House explodes as neighborhood evacuates after gas leak in Missouri, video shows

A home in an eastern Missouri neighborhood exploded due to a natural gas leak, video shows, and the blast sent debris flying, fire spreading and bullets popping.

Rachel Owens says her parent’s house, the home she grew up in and helped her father build over 20 years ago, seems to be in better shape than others near the explosion on Tuesday, March 2 — though that might not be saying much.

“Three of our neighbor’s houses, not including the one that was totally razed, their houses have been condemned because of the amount of damage,” Owens told McClatchy News. “One had their roof torn off, another one had the kitchen wall collapse, another caught on fire due to the explosion.”

At her childhood home, windows and doors were blown in, cabinets were shaken loose from walls, cans and bottles were scattered across the kitchen and shattered glass was littered throughout.

(Warning: The video below contains strong language.)

They’re waiting on a structural engineer to find out the full extent of the damage, she said.

A camera overlooking the backyard captured the explosion.

With an earth-shaking boom, the house buckled into a smoking, wooden heap. A sound like fireworks detonating inside the rubble was actually ammunition stored in the garage popping off in rapid succession, Owens later learned.

Owens’ dad was at work when the explosion happened, and her mom was watching Owens’ daughter at her home in nearby Moscow Mills, she said. But her sister was at the house in O’Fallon and noticed a strong natural gas smell just moments before workers with the gas company arrived and began evacuating people from their homes around 10:30 a.m.

Firefighters with the O’Fallon Fire Protection District were also on the scene. Just before noon, something ignited the gas inside one of the homes.

“People all up and down that street were telling us that they had pictures knocked off the wall, dishes rattled, things like that,” Assistant Chief Andy Parrish told McClatchy News.

Firefighters jumped into action and extinguished the blaze, though it spread to the roof and attic of an adjacent home, Parrish said. Firefighters were able to put out that blaze as well.

The gas company, Spire, is investigating the leak, Parrish said.

City of O’Fallon officials say the leak was caused by contractors who struck a gas line in the area while doing fiber optic installation — the same contracting company responsible for another leak the week prior.

“After today’s incident, the company voluntarily stopped all work in the City. The City has accepted this voluntary termination and has suspended all permits related to work by this company,” the city said.

The couple who lived in the destroyed house moved in just a few years after Owens’ family did, she said. They know each other well.

“They’ve lost everything,” Owens said. “They’re physically unharmed but she … didn’t even have a chance to put shoes on before they had gotten her out.”

Friends and community members are rallying around them, she said, putting money together and doing what they can to help.

“They’re both in their mid-60s and have been working their whole life and now everything they own is gone.”

They have family in the area that they’re staying with, according to Owens.

Despite the intense power of the blast, nobody was killed.

“You smell gas, get out and give us a call,” Parrish said. “Luckily these folks did just that and lives were spared.”

This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 12:56 PM with the headline "House explodes as neighborhood evacuates after gas leak in Missouri, video shows."