Downtown blast leaves 21 injured
Workers rescued from dangling scaffolding at BGE offices
Anexplosion at the BGEoffices in downtown Baltimore Wednesday morning left 21 construction workers hospitalized and two window washers trapped briefly on scaffolding dangling 10 stories above the sidewalk, officials said.
The two workers were rescued through the windows of the 10th and 11th floors.
The Baltimore City Fire Department responded around 8:30 a.m. to the scene at 110 W. Fayette St., and rescued about 23 people from the building, spokeswoman Blair Adams said at a news conference. The explosion caused a fire and a partial roof collapse, the department said.
Two buildings on each side of the block also were evacuated as a precaution, Adams said.
The fire department said earlier Wednesday morning that nine people were taken to area hospitals in critical condition, and another was in serious condition. The status of the other 11 victims’ injuries were not provided, but a BGE spokeswoman later described all the injuries as not life-threatening. Two people declined care, the department said in a tweet.
The incident at Baltimore Gas and Electric’s offices was related to construction, said Stephanie Anne Weaver, the company spokeswoman, in a statement. Work on the building’s “air handling and boiler system” likely was the culprit, she said. She said the natural gas in the building was cut off due to the construction.
Adams said the official cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Weaver said the injured construction workers were contractors with Rand Construction Corp., which could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
BGE also said the building was mostly empty due to the coronavirus pandemic and the upcoming holidays.
Niles Ford, the city’s fire chief, said at the news conference that the department is trying to “wrap things up” and make sure the situation is “as safe as possible.” The incident, he said, ran from the 10th floor to the roof of the 16-story building.
BGE said Wednesday evening that the building had been inspected and deemed structurally sound.
“Crews are working to further secure and then remove the scaffolding that was compromised as a result of the incident,” Weaver said.
Wayne Jackson, 68, said he was in the area when he witnessed a commotion. He looked up and was shocked to see the scaffolding hanging from the side of the BGE building.
From the corner of North Charles and Fayette streets, he pointed to a broken window on the high rise building. He said that’s how rescuers retrieved the stranded workers.
“They took them in through the window,” Jackson said. “Nobody fell, nothing.”
Ford said firefighters brought the contract window washers — who were tethered in safety harnesses to wires on the side of the building — inside through windows on the 10th and 11th floors to rescue them. They easily pulled one worker through the 10th floor window, but rescue crews needed to climb up the scaf
fold and cut through the 11th-floor window to bring the other worker through.
They’re in “pretty decent condition,” Ford said.
Jessica Mazan, 38, was taking her mother to a doctors appointment when firetruck after firetruck rushed by.
“The fire trucks just kept coming and coming,” said Mazan, of Brooklyn.
Mazan said she saw medics guide one of the workers into the back of an ambulance. She said the responders gave him a blanket, but she was relieved that the worker seemed to be OK.
Keith Osterman, 38, and Robert Friedel, 58, were working construction in a neighboring building and were just outside when they heard the explosion.
“It was loud and everything around here shook,” Osterman said.
Scared, they looked up, Osterman said. “And then we seen the debris falling, which was the scaffolding and a bunch of glass.”
“Ahard hat fell down, so wedidn’t know if there was anyone in that lift,” Osterman said.
Osterman and Friedel said just two weeks ago they were putting up windows in the building that exploded — and were thankful to have been working from the inside.
Asked if there was anything he wanted to add, Friedel said: “only that you never know.”
In addition to the fire department, Baltimore Police officers and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the scene. Gov. Larry Hogan said in a tweet Wednesday afternoon that the state offered help to the city and sent workers to the scene “at their request.”
Mayor Brandon Scott praised the work of the rescue crews.
“Without their bravery and quick response, the outcome could have been much worse,” he said in a statement.