ONEIDA, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — It’s a morning neighbors on Elm Street in Oneida will never forget.
“We sat in the car for three hours and then 6 am boom and I never came home,” Tabitha France said. Her home was directly next to the one that blew up.
Donald Williamson II received a call from his parents early on the morning of September 9th.
“He said ‘Donny we’ve lost our home.’ I said ‘Dad what do you mean? Where’s mom?’ He said ‘She’s here in the car with me. It blew up everything blew up,’” Williamson recalled.
The Williamson’s home was directly across from the one that blew up.
“A four-by-four almost got my mom’s bed,” Williamson said. “It came right through the wall. If my mother were in there mom and dad wouldn’t be here right now just from the explosion itself.”
The house that exploded disappeared, but two other homes were also totaled by the blast, meaning it would have cost more to fix the houses as they were than to tear them down and build them from scratch.
“Everything off that wall was blown off,” Mark Costanza said, describing the home he and Tabitha had lived in for nine years. “It pushed the whole stove and refrigerator away from the wall. It blew the ceilings down in multiple rooms. It was very traumatic and devastating.”