wall.”
Looking in from one side of the house, Duffy said he could see clear through to the other. No halls or rooms were visible.
Somehow, the roof was still up.
“Luckily, that didn’t come down until a minute after we got them all out,” he said.
Authorities were investigating Saturday to determine what happened. The fire was reported about 11:22 p.m. Friday.
Officials from the Allegheny County Fire Marshal’s Office and the Holiday Park fire department could not be reached for comment.
The state Public Utility Commission’s safety division is coordinating with the fire marshal and other agencies for its own independent review, spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said.
“In these situations, the focus for the Safety Division is to determine if public utility service was involved in an incident, to explore the cause and circumstances surrounding an incident and to determine if there are any violations of state or federal safety regulations,” he said.
A spokesman for the federal National Transportation Safety Board said the agency was gathering information about the incident. It was not immediately known if it would open an investigation.
Employees with Peoples Gas were at the scene Friday night and returned Saturday to check for leaks, spokesman Barry Kukovich said. He said the area was safe Saturday but that gas service had been turned off in the immediate area. He did not know how many homes were without service or when it would be restored.
“In our preliminary investigation, we’ve tested our lines and found no leaks or any indication of any failure in our pipeline,” Kukovich said in a statement. “We will continue our presence in the neighborhood with safety checks and cooperate fully with the fire marshal and authorities in their investigation.”
Brian Rosewicz said he was sleeping when he heard the boom from his home at the bottom of Hialeah. He thought his water tank had blown up.
“I thought something happened in the house or right outside,” he said. “From down over the hill you could see the orange glow. It was pretty intense.”
According to online Allegheny County real estate records, the house was sold in December. Neighbors said they believed it had been “flipped,” and that the family there had just moved in either late in February or early in March. Many said they hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know them yet.
“Hell of a thing to buy a house and this is the result,” Rosewicz said.
Tricia Russo lives on one side of the house. She was in bed reading when she heard a loud boom that shook her home.
“It was like a Mack truck hitting the house,” she said. “I could hear them screaming.”
She hadn’t gotten a chance to know the parents but believes their children are ages 2, 6 and 12. She said their 6-year-old plays with her 4-year-old daughter.
Somehow, Russo said the father handed her the youngest over the fence between their homes and went looking for the other kids. Russo can’t figure out how she was able to reach over the fence, which on Saturday was leaning toward the side of their house which, fortunately, is brick and has no windows.
“It looked like he was in a bedroom, but there were no walls,” she said. “The whole side of the house was gone. I could see to their living room. I don’t understand how the roof was staying up.
“They all got out, and it was just up in flames. It was crazy. The flames were so high.”
Dan Aubele, who lives on the other side, said he was getting his grandchildren ready for bed when he heard a loud boom that shook his home.
“It was 11:30 when the side of the house caught fire big time,” said Aubele, who was surveying the damage Saturday morning, including shards of glass on his roof. “It was a big boom. I never felt anything like that.”
Siding on Aubele’s home melted away, but he counted himself fortunate that most of the exterior of his home is brick and was undamaged. He said he sprayed water from a garden hose on the side of his house in an effort to save it.
“The flames were over to here,” he said, pointing halfway across the distance between his house and his neighbors’, “and the flames were up to here, like 20 feet.
“It went up real quick.”
There was little left of the house as shattered windows, siding and fencing were scattered in adjacent yards.
Greg Fischer, who lives directly across the street, said debris, including the garage door, had been in the middle of the road before the area was cleaned up.
Fischer said authorities asked if he had a doorbell camera. Unfortunately, he does not.
Fischer said he was sitting on a couch when he heard a bang that rocked his house.
“I thought a plane crashed on our front yard. It was that loud,” he said. “It was absolute chaos for a while.”
As often happens, Fischer said his call to 911 went to Westmoreland County and had to be transferred to Allegheny County.
“I don’t think they could have gotten here fast enough to save this place,” he said. “The house was engulfed in flames in no time flat.”
At one point, Fischer said the father and one of the children was on his porch. The father was bleeding from a head wound.
“He was just in shock,” Fischer said. “He wasn’t focusing on anything.”
Duffy said he had been a firefighter 20 years ago, so running toward the fire was those old instincts returning.
“It was surreal,” he said. “It’s a whole different experience when you don’t have any gear.”
Duffy said he met many neighbors Friday night.
“It was great to see so many people pitch in and try to help,” he said.
Fischer was amazed his house was not damaged. He said things didn’t quiet down until about 3 a.m.
“I’ve ever seen anything like that and, hopefully, never again. It was just terrible,” he said.
For residents of the neighborhood who were there 14 years ago, the incident brought back memories of a March 2008 house explosion on nearby Mardi Gras Drive. Antonino and Tina Pettinato’s house at 171 Mardi Gras exploded after natural gas leaked into the home.
Tina Pettinato’s father, Richard Leith, 64, of Trafford was killed and their daughter, Gianna, then 4, suffered a broken leg.
Two other houses were destroyed and 11 were damaged.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that a 2-inch natural gas distribution pipeline had been hit by a backhoe when a sewer line was replaced five years earlier in 2003, stripping the pipeline of its protective coating and making it susceptible to corrosion and failure.
Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
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