Death toll rises to 4 in Plum house explosion, stuns bedroom community

A house explosion in Plum on Saturday killed at least four people and injured several others, sending shock waves throughout a community that has been stricken by similar explosions in the past.

Authorities announced the revised death toll at a press conference late Saturday.

Officials did not release the victims’ identities, ages or genders, where they were found or where they died. They said another person is still unaccounted for.

The houses immediately to the right and left caught fire and were quickly engulfed. Both were destroyed, reduced to rubble. Pops of what sounded like ammunition exploding periodically could heard.

The houses all sat along Rustic Ridge Drive near the corner of Brookside Drive in the posh bedroom community of Rustic Ridge. Authorities said it was too early to determine a cause for the explosion.

The blast originated at 141 Rustic Ridge about 10:25 a.m. Doorbell cameras captured the moment: Debris and a bright fireball exploded into the sky. Residents from miles away said their houses shook, leaving many wondering what had happened.

Steve Imbarlina, assistant chief of Allegheny County Emergency Services, said Saturday afternoon that one person had died, but the death toll rose to four. Three patients had been taken to hospitals, one in critical condition and the others stable.

There were reports from eyewitnesses that people were possibly trapped under debris, but authorities said they could not confirm that.

At least a dozen other houses were damaged, Plum police said. Many had windows and storm doors blown out. Siding was ripped away on others. Garage doors warped from the shock wave.

The fire at 143 Rustic Ridge continued to smolder into the evening. Imbarlina said first responders would work through the night to address hot spots and give search and rescue teams a chance to search the rubble.

The house that exploded is owned by Paul D. and Heather L. Oravitz, according to Allegheny County records. Those same records indicate that one of the neighboring houses that was destroyed is owned by Michael and Jacqueline Thomas. The other is owned by Harrison A. and Kelly Smith. Heather Oravitz is Plum’s director of community development. Thomas is Plum’s borough manager.

Allegheny County Fire Marshal Don Brucker said early in the afternoon that the incident, based on witnesses’ accounts, sounded like it was a natural gas explosion, but he said “I have no idea” for sure. “You can’t put the cart before the horse,” he said. “It’s bad.”

Peoples natural gas company crews were on scene, as were representatives of the state Public Utility Commission.

Gas was turned off to the affected parts of the neighborhood, said Peoples spokesperson Nick Paradise. In all, about 50 homes were without service. Duquesne Light shut off power to about 200 residences. A spokesperson said Saturday night they were awaiting clearance from authorities to restore power.

Firefighters were going door-to-door, checking outside gas lines and going inside houses, sometimes forcibly if the homeowners weren’t there at the time.

Holiday Park fire Chief James Sims said earlier in the afternoon that two injured people had been taken to AHN Forbes Hospital in Monroeville for treatment.

Sims said he has been a Plum firefighter for 48 years.

“I’ve been to my share of house explosions,” said Sims, who serves as Plum’s emergency management coordinator. “I’ve been to six house explosions in Plum. This is the worst I’ve seen.”

Rescue effort

Greg Renko lives six houses away from the explosion site. He happens to be an Allegheny County Police officer with the homicide unit, and he rushed to the scene after hearing the blast.

“The boom goes off, and I kind of know right away what I was expecting to find,” he said. “One house was rubble, the other two houses were on fire.”

The heat from the fire engulfing 143 Rustic Ridge was intense, he said.

He said he ran up to the pile of rubble next door and screamed to see if anyone could respond. He saw movement, and he and another neighbor, George Emanuele, carried a man away from the immediate scene.

They described him as extremely injured.

“Myself and a Plum officer go back to the pile,” Renko said. “We can hear screaming (under the rubble). But we couldn’t get down deep enough.”

He and the Plum officer went next door and pulled a woman from the house, he said.

“I tried to get back in. The fire was too hot. I had to pull back,” he said.

Emanuele lives three houses down from the home that exploded.

He was eating a sandwich about 10:30 a.m. when he heard the blast. He said he thought his roof had collapsed. When he looked out, he didn’t see flames at first.

“Literally, the guy looked like the debris. I don’t know how Greg saw him,” Emanuele said. “Thank God he saw him.

“It was like hell — with debris everywhere. I was where the house (was supposed to be), but without the house.”

He said he and Renko carried the man about 50 feet away. He said a Plum police officer secured a tourniquet around the man’s leg.

