After gas explosions, fires, residents told to stay away from their homes

LAWRENCE, Mass. — As state and federal investigators began sifting through damage across three Massachusetts towns, thousands of residents were told not to return to their homes Friday morning after a sudden series of gas explosions and fires that ripped through the region the night before.

The numbers were overwhelming: 8,500 homes or businesses had been affected by an overpressurized gas line and many of them needed to remain empty for now, authorities said. As many as 80 buildings had been burned. Some 150 emergency calls had come in from stunned residents reporting the smell of gas, a blaze or a blast of some sort, and 400 people had wound up sleeping in five shelters that were hastily opened overnight.

The chain of incidents in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, north of Boston, left one person dead and more than 20 injured.

Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management, said the exact cause of the disaster is still unknown, but officials were focused on the possibility that natural gas had become overpressurized along thousands of lines to homes and businesses.

“All we can say at this point is that the investigation is in its very preliminary stages,” he said.

A local gas company, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, had announced earlier Thursday that it was upgrading natural gas lines in neighborhoods across the state. On Friday morning, the company said in a statement that workers would need to visit more than 8,000 customers to inspect gas meters.

By Friday morning, teams of gas workers, firefighters and police were going door to door, shutting off gas in south Lawrence, a densely populated area where many Spanish-speaking immigrants live.

At a news conference, the mayor of Lawrence, Dan Rivera, instructed residents in both English and Spanish to stay away from the area until further notice and assured unauthorized residents that they had nothing to fear at shelters that the city has set up.

The investigation into the cause is being conducted by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, who arrived in Massachusetts overnight, along with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Since 1998, at least 646 serious gas distribution incidents have occurred, causing 221 deaths and as many as 1,000 people injured, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.