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Georgetown family flees home before blast, blaze

NORTH GEORGETOWN — A baby’s cries may have saved a family early Sunday.

North Georgetown Fire Chief Ed Reichenbach said Rachel Raber was checking on her baby around 5 a.m. when she smelled natural gas in the home.

“For whatever reason the baby woke up and was crying,” Reichenbach said.

Mrs. Raber alerted her husband, Chad, to the gas odor and the family quickly got out of the home. Once all three were outside, Mr. Raber and his father-in-law shut off the gas to the house located at 1271 Case Road.

The two-story farmhouse owned by the Rabers was built around the late 1800s or early 1900s and added onto a few times over the years, Reichenbach guessed. He said the gas is fed to the home through a pipeline from a gas well located several hundred yards from the home.

Raber and his father-in-law were walking away from the home after shutting off the gas when an explosion destroyed the interior of the home, Reichenbach said.

Surprisingly, no one was injured.

“They were very fortunate. The explosion was just so devastating,” Reichenbach said.

Although the structure of the home remained intact, all the windows and some of the interior walls of the home blew out from the force of the blast.

A few beams in the basement were also broken and the majority of the home’s kitchen was damaged by fire, Reichenbach said.

“There was so much damage,” he added.

The department was called to the property at 7:17 a.m. North Georgetown firefighters were assisted by the Homeworth and Beloit fire departments.

Reichenbach also said it isn’t clear what caused the gas to leak into the home, but that the Rabers’ insurance company will look into it.

“Evidently something happened to the well itself,” he speculated.

kwhite@mojonews.com

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