{"id":9749,"date":"2016-03-10T09:02:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T17:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/seattle-blast-levels-buildings-causes-no-serious-injuries\/"},"modified":"2016-03-10T09:02:34","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T17:02:34","slug":"seattle-blast-levels-buildings-causes-no-serious-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/seattle-blast-levels-buildings-causes-no-serious-injuries\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle blast levels buildings, causes no serious injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE<\/strong> \u2014 Shop owners on Wednesday inspected walls that were ripped to shreds by an early morning natural gas explosion in Seattle and marveled that the blast had caused no serious injuries.<\/p>\n

Crews were responding to reports of a gas leak when the explosion occurred about 1:40 a.m. along a main thoroughfare in a neighborhood north of downtown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is that no one died and this happened at two in the morning and not two in the afternoon,\u201d said Chris Maykut, owner of Chaco Canyon Organic Caf\u00e9. \u201cIf it had happened at two in the afternoon, things would be really bad right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blast sent nine firefighters to a hospital. All were treated and released. There were no reports of other injuries or missing people. Still, dogs searched the rubble.<\/p>\n

The cause of the explosion that damaged 36 businesses was under investigation.<\/p>\n

Video surveillance from the Olive and Grape Mediterranean Restaurant showed a bright flash at 1:43 a.m. and then the room shook as debris fell from the ceiling. A large garage door covering the restaurant\u2019s front windows protected it from extensive damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olive and Grape was lucky,\u201d owner Paola Kossack said in an email.<\/p>\n

Bike shop owner Davey Oil said he arrived soon after the fire trucks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were tons of flames leaping over what was already the rubble of Neptune coffee, which as you can see now totaled, gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The initial emergency calls revealed the initial chaos.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayday, mayday, mayday,\u201d a fire dispatcher screamed immediately after the explosion, calling for a full response. \u201cI have firefighters missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eight firefighters and a battalion chief were later treated at Harborview Medical Center. Several were hurt by falling debris. None were admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have anybody with burns, nothing life-threatening, nothing major,\u201d hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.<\/p>\n

Kenny Stuart, president of the Seattle firefighters union, said it was \u201cextremely fortunate\u201d that no first responders were seriously injured or killed.<\/p>\n

Residents and shop owners in the Greenwood neighborhood spent the morning surveying damage and cleaning up rubble and glass that littered the streets. Workers from one cafe damaged in the blast poured coffee for firefighters.<\/p>\n

Among the businesses damaged or destroyed were Neptune Coffee, Mr. Gyro and the bike shop G&O Family Cyclery. An apartment building and another nearby residential structure were evacuated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know neighbors will do everything they can to support these businesses as they begin the long and challenging task to recover and repair from this incident,\u201d Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Puget Sound Energy spokeswoman Akiko Oda said it will take time to determine what caused the explosion, and the utility will be working with the Seattle Fire Department in the investigation.<\/p>\n

Pipeline safety investigators from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission were also at the scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 Shop<\/a> owners on Wednesday inspected walls that were ripped to shreds by an early morning natural gas explosion in Seattle and marveled that the blast had caused no serious injuries. Crews were responding to reports of a gas leak when the explosion occurred about 1:40 a.m. along a main thoroughfare in a neighborhood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":9750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9749"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}