CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – A woman was killed and a man was seriously injured when an explosion leveled a home in the Glenmore subdivision of Keswick on Tuesday night.
The homeowners were not there at the time of the blast, according to Albemarle County Fire Rescue, but the two victims were located at the scene by first responders. The injured male was transported to UVA Hospital. No other injuries were reported.
ACFR said 12 other homes were damaged by the explosion, displacing those residents, who are now being assisted by the American Red Cross.
Albemarle County Fire and Rescue received calls reporting an “explosion” shortly after 6 p.m. ACFR confirmed one victim with “serious injuries.” It was unclear if there were other people injured in the blast. ACFR also announced there was no active gas leak at the site at present, and said the, “cause of incident unknown at this time.”
Shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, Albemarle Police, and Fire Rescue crews arrived on the scene on Ferndown Lane in the Glenmore subdivision after multiple calls reported the incident.
One caller to the Albemarle County Emergency Call Center told the dispatcher that they heard an explosion and believed a house had exploded. They went on to tell the ECC that “there is no house left,” according to a dispatch from the center.
Ty Cooper, a local business owner, told Cville Right Now he had just pulled up to the main security gate at Glenmore when the explosion occurred.
“I heard this explosion,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t just like an explosion. It was almost like a television experience, like a movie experience. You know in the movies when they try to have it in slow motion when there’s a big explosion and the face, the skin pulls back some? I felt it.”
Cooper said he drove into the subdivision to a business client’s home a few blocks away.
“It was a little ways away and stuff was coming out of the sky,” Cooper said. “It was so far from the house and there was no wind blowing. The stuff that was coming down from the sky was like debris. It looked like it was probably some insulation, little tiny pieces of insulation. It was like it was snowing all over the place.”
Cooper said within minutes there were about 10 firetrucks on the scene.
Another area resident, who lives just over a mile from the site in Milton, said she felt the blast and witnessed what appeared to insulation “snowing down.”
The Red Cross sent staff to the neighborhood to aide the families who were displaced from the 12 damaged homes.
