13 people including three children are trying to pick up the pieces after their homes were damaged from Tuesday’s home explosion in Baltimore County.
At least six homes were damaged.
At this point, Baltimore County has ruled out arson. BGE was out until late last night trying to determine whether this explosion was gas related.
Call it grace, or a guardian angel, Francis Owusu-Berchie says whatever stopped him from going to his home on Tuesday may have saved his life.
‘When I was coming, I was kind of feeling something. I didn’t know what it was,” he said.
Hours after he was let into his home on Remoor Road, he says he didn’t expect the devastation. He lives right next to the mangled, leveled mess from the explosion.
Baltimore County firefighters responded to a house on fire with an explosion in the Woodlawn area around 2:00 in the afternoon. This comes one day after a home explosion and fire in Baltimore Highlands.
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Many people were still stunned by the destruction.
“I walked in and it wasn’t what I thought. I thought it was a little bad. I went in there and it was devastating,” Owuse-Berchie said.
Baltimore County fire says whatever forced the home to blow could be felt for blocks – homes, cars, even trees damaged from the blast.
Contractors and insurance adjustors were out surveying properties around the home.
“We’re cleaning up. Right now, we can’t take anything with us because we’re in a hotel. We can just take a few things,” Owusu-Berchie said.
The good news, he said, is that no one was hurt in this two-alarm blast including his granddaughter who was minutes down the road.
“If it had happened 20 minutes later, we would have been affected. We were right at the corner coming home and my granddaughter, she gets home at 2:30 p.m., and the whole thing started at like 2:15 p.m. So we would have been home and it wouldn’t have been good news,” he said.
A GoFundMehas been set up to help the family during the holiday season.