City officials and Atmos Energy have released no new details about what caused a house to explode in Lake Dallas last week, leaving evacuated residents with questions but few explanations.
The blast occurred around 7 p.m. on March 19 in the 600 block of Moseley Street. One woman was critically injured and airlifted to a hospital, where she remains in critical condition. Her home was destroyed.
Neighbors were ordered to leave the area for safety. Atmos Energy paid for hotel rooms for some displaced residents, including Amanda Hughes, who lives a street away.
Hughes said she and her family could not return until Monday.
“The city employees, I think maybe they just didn’t have a plan, they didn’t know how to handle such a catastrophe,” Hughes said, Fox 4 KDFW reported. “Once we left that night, it was, no, you can’t go back, no, you can’t get this, no, no, no. That’s what we heard from everybody.”
A Lake Dallas City Council meeting scheduled for Thursday was canceled because the explosion “impacted the ability to meet statutory posting requirements for the meeting.”
“We all have questions. Why did you take away our city council meeting? That doesn’t make sense. That sounds like another door shut on us,” Hughes said.
Jordan Warbington, who lives next door to the destroyed house, said he heard the explosion and helped pull the injured woman from the rubble.
“Everybody’s looking, and we spotted her, and that’s when everyone ran to try and grab her,” Warbington said, CBS News Texas reported. “Us two were one of the few people to actually grab her out of there, so it’s kind of triggering to come over here and see it.”
“She was talking and speaking,” he recalled. “She gave me her mom’s number to call her.”
Warbington has been staying in a hotel and was told he could not return home until Friday. He described seeing the damage for the first time since the blast.
“Mentally, it’s not a good feeling,” he said. “We don’t know anything that’s going on. Honestly, I’m trying to stop myself from crying because this is my first time seeing it since everything happened, so yeah… It’s not a good sight.”
“When I went in to grab a few things, I was like… You can see my hands are still shaking,” Warbington added. “It’s an uneasy feeling to be over here now.”
Atmos Energy technicians and contractors were visible throughout the neighborhood on Monday, conducting door-to-door safety checks and pressure-testing the natural gas system under the oversight of the Texas Railroad Commission. The utility said crews worked through the weekend to confirm system safety and restore service.
Lake Dallas initially described the explosion as a “utility-related incident.”
The city’s public information officer referred questions about a possible gas leak to Atmos Energy, which has not provided specifics. The city said it will hold a town hall meeting in the near future to discuss the incident, but did not provide a specific date.
