Silver Spring Apartment Explosion: No Residents Missing

SILVER SPRING, MD — All of the residents of the Friendly Garden Apartments on Lyttonsville Road have been accounted for, authorities said Friday.

"We are still working to confirm that there were no visitors or other people in the building at the time of the explosion that are not part of the 14 apartments in that building," Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said at a morning news conference.

Fourteen people were taken to the hospital after the apartment exploded Thursday morning, and the building collapsed. Three of those people remain in serious condition, said Goldstein. Two of the people took themselves to the hospital; another left the apartments to go to work after the explosion, and then called 911 and was taken to the hospital.

There have been no reported deaths.

A property maintenance worker who was in the building when the explosion occurred was injured and has spoken with investigators. Fire and rescue workers are considering the possibility that the work being done may have had something to do with the explosion but are investigating several theories, Goldstein said.

"Until we get through the debris and a thorough examination of the building, we cannot rule out any of our active theories and cannot identify that that was the cause of the explosion," the chief said.

Residents from three of the Friendly Garden apartment buildings, including the one that collapsed, were told Thursday that their apartments were not safe to return to. Workers realized that all six buildings at the Friendly Garden apartment complex were without power around 7 p.m. Thursday due to damage to the transformer.

"Let night, we had about 225 residents who were displaced from these six buildings," Goldstein said.

Crews are working to get the problem fixed so residents of the three safe apartment buildings can return home.

Work at the scene could take three or more days as crews work to stabilize the area and determine the cause, said Goldstein.

"We'll get down to focusing on what the cause of this was," said County Executive Marc Elrich Friday morning.

The building was inspected for fire safety Feb. 2 and had its tri-annual inspection in September 2021, meaning that it was inspected to ensure it was up to building code and for fire safety, said Elrich.

"We're waiting to get that information so we can determine what we do next to ensure things like this don't happen again," he said.

A Montgomery County organization is running a donation site for the victims of the explosion. See how you can help.