Gas Explosion Obliterates Kenosha House, Damages Many Homes

An explosion rocked Kenosha, Wisconsin, last night, with the blast leveling an entire home and shattering windows for nearly a mile in every direction. The 11:10 PM CST boom was heard by folks as far as five miles away.

Local firefighters blamed a natural gas leak for the combustion and conflagration, dispelling initial rumors of an erupting meth lab.

The explosion left a smoldering crater where the duplex home had once been. The fireball was seen by neighbors on all sides of the exploding Kenosha house. Home videotapes caught some of the scene on camera.

CTRL-click here to see an onlooker's amateur video footage of the fiery aftermath from the Kenosha home blast on the night of January 10^th.

No one was in the house when it blew up, and no serious injuries were reported as a result, although 10 people were treated for minor scrapes and cuts. Most of the injuries seemed to result from broken glass and debris. No burns were reported.

Kenosha firefighters contained the blaze after the blast, preventing additional destruction of neighboring properties.

Local damage was widespread after the Kenosha home explosion.

Many other homes in the area were harmed by the explosion and its aftermath, with broken windows and flying debris causing widespread damage, particularly within a two-block radius of the exploded house. Neighbors complained of framed pictures flying off walls, china figurines falling off shelves, glassware topping from kitchen racks and more.

"We were in bed sleeping, and we heard a big boom," explained Carly, a brand-new Kenosha bride, who lives six blocks from the site of the January 10^th explosion.

"It sounded like a truck had hit our house," a Kenosha teenager said, describing the initial boom. "Our house actually shook."

"It literally shook the entire city," another local teen added. (Parents requested that the two teens not be named for publication.)

More than one Kenosha parent expressed concern that sleeping children awakened after the explosion to find shards of broken glass atop their beds. Other residents described damages to interior plaster walls in their homes from the neighboring explosion.

Several homes were evacuated after the explosion. WE Energies, Wisconsin's power and electric utility provider, shut off gas service for 15 to 20 homes in the area around the destroyed house.

The vacant home, located at 2113 55^th Street (near the corner of 22^nd Avenue) in the Southeast Wisconsin city, was still under construction as part of a Kenosha neighborhood rehabilitation project. The two-family house was owned by the city of Kenosha.

"We are calling on family and friends to pray for our Kenosha neighbors who have been affected by last night's house explosion," said Luisa, a Kenosha church staffer.

With Kenosha and surrounding communities in Southeast Wisconsin falling under a snow advisory on January 11^th (the day after the explosion) and daytime outdoor temperatures hovering in the mid-twenties, locals were wondering when heating power would be restored.

Others were covering blown-out windows with plastic tarps, sheets of cardboard, plywood or whatever else they could find to keep the whirling snow and Wisconsin winter winds at bay.