Dozens of homeowners were shaken awake early Thursday morning when a house exploded on near 8 Mile and Livernois in Detroit.
The home on Monica Street blew up and caught fire around 3:30 a.m. according to neighbors who say their homes shook.
“I walked out on the porch and I saw the house next door was on fire,” said Leah Smith, who was at home doing home dialysis at the time of the blast.
“I ran back inside the house to make sure my son was getting out,” added Smith. “I was like, ‘We got to go! We’ve got to go!'”
Luckily, it appears that no one was inside the home at the time of the explosion. Locals noted that was a miracle, because there was nothing but charred splinters, and random pieces of the home strewn across the street later in the morning.
A window could be seen more than 100 yards away from the location where the front door once stood.
“Oh,” said Augusta Dixon, shaking her head and placing her hand to her face as she contemplated what she saw.
“It hurt, it hurts because the grandmother… I used to sit on the porch,” said Dixon. “The young man whose house blew over here used to go to school with my children.”
Dixon said she’s spoken with members of the family who own the home and noted that while they’re okay, they’re in shock. It appears they were actually at a local emergency room when their home exploded.
Fire crews have been working to keep the fire scene clear throughout the morning hours. They’ve yet to comment on what may have caused the blast. Police and DTE Energy crews are also at the home as large chunks of the leveled home continued to smolder well into the morning.
