[OK, so much for the meth lab or bomb theories.]
[Hmm...I was unaware that the house was unoccupied. Which makes me add another possibility to the below: Arson fire by former occupant.]
With regard to the massive explosion on the southside in the late hours Saturday night, I imagine there are really only three possibilities:
- Gas leak
- Excursions in meth lab chemistry gone seriously bad
- Post-election domestic terrorist bombmaking in the garage
The last is probably the biggest reason nobody wants to comment on what happened yet. Gas leak is, I suppose, the most likely and charitable reason, but it seems that nobody reported smelling gas ahead of the big bang -- at least according to the story in the dead-tree WSJ that I read this morning. The online version doesn't appear to be the same story, and does say that the smell of natural gas "hung in the air" afterwards, but that could simply be from gas lines ruptured as collateral damage from the original explosion.
And short of some idiot accidentally leaving a Bunsen burner turned on after the flame went out, I don't see a meth lab making this kind of explosion. Gas appliances properly installed have "default off" safety interlocks to keep gas from flowing if the flame goes out, so I'd be inclined to doubt that was the problem.
Which is why I think it might be useful to find out if the residents had recently made a large purchase of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, or some such. Sorry, but I have a suspicious mind, and you can't tell me that there aren't nutbags out there who are considering a reversal by force of the recent unpleasantries. Dudes, I didn't want the asshole reelected either, but that's no reason to start up your own little garage-based bomb factory. This, too, shall pass.
(If it turns out I'm wrong, my apologies in advance...but that was a BIG explosion, and I remember when the house out on East 96th Street blew up from a natural gas explosion and left a crater that's now a little pond. And people HAD been smelling gas when that happened.)
[UPDATE TO ADD: A commenter on the online WSJ story surmised that the gas lines in the neighborhood were probably aging. I guess he did not look at the picture; that neighborhood is less than 20 years old or I'm losing my grip on construction styles. My neighborhood is over 50 years old and we haven't had any trouble with our half-century-old gas lines. (Knock on wood.)]
Also related only because the gas company is now the water company, too: Saturday I received our Citizens Energy bill in the mail, and when opening it found that we had the smallest water usage (300cf over 29 days) that we've had in years. It was half what I'd been accustomed to seeing since forever.
I wonder if CE has changed our meter out. And, if so, how long Veolia Water was screwing us. Our water usage hasn't changed lately and I haven't had any leaks to fix. The only thing we've done is replace our dishwasher, and we only run that a couple of times a week anyway. So I dunno.
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