Victoria Woman Killed in Early Morning House Explosion

This just reported by the Victoria Advocate: A woman died in an explosion that leveled her home Wednesday morning and caused structural damage to at least four other homes, according to fire officials. Her daughter, 3-4 months old, was transported to DeTar Hospital, where she was evaluated and then transferred to a San Antonio hospital, Victoria Fire Chief Taner Drake said. The girl’s father is with her en route to the hospital, he said. Police and firefighters were called shortly before 7:30 a.m. to the scene near the 200 block of Oak Colony Drive southwest of Victoria off U.S. 59.

The explosion left neighbors emotionally charged. Kendall Buenger, 35, said the blast nearly knocked him over as he put his kids in the car for school about 7:10 a.m. He and his wife drove to the scene of where the debris of a two-story home lay strewn across the yard. “There was still insulation falling from the sky,” Buenger said from his home in a nearby neighborhood. “It was about 200 feet in the air.”

Kerry Frisbie, 54, owns Continental Pumping Supply, 1030 Hunter Circle. He had been at work maybe 15 minutes when the loud explosion shook him in his office chair. After verifying it didn’t come from his shop, he hopped in the car with his co-workers and headed toward the Central Power and Light plant, where he thought the noise had come from. They directed him back to his house in the 200 block of Oak Colony Drive, where he found his house in disarray. He lives near a cul-de-sac. One of the houses in the cul-de-sac was reduced to rubble with a small fire burning on top. A neighbor extinguished the flames, he said. “Pink insulation was raining down from the sky,” Frisbie said. “We didn’t think anybody was home because there wasn’t any cars out front, but I think later a firefighter loaded someone onto a stretcher. … We just heard dogs whimpering. “He couldn’t describe the person being treated nor did he know if they came from the flattened house. Frisbie did not smell propane. “It never dawned on me that it would be a house,” he said. “I’m worried about the people over there. “He is staying with family on Hunter Circle and hasn’t been back to his home yet. “I’m going to let them do their job. I don’t want to get in the way.”

Jarrod Westernman, 31, was trying to mow his lawn on Pembrook Drive before the rain hit. He had just dropped his kids off at school. The explosion blew out at least one window in his one-story home. “My wife thought I died. She thought I’d been struck by lightning,” Westerman said. “I thought it was a lightening strike. I wasn’t sure. It almost sounded like a vehicle backfire, but it was too loud. I felt the concussion on my body.”

Butch Gregory, 53, owns a nearby business and said he heard what he thought was “weird thunder” at 7:10 a.m. “We all felt it,” he said of the blast. “I got a call from my daughter that it knocked off the screen door and pictures off the wall.”

A man who is retired and has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years said he was picking up leaves in his backyard. He declined to give his name, but said he lives three houses down from a one-story brick home on Oak Colony Drive he described as being leveled. He said the windows near his back porch shattered and he heard his garage door crunch. He thought at first it was a lightening strike too, but immediately smelled propane afterward. “It was a huge boom. It almost felt like you were inside a building that was exploding,” he said after homeowners were asked to wait at the Exxon on U.S. Highway 77 nearby. “The worst thing about this is we are a close-knit community. Everybody knows everybody. There’s a lot of emotion going on right now.”