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May 17, 2008 6:05 pm US/Central
McKinney, Others Continue Explosion Investigation
McKINNEY (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
"I knew it would be bad, but it's devastating to see something like this."
Even seeing the pictures on television did not prepare Marilyn Hicks for the sight of the home where she grew up.
Her mother, Nancy Foster, and close family friend, Arthur Bryson, were in there when it exploded.
Hicks is angry about persistent reports the line was cut for 30 minutes or more and there was no action taken by the construction crew or a 911 call placed.
"How they could leave (and) not try to save my mother in there," she asked.
Robert Wiggins is one of those who smelled gas for 45 minutes or longer. Then the crew suddenly "bolted" all but one man who urged him to call 911.
"They turned their backs and ran with no evacuation or anything, they ran away," he recalled.
Investigators tell CBS 11 the contractor M.J. Sheridan was moving a gas line for Atmos but workers were boring under concrete, not digging a trench.
When the line was broken the gas had nowhere to escape and migrated into the sewers, they said.
"The contractor told me it was only six minutes, but numerous neighbors' reports say it was much longer than that," chief Mark Wallace of the McKinney Fire Department said.
On its Website, Houston-based M.J. Sheridan offers numerous gas-related services, including relocation of lines.
There was no answer at any of its offices in Houston, Dallas or Fort Worth on Saturday at the same time three generations of Foster's family filter through what's left of their belongings, trying to reconcile with the woman they've just seen in the hospital.
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