BEL AIR, Maryland (AP) – A neighbor reported a gas smell to a utility company the night before a home in Bel Air, Maryland, exploded, killing two people. The Baltimore Sun reported on this.
Residents near the home reported smelling gas Saturday night, but the State Fire Marshal’s Office said they had no record of anyone reporting it to 911 or Baltimore Gas and Electric.
A resident, Carline Fisher, told the newspaper that she reported the smell of gas to BGE on Saturday night and spoke to an employee who arrived. Based on that information, a fire marshal’s spokesman contacted investigators investigating the explosion, who told him that BGE did indeed receive a call at 8:24 p.m. on Saturday, the Sun reported.
Homeowner Ray Corkran and a BGE contractor, Jose Rodriguez-Alvarado, died in the explosion Sunday morning.
Fisher told The Sun she smelled gas “immediately” when she left her house to walk her dogs at around 8pm on Saturday. Fisher, who lives about half a mile from Corkran’s house, said she continued to smell gas as she walked.
A BGE spokesman declined to comment to the newspaper, citing an ongoing National Transportation Safety Board investigation. He referred questions to the NTSB, which is among the agencies and other bodies investigating the incident. An NTSB spokeswoman said she had no immediate response to the Sun’s questions about how BGE handled a report of a gas smell Saturday night.
Oliver Alkire, a spokesman and deputy chief of the State Fire Marshal’s office, said earlier this week that he had been told by investigators from his agency and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that there were no calls to 911 or BGE that night about the smell of gas.
But on Thursday, Alkire said, investigators told him that they had indeed questioned Fisher and that she had told them about her call to BGE.
“It slipped through the cracks,” Alkire said of the fact that investigators did not initially tell him what Fisher had said.
There may have been confusion about BGE’s presence in the neighborhood Saturday night because the utility company had sent a truck there because of an electrical problem at Corkran’s home, Alkire said.
At least one resident who said he smelled gas on Saturday night told The Sun he did not report it because he saw a BGE truck on the road and assumed it was responding to someone else reporting the smell.
Jennifer Gabris, a spokeswoman for the NTSB, said Thursday the investigation was continuing and the team was still on the scene. She said she expected a preliminary report on the NTSB’s findings to be released in about 30 days.
