Silver Spring Apartment Has Cut Gas Pipe In Basement, Says Chief

SILVER SPRING, MD — There is a cut gas pipe in the basement of the Friendly Garden apartment building that exploded and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue crews are looking for the source of ignition. Fire and Rescue does not know if that was the cause of the explosion.

The team is still investigating all possible causes.

It's possible that a worker in the building Thursday morning cut the gas pipe while working to fix a plumbing issue, said Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein, but crews do not know that if that is related to the fire. The worker was injured and has been interviewed by the Fire and Rescue team.

Fire crews responded to the blast at 10:30 a.m. Thursday and helped residents evacuate the building. All of the residents have been accounted for, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said Friday morning. Three are in serious condition at the hospital. At least one resident jumped from a second-story window to escape. Fire crews are still working to ensure that there were no visitors at the apartment building at the time of the blast.

Two dogs trained to search for human remains separately alerted fire crews to an area of debris, said Goldstein.

"We hope that we're dealing with components — clothing or other items that belonged to occupants in this building — that are giving us these alerts for the dogs," said Goldstein.

Crews will continue to search the area, he said.

"Until we're down to the bare ground and all the debris is removed, we can't rule that point out," said Goldstein Friday afternoon.

The building that collapsed and two other nearby buildings were determined to be unsafe for residents to return to.

A transformer was damaged during the explosion, leaving all six Friendly Garden apartment buildings without power on Thursday. Over 200 residents were unable to return home Thursday night.

Power was restored to the three buildings that are safe to enter, said Goldstein Friday afternoon. Those residents should be able to return their homes by 8 p.m. Friday.

The other three buildings are still unsafe and a shelter will remain open for anyone who needs it, said Goldstein.

How You Can Help

A Montgomery County organization is running a donation page for the victims of the explosion.

"A March 3 fire and explosion devastated the Friendly Garden Apartments on Lyttonsville Road in Silver Spring, causing serious injuries, displacing residents, and destroying multiple apartments," the donation page on Making Home Possible's website says. "Many residents evacuated carrying very little or nothing."

There are also individual GoFundMe pages for individual victims:

• "Silver Spring Apartment building fire"
• "Let’s help out Debra & her family"
• "Help Lucy, David rebuild after explosion"
• "Help Karen Linette"