HALL COUNTY, Ga. --
Channel 2 Action News has learned it could be up to two weeks before investigators know what triggered a massive explosion that leveled a home on Lake Lanier near Buford.
The early-morning explosion was so big it demolished the 5,000-square-foot home.
Neighbor Jim Wingo said he heard that blast and then the cries for help coming from the rubble.
"I lifted the wall up and was able to slide out enough to where I could help him get up, Wingo said.
Wingo rescued 34-year-old Michael Clack. Clacks parents were still buried.
"I could hear Dan, the father, was in the house still," Wingo said.
Wingo told Channel 2s Kerry Kavanaugh he knew he couldn't get to his friends Dan and Susan Johnson. Firefighters eventually did.
Kavanaugh said she could see huge chunks of the Blackberry Lane home from the road.
House Flattened In Hall County Explosion
But from Lake Lanier, it was the type of damage you might see after a tornado.
A neighbor offered to take Kavanaugh by boat to look at the damage from the water.
Kavanaugh said from the water, You can see where the house exploded through the yard, down to the banks of the lake, pieces still floating in the lake. We even found some all the way out here on the dock."
The blast was heard and felt across the neighborhood.
"It was just as if a bomb had gone off," neighbor Lucy Matte said.
Within a second, I heard a lot of glass shattering," neighbor Vito Partipelo said.
But the community's prayers were answered when all three people came out alive and emergency workers rushed them to a hospital.
On Friday, Hall County emergency officials said the early signs pointed to either a leak from a gas stove or the from the gas line running from a propane tank to that stove. They said the propane tank was intact after the explosion.
On Friday night, Susan Johnson was listed in stable condition at the Atlanta Medical Center.
Daniel Johnson was listed in stable condition at an Augusta hospital.
Michael Allen Clack is listed in fair condition at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville.
Copyright 2011 by . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
