Explosion, implosion

I received an e-mail from my best friend Cris yesterday morning with the subject "OMG." She explained that the gas explosion in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday night (photos above) occurred a mere 1,000' from her house. She could smell the smoke indoors and out. Her yard was covered with debris - mainly insulation, and at the time authorities confirmed that 2 people had died and 8 homes had been leveled. Cris e-mailed last night to say that the media were still parked outside and news reports this morning state that the explosion took 5 lives, and that the cause may be the rupture of an 83-year-old 12" cast-iron gas main. According to MSNBC, flames reached 100s of feet into the air and the explosion was so powerful it was felt 9 miles away in Bethlehem. ABC reports that the victims of the blast are from 2 families: a couple in their 70s, a 4-month-old boy, a 16-year-old girl, and a parent of one of the children. The New York Times relates some grim eyewitness accounts. Scary.

Back in December, my Dad and stepmother also had an unnerving experience: "We were heading north Christmas Eve. No cars approaching but there was a car quite a ways ahead of us - far enough that it wouldn't have been part of the problem. We're driving along and all of a sudden there was an 'explosion.' Sounded like a gunshot. Scared the living daylights out of us. We looked up and the sunroof glass had shattered leaving a rectangular hole (4th image) and glass came into the car with us. Of course we pulled over to calm down. Closed the sunshade to keep any more glass from coming into the car and headed for the dealer. Pieces kept coming off but landed on the sunshade not on us. Really weird that the final shape of the hole is so perfect." They searched and found that the problem is not rare, and has happened to many different vehicles. Their Acura sunroof was replaced at no cost by the dealership.