A deacon for a Hammond church walked out of its meetng hall relatively unscathed after the building exploded Monday evening.
Firefighters continued working on extinguishing the ensuing fire into the evening, while a demolition company waited to take the remaining portion of the Bethel Congregational C.O.G.I.C. Church’s adjacent hall, at the corner of Calumet and Michigan avenues. Hammond Fire Chief Jeff Smith said the building’s flat roof collapsing downward was making it more difficult to extinguish even though the fire itself wasn’t serious.
Smith said the man, whose name he didn’t immediately have, had entered the building to set up for a Monday night meeting when he smelled gas. He first disabled the building’s alarm and went to the kitchen, which is in the back of the building, to see if someone had left a stove burner on.
The kitchen was fine, Smith said, so the man went upstairs and proceeded toward a room containing three furnaces and a water heater. As he opened that door, the man told Smith he heard a “Boom-pop!” and was thrown backward down the stairs.
When firefighters arrived, they found the man across the street from the building, Smith said. He told Smith he rolled down and was able to extinguish the fire on himself.
“His hands were burned and he had some burn spots in his clothes, but he was otherwise all right,” Smith said. “He was in good spirits.”
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Steve Alford, declined comment.
The building is a total loss, Smith said.
A 17-year-old witness said he had gone to his aunt’s house on Wilcox Street after weightlifting for football, and the family was about to sit down for dinner when the house “started shaking.”
“My aunt started crying, and we called 911,” he said. ” The smoke was really black, and there’s cinder blocks all over the street.”
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Smith said a gas leak most likely was the culprit.
Michelle Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.