taking charge
BAKER DECLARES EMERGENCY IN GAS EXPLOSION DISASTER
LAWRENCE — Leonel Rondon got his driver’s license hours before he died in an explosion at a friend’s house in South Lawrence Thursday.
“He was celebrating with his friends,” family friend Luis Medina said. “The family is broken apart. It’s tough. This family just needs to mourn their son.”
Rondon, 18, of Lawrence was pronounced dead Thursday night at Massachusetts General Hospital, according to Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s office. Rondon was in a vehicle outside a home on Chickering Street when it exploded, causing the chimney to come crashing down on the driver’s side. A friend in the vehicle suffered an injured ear; a woman and her daughter in the home also sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
“(Leonel’s father) saw on the news a house exploded and a chimney was dropped on top of someone and somebody died, then to realize that that was his son,” Medina said. “It’s sad.”
His family described Rondon’s love for cars and shoes in a note they wrote about what kind of person he was, calling him “loving and respectful,” and “excited about life.” Friends say the teen was also a DJ.
Wakil Tapia, 17, lives down the street from where the house exploded Thursday.
“We lost a good person and he’s going to be remembered. He’s not going to be forgotten,” Tapia told the Herald. “He was a very chill person.”
The two went to Lawrence High School and Tapia said he was “very disturbed” to learn the news.
Another friend, Anthony Gil, said Rondon was in school “trying to better himself.”
“At first I was shocked but there’s not much you can do,” Gil said. “We all grew up together in this community, like a huge family.”
Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Edward J. Markey and Rep. Niki Tsongas visited the scene of the home Friday, all visibly shaken by what they saw.
“This is about as immediate and enormous and gigantic demonstration of the force of a gas explosion I’ve ever stood next to,” Baker said. “That’s somebody’s house and my guess is, that whole process probably took seconds and it was just another day and then it changed completely.”
Lawrence City Councilor Marc Laplante was walking around the neighborhood as residents were bused to their homes to grab a few essential belongings before being brought back to shelters.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation and when you talk to Columbia Gas, they’re telling you that they’ve never experienced something like this before,” Laplante said. “They’re bringing in their competitors like Eversource and others to come in here to provide essentially mutual aid for them. We’re talking about a pretty substantial situation here.”
Neighbors Mike and Eileen Grenier got off the bus yesterday to get their medications and a pair of shoes for Eileen, who was still wearing teal fuzzy slippers. They live a couple of houses down from where the explosion was.
“It was terrifying. You could feel it in your body,” Eileen said, fighting back tears. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Mike wasn’t home at the time, but Eileen, their daughter and their 4-yearold grandson was.
“It was a pretty bad scene all around,” Mike said. “We’ve lived here 41 years and we’ve never seen a catastrophe like this.”