Survivor of Trenton explosion: I'm still shaking
TRENTON (WPVI) -- A survivor of an explosion in Trenton trying to cope with his home collapsing spoke with Action News on Thursday.
"I'm still shaking. I don't know where I'm at," William Lewis said.
William Lewis, the man who along with his home health aide, was inside the Wayne Avenue house Wednesday afternoon when numbers 46 and 48 exploded, causing the homes to collapse.
"It just blast off. It was two of them. My neighbors came to assist me," Lewis said.
Eventually, they pulled the two out of front window, but not before they tried escaping out the back.
"They were telling me to go out the back door. When I went out the back door, it blew up again and this time thank God I had enough time, they pulled me through the window and got me across the street," Lewis said.
Lewis' next door neighbors are out of their house right now.
And while they suffered heavy damage, they're glad they parked two cars and the truck in the driveway.
"I am happy that the truck is there because if it wasn't, I think the whole house would have just shifted onto my house," neighbor Rita Osborne said.
The homes are now precariously tilted and will be taken apart piece by piece so that investigators can determine the source of the gas explosion.
"The front exactly looks like a house of cards, it just sloped down, and the other side isn't as bad, but it's like tilted," neighbor William Mills said.
"One of the ladies was talking about how long one of the houses had been in the family so that's a little sad," Sylvia Siler of the Wayne Avenue Baptist Church said.
The immediate area around the blast site remains cordoned off and gas and power has been shut off on either side of the site.
Iyanna Owen who lives directly across the street moved her family down the block Wednesday night frightened by the blast and the aftermath.
"I don't want to take any chances because I do have two small kids and I don't know what's going to happen when the actual house falls completely down. I don't want to take that risk," Owen said.
Four families have been displaced by the explosion and collapse. They are being assisted by the Red Cross.
The home William Lewis lived in was originally owned by his grandparents. Lewis and a friend who was staying with him hope at some point they will be able to retrieve personal belongings.
The friend, Miguel Geigle, was was not home at the time.
"Just trying to talk to them to see if I can get anything as far as personal, IDs, Social Security, birth certificates-- things of that nature that we can really use," Geigle said.
The other home affected was vacant.
