NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- One home was completely destroyed and at least two others damaged after a reported explosion and raging fire in the Hill neighborhood Saturday.
The home at 305 Howard Ave. was reduced to a smoldering heap.
Photos: Howard Avenue New Haven house explosion, fire sends 5 to hospital
But all neighbors could talk about was what didn't happen: No one died.
"This was a miracle!" said Maria Garcia, whose son, Moses Bermudez, and his family live directly across the street from the pile of smoldering rubble. "It's a miracle that nobody died."
The explosion, which Bermudez said "was like a bomb" going off, blew out windows at least three houses away, according to neighbor Nelson Lopez, who lives two doors down from the scene.
When Lopez came out to see what happened, "all you could see was a big ball of fire" where the porch of the house used to be, he said. "To me, I don't know how they got out. God must have been with them."
Harry Rivers, who lives with his wife on the second floor of a damaged house next door to 305 Howard Ave., said the explosion blew the couch in his mother-in-law's first-floor apartment through the wall from the living room into the dining room.
But, somehow, "everybody got out," said Garcia. She rushed from her home on Hallock Street after she heard the early morning explosion that several neighbors said came just a minute or two after utility workers restored power following an earlier outage.
"We were so afraid that some of the people were still in the house," she said.
Neighbors were so thrilled to learn that no one died that they began cheering in the street, Garcia said. "Everyone clapped because they got out."
Noel Ortiz, of 301 Howard Ave., ran out of his house to try to help his neighbors, but their home already was engulfed in flames and collapsing.
"I could hear the people screaming from the house, and I was asking God to please help them stay safe," Ortiz said. "It was a miracle from God that they were able to get out."
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said, in fact, no one suffered serious injuries in the blaze. The Santos family of 305 Howard Ave. managed to escape through the back of the house. They were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
The fire spread to 301 and 309 Howard Ave., the homes on either side.
Neighbors said there was a power outage in the neighborhood overnight, and the explosion and fire occurred soon after United Illuminating Co. trucks restored electricity and left.
Fire Chief Michael Grant said the cause remained under investigation.
Grant confirmed that there was a report of power outage earlier. He said investigators do know that the fire started soon after the power was restored to the area.
"I can say with confidence that the work they did on the lines outside had nothing to do with the fire inside," he said.
It's possible, he said, that the restoration of power did serve as an ignition source for something flammable in the house, wither an accumulation of natural gas or a flammable liquid. Investigators were trying to determine if that was the case.
UI is working with police and fire investigators, Michael West, director of corporation communications for UIL Holdings, UI's parent company.
"I would say that it's premature to say that there's a direct connection" between electrical work and the incident, he said. "What ignited the explosion certainly is still under investigation. I don't have any details at this point.
The first report of an explosion and building collapse came in at 7:40 a.m. The blaze quickly became a three-alarm fire, with 12 fire vehicles and nearly 65 firefighters on scene. Fire departments from neighboring towns provided mutual aid to staff empty firehouses in the event of another emergency.
Firefighters arrived to find the house engulfed in flames, and fire was extending rapidly to the homes on either side. Firefighters, from the inside and outside, worked to protect those two houses. The house at the center of the blaze already was falling in on itself in the inferno.
DeStefano commended the Fire Department for preventing the fire from spreading further.
"The Fire Department did an extraordinary job," DeStefano said. "Do you see how close these houses are?" Many homes in the neighborhood don't have driveways, so houses are separated by narrow alleys.
Ortiz said the power went out overnight, and he heard what sounded like a small explosion while the crews were working, which worried his family.
After the lights went back on, he went back to bed.
Then his whole house shook.
"The windows, they shattered. I took my family. We ran outside. I tried to get into the house next door but it completely collapsed and the flames just went up," Ortiz said.
His daughter, Bridgette, 16, was in a panic. She'd been to the neighbor's house many times and was friends with a teen who lives there.
"We thought she died. I never felt like that in my entire life," she said.
In all, 20 people from three families were displaced.
"When it blew up, it looked like the whole front of the house had collapsed," said Ed Carver, 33, who lives across the street. "After five minutes or so, that's when it just went up in flames.
"It was definitely surprising to see the people made it out alive."
He brought one of the displaced families into his house to keep warm.
"I would want someone to do that for me."
Grant echoed neighbor's sentiments, saying he believed at the time there was "divine intervention."
The family in the destroyed house were all still in bed on the second floor when the house blew. with such power that the second floor "pancaked" onto the first floor, Grant said. The father somehow managed to gather his family and found a space opened by the collapse at the rear and crawled out.
Andrew Rizzo, the city's top building official, inspected the two damaged houses on either side. He said they were "uninhabitable," but wouldn't have to be demolished.
"Eventually, once the investigation is complete, most likely the city will come in and secure them."
Later in the morning, a crew from the city's Livable City Initiative assessed houses across the street for possible damage.
The Red Cross was on scene to help people with shelter needs.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
