N.C. House Explodes Damaging 15 Others Nearby

Feb. 06--A blast rocked the 3300 block of Cumberland Road this morning near Yale Street, obliterating an empty house and damaging about 15 more, authorities said. No one was injured.

The explosion around 1:30 a.m. was heard as far as two miles away.

The State Bureau of Investigation and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating, said Capt. Charles McLaurin of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office.

No one was living in the house at 3358 Cumberland Road, which is between Natal Street and Boone Trail Extension, McLaurin said.

Cumberland Road was closed between Natal Drive and Boone Trail Extension until about 12:25 p.m., authorities said.

As bulldozers moved rubble around and street sweepers cleaned the roadway this morning, the Sheriff's Office said Cumberland Road should be open by 11:30 a.m.

The house is owned by Angus Pate and his wife, Joyce, who live on Brushy Mill Road near the Hoke County line.

"He's in a daze," Joyce Pate said of her husband this morning.

The house, she said, was built by Pate's father in 1946.

The Pates moved into the house after they were married in 1965, she said.

At 82, Pate was unable to maintain the property, his wife said, and they had decided to sell the house and lot, which has mobile homes on the back part of it.

The blast this morning jarred residents from their sleep, shook the walls of their homes and knocked pictures to the floor.

Randy Tripp, 55, lives at 3359 Cumberland Road, across from the house.

"I thought somebody had actually hit my house," he said of the blast. "I jumped up and looked at the clock and it said 1:25 a.m. and I looked and saw the house had blowed up."

The explosion nearly blew out bay windows in his home, Tripp said, and tore screens off some of the windows. His storm door was battered and bent and unable to be opened, he said.

Kenneth Hall is chief of the Cumberland Road Fire Department and a city firefighter as well.

He said he was awakened about 1:30 a.m. when his daughter called and told him she had heard a loud explosion. Hall said she lives about a mile from the house.

City firefighters initially were asked to respond to a report of an explosion in the area of West Mountain Drive, Hall said. He wasn't among those dispatched, so he rode over to see the damage.

City firefighters found the source of the blast as they headed toward West Mountain Drive, Hall said, when they found pieces of timber and shards of glass on Cumberland Road.

"I've never seen an explosion like that in my career," Hall said.

Investigators haven't determined the cause of the blast.

Hall said there was a propane cylinder outside the house that probably held about 300 gallons of fuel. He didn't know if there was fuel inside.

Witnesses said there were no flames or smoke immediately after the blast.

There was nothing left of the small-frame wooden house other than a pile of rubble and a twisted chain-link fence. Pieces of lumber and shards of glass littered Cumberland Road. Insulation hung from the large trees around the lot.

Two houses down, the roof of what had been a side porch was knocked to the ground by the force of the explosion.

"It was like nothing else I've ever heard," said 48-year-old James Marshall, who lives in a trailer at the corner of Cumberland Road and Yale Street.

The blast shook his home, knocking pictures off the wall, he said.

"It was like an earthquake," Marshall said. "It shook the house real bad."

His wife and two daughters, ages 12 and 14, were awakened and had to be calmed, he said.

Between 15 and 20 people came out of their homes to see what happened, Marshall said.

The explosion was heard as far away as Hope Mills and Raeford Road, according to law enforcement officers at the scene.

The Highway Patrol, Fayetteville police and the state Department of Transportation were helping with traffic control this morning.

Authorities met with a representative from the Cumberland County schools to determine the best way to get students living in the affected area to school.

Staff writer Nancy McCleary can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3568.

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