OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Fire crews on the scene after an explosion leveled a house in Oklahoma City on Friday could smell gas, a fire official said.
Neighbors reported the blast about 3:20 p.m.
“It felt like a bomb had happened, a big old bomb,” neighbor Esperanza Hernandez said.
“The structure here is pretty much leveled. Our first arriving fire trucks on scene did smell an odor of gas when they first got here,” said Capt. Scott Douglas of the Oklahoma City Fire Department.
After gas and electric power to the site was shut off, search dogs were brought in to check for bodies. However, Douglas said a neighbor noted the truck owned by the man who lived alone in the house was missing.
“He said, ‘If the truck’s not here, he’s not here,’” Douglas said. “We can’t confirm if anybody was in the house, but the K-9 dogs haven’t found any, and at this time we don’t have any reports of injuries to anyone.”
Officials later were able to reach the homeowner in Waco, Texas.
The source of the explosion has not been located, but neighbors said they had reported gas problems several days before the blast, Douglas said. Oklahoma Natural Gas officials said its crews performed repairs in the neighborhood earlier this week.