Kevin and Cathy Nutsch were vacationing in Branson, Mo., with their five daughters when they got a call from a friend who said their rural Rose Hill home had just exploded.
"We thought it was just a joke," Cathy Nutsch said. "Until we got a call from the fire marshal."
The family made the six-hour drive back to Butler County not knowing what to expect. When they arrived, they found that their home had been leveled and their possessions strewn across hundreds of square feet of land.
"It was a long trip home," Kevin Nutsch said.
When the family pulled into the driveway in a school bus that had been converted into a family van, they found little left of their two-bedroom home about five miles southeast of Rose Hill. Neighbors and emergency officials all said they were amazed at the power of the explosion.
Dan Jones, who lives three miles from the home, said he was watching the space shuttle landing when he heard a monstrous sound.
"It was the durndest noise you ever heard in your life," he said as he surveyed the damage. "The dogs all took off running. The cats all took off running. You could feel it three miles from here."
Dan Armstrong, chief of the Rose Hill Fire Department, said the blast appeared to have been caused by a propane leak that filled the house with gas that eventually was touched off by a spark.
"It could be an air conditioner or a fan," he said. "It could have been an alarm clock. There are lots of things that can create a spark."
Armstrong said the first alarm came in at 7:19 a.m., and the first crews at the scene found the west wall of the house burning. The rest of the house was scattered in all directions.
"You could tell there had been a heck of an explosion," he said.
Armstrong said the blast caused an estimated $100,000 in damage to the house and its contents. One family pet, a cat, was killed, but another cat and a dog survived.
Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said his office heard reports that the blast had been felt as far away as Andover.
"There's nothing left of it," he said of the house. "Just absolutely little bitty pieces."
When the Nutsch family pulled into their driveway, Red Cross volunteers and more than two dozen friends, neighbors and relatives already had already put a big dent in the cleanup.
Workers raked through insulation and debris in the front yard, collecting pictures, clothing and other items that somehow survived the blast.
Kevin Nutsch said the family was still in shock as they looked through the boxes of possessions that had been salvaged.
"We're going to try to get it cleared up and rebuild, I guess," he said.
"Seventeen years of building it up and now this," Cathy Nutsch said. "You can't imagine how devastating it is to lose your house."
Distributed by the Associated Press
