CALHOUN, Ga. - An April explosion that leveled a three-story house, left several neighbors homeless and baffled police was done on purpose, officials say.
"I knew that, within 10 minutes of pulling up on the scene, that something wasn't right about this," Calhoun Fire Deputy Chief Terry Mills said Tuesday. "You don't hear about devastation on that scale - ever."
Charred boards and debris partially covered with tarps is still all that remains of 101 Saddle Mountain Drive, a home that exploded in April. The explosion also wrecked eight nearby homes and damaged more than 60 houses in Saddlebrook, an upscale neighborhood in Calhoun.
"I've never been involved with anything of this magnitude before," Mills said. "It was kind of like CSI."
Police initially blamed a natural gas leak for the cause, but after months of investigating, local and state police said the explosion was caused by arson and are now searching for a suspect.
While the homeowners are not considered suspects right now, police "haven't ruled anyone out," Mills said. But he added that there are no suspects yet.
On Tuesday, the Saddlebrook community nestled around the leveled house was full of contractors and workers hammering drywall and nailing new shingles on roofs. But across from the pile of rubbled remains from the exploded house, one neighbor said everyone in the area has their own theory of what happened.
Tom Brogden, who had the front windows of his house and an inside wall blown out by the blast, said he's heard every "conspiracy."
"Nobody knows anything," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's an accident."
After the blast on April 16, police had to wait until the next day for the remains to cool enough to search for the cause. The damage to the neighborhood was estimated as a $6 million insurance loss, Mills said.
Once officials from Atlanta Gas Light Co. dug out the gas lines around the area, police discovered all the piping was intact, indicating that a gas malfunction couldn't have been the cause of the explosion, he said.
But the investigation was put on hold while insurance investigators from various companies aligned their schedules to survey the damage.
In July, local and state officials from state Insurance and Safety Fire Commission office, along with dozens of private insurance investigators, dug through the rubble, scrutinizing every gas appliance from the exploded house along with the other homes destroyed in the neighborhood.
"We were confident all along that our gas lines were not the cause," said Alan Chapple, spokesman for AGL Resources, the parent company of the Atlanta Gas Light and Chattanooga Gas companies. "There was nothing wrong with our lines."
While state officials have determined the cause of the blast is a criminal act, officials are still uncertain how the explosion was ignited, Mills said.
State Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John Oxendine is asking anyone with information about the explosion to call the Arson Hotline at 1-800-282-5804. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an arsonist.
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Article: Calhoun blast loss: $6 million