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March 8, 2006

Update on the Explosion & Thank You

Thank you all for your concern and you well wishes. Miraculously no one was hurt in the explosion. It’s still hard for me to write about because the whole experience and what we have to do now has just been so overwhelming I just want to curl up into a ball and sleep for weeks.

Early Sunday morning around 6:45 I was awoken by a huge blast that felt like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It shook the house so much that I could barely keep my legs steady and it sounded like the universe was cracking. It was followed by two more bangs of similar magnitude. My husband who had fell asleep on the couch came running toward our room yelling repeatedly that there was glass everywhere and to grab my daughter and get her to the back of the house. In the chaos I forgot she had been in bed with me and went to go grab her out of her crib. It terrified me to see her empty crib. I quickly realized it after having what felt like a mini heart attack and grabbed her from our bed, grabbed a robe and ran toward the back door. At this point I thought it was an act of terror and we were being bombed. I asked my husband if it was going to stop and he just said he wasn’t sure. So I didn’t know what to do. We tried to run out the back door but debris was falling and we didn’t feel it was safe. Finally my husband mentioned our neighbors name and I realized it was him and something had gone horribly wrong with his “firework collection”.

With the re-occurring blasts it felt like war until the fire department put out the flames about a half hour later. Shortly after that we were evacuated because they found a larger stash of explosive stuff buried in his yard.

We had debris from his house and parts of the explosives (some still volatile and some just the shells) all over our backyard. The front windows of our house were blown in (glass was everywhere) and our door looked like someone bashed it in with a battering ram. This all was from the impact of the blast not even projectiles. Everywhere just didn’t feel safe.

I actually feel quite lucky that while there was damage to our property we didn’t have anything catch on fire like a few of our neighbors. One neighbor directly next to the guy had all her windows blown in and one of her child’s bed caught on fire. She could barely get her large family (with dog) out of the house.

We believe our neighbor, who seemed to be obsessed with fireworks, modified and sold them. He clearly has the illegal kind, the huge ones, and way beyond the little size that are legal here for one day on the 4th of July. He has an enclosed shed behind his house where he seemed to be performing his chemistry.

On more than one occasion I actually called the police and fire department because I thought the blasts got out of control and that his shed was going to blow. I didn’t bother calling just for the minor blasts he would shoot off occasionally. All the other neighbors did however so the town should have been well aware of this guy.

I have more details and aspects of the story to tell but that should give you the gist of it for now. My mind is still reeling in chaos so I’ll probably relay the events in similarly scattered fashion.

For more on the story go to the link below and click on the “online extra photos, Blast rocks Lakewood” for pictures

http://www.presstelegram.com/search/ci_3572723

On weighty issues

I weighed myself this morning and still weigh 159, thank goodness. I’ve been eating really poorly since last Friday and especially since Sunday. I hope to get back on track today by resuming my lunchtime workouts otherwise I’ll most certainly be looking at a gain by next weigh-in.

Posted by hopeful @ March 8, 2006 12:05 PM