Lake View, N.Y. (WBEN) - The residents of Lake View, near and far, felt the impact of the deadly home explosion Monday night on West Lane that killed a 78-year-old woman and sent her 78-year-old husband to Erie County Medical Center in critical condition.
Kim, a Lake View resident who lives about a mile away from the explosion, told WBEN she felt her house shake.
"We came outside, and a lot of my neighbors were out, kind of wondering the same thing," said Kim on Tuesday. "Then we looked down our street and you could see some black smoke, and that’s when we heard all the sirens."
Some students in the district had to be re-routed this morning on their way to school. Several of the homes near the explosion were heavily damaged.
Paul Gleason lives on the other side of Lake View, about three miles from the home explosion on West Lane. He admits he had no idea what had happened at that time until he got word from a neighbor.
"My neighbor, a couple houses down, he has a scanner - he was a retired fireman - so he told me it was on West Lane. My in-laws live here, so I figured I'd better come over," Gleason shared with WBEN on Tuesday. "It scared me, because everything's in front of their house. I'm glad it wasn't them, but unfortunately, it's terrible."
Just a short distance away from the house explosion, one neighbor said she was watching television in her living room when she saw and heard the large explosion outside her window.
"Stuff everywhere, heard the boom. I couldn't imagine what happened. What was causing that? I said to my husband, 'Get me the phone, I'm going to call 9-1-1,'" she shared in an interview with WBEN. "[My husband] jumped up and came out, and went running over, thinking maybe he can grab somebody. In the meantime, we have a police officer that lives down the street, he came running and met my husband and saw the wires hanging and said, 'You gotta get back, because those wires are hot.' So my husband came back. I called 9-1-1, and before I hung up, that police officer was there. The response was amazing. The number of responders, the way they worked together, went right to work, I was in awe."
While she didn't know the couple inside the house explosion well, she said they were a really nice couple who had lived in the neighborhood for years.
Meanwhile, a house right next door to where the explosion occurred suffered extensive fire damage, and was later demolished on Tuesday. She says the residents of that house were out-of-town.
"They have a beautiful house. We saw the fire, they were putting the fire out, but this morning when I see the roof caving in, and it's even worse on the other side, they said it's got to get demolished. These poor people are going to come back to a house that's going to be gone," the neighbor said. "She had stuff in there that she would like to get out, but she can't go in there. It's too dangerous."
Several neighbors in the vicinity best described the residents of the house lost due to the fire as a popular hotspot for Halloween with apple cider and full candy bars for the trick-or-treaters.
As for damages to her home, the neighbor said she only lost a few things off the wall and off the shelves that fell and broke.
"A shutter, my husband said, is crooked, but other than that, I don't see any structural damage like so many others," she said. "A house over on a Diana, across the street from that one, the front door blew right off the hinges."
Over on Diana Lane, one resident says she was just getting some stuff ready for the next day when all of a sudden, her entire house shook and everybody scattered outside.
"My husband went running down the street and yelled, 'Call 9-1-1!' When you came out, that's all you could see was just debris falling from the corner of the street, and everybody leaving their houses trying to figure out what was going on. Very, very scary situation, still kind of traumatized from it today," she said with WBEN. "And then it turned into a huge fire that I could literally see from inside my house. Again, very scary situation, nothing I've ever experienced before in my life."
She says one woman on her road was in her backyard directly behind the house that evening, finishing up some landscaping when the explosion occurred. Luckily, despite being shook up and still in shock the next morning, she was OK.
Having lived in the neighborhood for nearly 19 years and having friends on both sides of the street, she knows how close-knit the community has been over the years.
"This is a nice little tucked back area of Lake View, where kids play in the street and neighbors sit outside and talk. It's a great neighborhood, and it's a tragic event that happened," she said. "This neighborhood is going to definitely need some true healing."
Another Diana Lane resident, Jennifer, called Monday the most horrific experience she's had in her entire time living in Lake View.
"We were all just home, it felt like a car hit the house. Everybody got up and ran out of their houses, and it was just complete mayhem," Jennifer said in an interview with WBEN. "Everybody was screaming, you heard blood curdling cries. You run down the street, there was debris all over, papers just flying through the air, debris. It looked like something out of a horror movie. That's what it felt like."
Despite the shock and awe of the house explosion and the immediate aftermath, Jennifer was grateful from the response of many in the community, including the first responders to the scene.
"Everybody came together, everybody was everybody get cars out of the driveway and making sure everybody was OK. And the first responders were great. There were so many firemen here, and you couldn't ask for anything more," Jennifer said. "People were taking breaks, they were helping out, people had water for everybody. Everybody came together in such a sad, sad, horrible experience."
The home on West Lane exploded shortly before 9 p.m. The cause of the explosion is not yet known.
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