House Explosion Kills 2

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This was our daywork shifts start to the new year. I'm sure all of you can

imagine what this was like on the 9-1-1 side.......

2 Die in Md. Home Explosion

Gas Leak Suspected in Blast That Levels House in Silver Spring

By Shaver and Wax

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, January 2, 2001; Page A01

A suspected gas explosion destroyed a Silver Spring house yesterday morning,

killing a couple inside, severely damaging a dozen nearby houses, shaking

neighbors in their beds and hurtling burned debris two blocks away.

Nothing remained of the split-level home at 1117 Cresthaven Dr. except a

knee-high pile of bricks and smoldering shards of wood. Pink tufts of

charred insulation and bits of clothing hung 100 feet up in bare trees and

littered neighbors' yards. A white window frame landed across the street.

The largest visible piece remaining was a 40-square-foot chunk of what

appeared to have been a shingle roof, blown 50 feet high into a tree.

" I thought it was a bomb, " said Shanti Nanan, who awoke to debris from the

house next door crashing through her bedroom windows and fled wearing

pajamas and a black overcoat.

" A catastrophic event took place here, " said Montgomery County Fire Capt. Ty

Stottlemyer. He said the blast was heard as far away as Chevy Chase.

Fire investigators began digging in the rubble last night to find appliances

that, like the furniture and almost everything else, had collapsed into the

basement during a fire after the 8:45 a.m. explosion. Investigators said

they were looking for a faulty appliance or leaks in an internal gas line as

possible causes of the blast.

Investigators found two badly burned bodies in the rubble and said they

could not yet officially confirm the identities. However, neighbors and

property records identified the residents as Stanley Herman, 62, and his

wife, Joan, 63, a retired couple. Neighbors said the Hermans were the second

generation to live in the 1959 house, having inherited it from one of their

parents.

Twelve other homes in the Hillandale neighborhood, off New Hampshire Avenue

north of the Capital Beltway, were deemed unsafe to occupy last night after

a county building inspector found structural damage, said Washington Gas

spokesman Tim Sargeant. Most of the displaced families were planning to

spend the night with friends or relatives, Red Cross officials said.

Montgomery District Fire Chief Geraci said the even force of the blast

suggested a gas explosion, but he said investigators did not know for sure.

Sargeant said no leaks were found in the gas line leading to the home, which

Geraci said suggested a gas appliance as a possible source of the blast.

Sargeant said the company had not received any reports from the home of the

rotten-egg odor that is put in gas to warn of a leak.

" That's one of the mysteries here, " Geraci said. " If it was gas, why didn't

they smell it? "

Nanan said her 6-year-old son, Shalin, received cuts on his legs from debris

that broke through his bedroom window. She and her family planned to spend

last night with her brother, because their home had been deemed unsafe.

Art Klotz, a retired Internal Revenue Service employee who lives a

half-block away, said the explosion blew glass into his home, too.

" The blast just shook the whole house, and it knocked Grandma off her

chair, " Klotz said, referring to his wife.

One of the Hermans' adult sons exchanged hugs with about a dozen teary

friends and relatives who stared from across the street in the afternoon as

heavy equipment began digging through what looked like the remains of an air

raid.

Relatives declined to speak with reporters yesterday. Another son of the

Hermans lives in Maine, investigators said.

T. Carssas, 18, who said he did lawn work for the Hermans for 21/2

years, said their home was filled with baseball cards, pennants and other

memorabilia. He said Stanley Herman managed a local baseball team and was a

retired bus driver; neighbors said Joan Herman was a retired nurse.

" They were such good people, " Carssas said. " They always were inviting me

in. "

Some neighbors boarded up windows with plywood while about eight families

spent the freezing New Year's Day eating doughnuts, drinking hot chocolate

and talking on cell phones to their insurance companies at a Red Cross

shelter set up in the Cresthaven Elementary School cafeteria.

Cresthaven Drive residents said they ran into the street after what some

described first as a rumble and then a loud boom.

Jeanni Brown said she was fixing breakfast in her home across the street

when she felt a rumble.

" My house moved, and I looked outside the window, and everything went up " in

an explosion, Brown said.

Brown, who left her home last night, said that a crack had appeared in her

kitchen ceiling and that another one ran from her front door to the back of

the house.

When the first firefighters arrived, flames were shooting 40 to 50 feet in

the air, Stottlemyer said.

Margaret Delia, 54, an andria woman who had stayed overnight after a New

Year's Eve celebration with friends in the home behind the Hermans', said

the blast shattered mirrors in the home.

" All the things on the shelves were on the floor and broken, " Delia said.

" The kitchen ceiling light was down; the glass doors were shattered. "

When she looked in the direction of the blast, she said, " the whole house

was gone. "

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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