“He said, ‘This is going to hurt.’” Tears welled as he described the incident.

“(The victim) said there were two people in the basement,” Emanuele said. “He said one was his wife. We didn’t see or hear them.”

Because of the loud, occasional popping that continued from the scene, Emanuele said he asked the man whether there was ammunition in the house. He replied that “there was a lot of ammo in the house.”

Both he and Renko had the victim’s blood on them, Renko on his striped short-sleeved shirt, Emanuele on his shorts and leg.

Later, Renko could be found crouched on his front lawn, head down, overcome with emotion.

Neighbor accounts

Amy Cooper lives across the street, two doors up, from the house that exploded.

“I felt like a compression — like a bomb went off,” she said. Plaster from the ceiling fell. Windows broke. Her siding blew out.

“I thought it was my house,” Cooper said. She encountered a neighbor outside.

“We got to get out,” they told her.

Jeremy Rogers lives two doors down from the house that exploded. He stood by watching anxiously as his neighbor’s house at 143 Rustic Ridge became overwhelmed with flames, questioning whether his house would be next.

He left behind a chaotic scene.

“My cabinets are all down in my kitchen. The ceiling’s falling in,” Rogers said.

He had been out shopping when he said his Ring doorbell alerted him to something wrong at the house.

“I looked and saw all sorts of stuff flying around,” he said.

The Rogers’ family made it out of their home safely, but three cats and a dog remained inside. Rogers said firefighters allowed him to go back in and quickly rescue his dog. He was eventually reunited with two of his three cats.

Another neighbor, PJ Proffitt, who lives several houses below the scene, said he heard what he described as ammunition exploding.

“Oh, yeah — it’s very distinct,” he said. “It was dangerous.”

In describing the devastation, Proffitt said, “I haven’t see anything like this since I was in the military.”

Sarah Chandler lives four houses away from the explosion. She wasn’t home at the time, but she said she received a call from a friend.

“She said ‘are you OK?’,” Chandler said. “I said yeah, why. She said there was an explosion in Rustic Ridge.

“By the time I got here, everything was gone.”

Water issues

The usually quiet neighborhood became a combat zone.

Firefighters hurried with hose after hose in an attempt to control the flames. A ladder truck from Monroeville arrived and set up outside the blast zone, intent on attacking the fire at 143 Rustic Ridge from above to complement the battle on the ground.

Ambulances, police cars and fire truck after truck arrived, as first responders fanned out.

In all, about 20 fire departments responded, according to Plum police.

But adequate water supply quickly emerged as an issue.

When asked about water pressure problems, Sims, the Holiday Park fire chief, said the first hydrant tapped into was at the bottom of a nearby hill. So when firefighters tried to get water from another hydrant on top of the hill, the water pressure was not what it should have been.

Tanker trucks hauled in water, Sims said, and pumper engines got the water to the fire scene via portable dunk tanks.

Authorities would not say whether the poor water pressure hindered the firefight.

Officials said 20 firefighters were treated at the scene, most for heat exhaustion.

By 6 p.m., many fire crews had wrapped up their hoses and other supplies and had pulled back to their departments. Allegheny County Emergency Management personnel and the county Fire Marshal’s Office appeared to be running point, in conjunction with Plum police.

The aftermath of today’s house explosion in Plum. pic.twitter.com/Bdo3sJz1zc

— Brian Rittmeyer (@BCRittmeyer) August 12, 2023

Residents who need assistance were told to head to the Renton Volunteer Fire Department, 1996 Old Mine Road, authorities said.

Plum Borough announced Saturday night that it was making the borough building available to residents on Sunday morning. It will open at 8 a.m. Coffee, water, food, restrooms and a place to stay were being offered.

A helpline (1-800-985-5990) has been set up for any residents or first responders who are stressed by the situation.

Authorities praised people in the neighborhood for providing water, fans, pizza and other assistance to the firefighters, who worked in temperatures in the 80s and often sunny skies.

Renko said that’s just Rustic Ridge. Those are the types of people who live in the neighborhood. They look after one another. They care about each other. They mourn with each other.

“I love my neighborhood,” said Renko, who serves on the neighborhood homeowners’ association. “A 20-minute walk turns into a half-hour because you stop and talk to everybody.

“We are very, very close.”

Staff writers Brian Rittmeyer and Kellen Stepler contributed.