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Subscribe to RSSOfficials say a gas leak may be to blame in a deadly house explosion that killed a toddler on New York's Long Island. WNBC's Tracie Strahan reports.
Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion that leveled a house on Long Island, N.Y., killing an 18-month-old baby and injuring another 17 people, officials said.
Rah-quan Palmer died in the blast that razed his family's two-story home on Prospect Drive in Brentwood just before noon Tuesday. Palmer's mother, Christina Morgan, 23, and his father, Rashamel Palmer, 28, remain hospitalized along with their tenants Calvin Harris, 23, and 63-year-old Irving Justiniano.
A State Farm Insurance agent, 46-year-old Patricia Salegna-Maqueda, who had been assessing a recent claim submitted for flooding, and a plumber, 48-year-old Michael Ray, also were injured.
Eleven people outside the house also were injured, including seven police officers, two firefighters and a mother and son who lived next door. Their injuries were minor and all were treated at local hospitals and released.
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Firefighters sifted through the rubble of the home Tuesday afternoon into the evening, seeking answers to what may have prompted the destruction.
Neighbors described a chaotic scene.
"One of them came out, and his clothes were all ripped, his face was all bloody," said Anthony Acevedo. "The mother of the baby that came out, she was bloody and crying, and she kept screaming, 'My baby's in there, my baby's in there.'"
Another neighbor, who said he often waved to the family, saw rescuers pull the baby from the rubble, but he wasn't moving.
"That's the sad part, and that image just kills me," said Carlos Bescosne. "I saw the fireman run with the baby."
Another woman, Dawn Paris, said the explosion shook her house and she lives a mile away.
Frank Catalano, a worker with AMS Restoration and Environmental Services said that a pipe had burst in the house last week, causing a flood.
"There were issues in the house," Catalano said. "The condition wasn't the greatest."
The house had been illegally converted into a rooming house with at least eight rooms, which were being rented for $300 a month, said Inez Birbiglia, a spokeswoman for the Town of Islip. The owner of the house was issued 10 summonses for code violations in September 2011 and was given until this October to bring the house into compliance.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation. Authorities say two 200-pound propane tanks were discovered in the debris and are investigating if the propane may have contributed to the explosion.
National Grid spokeswoman Wendy Ladd says it appears natural gas was not used in that house or on the entire block.
Officials have condemned the houses on both sides of the explosion, which were badly damaged. Red Cross is assisting 19 people find temporary shelter until residents are allowed into homes that were intact but may have been compromised.
Last April, another home in Brentwood exploded. The home was vacant at the time and no one was injured, though 21 people from neighboring homes were taken to the hospital for evaluation.
A gas leak was believed to have caused that explosion.
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Leave a Comment:
AS they put there combined brain power together to come up with a cause for the explosion we can eliminate oxygen as a cause of the explosion. Therefore it is either propane or natural gas or someone was cooking meth. No other options are there?
The investigation of the propane tanks would take all of 10 seconds. Are they ruptured from the inside out, or imploded by the explosion?
Wasn't natural gas as the article states no one one the block has natural gas. If propane tank was turned on it would fill any space until a spark makes it explode.
I think the owner found a way to have the insurance company build him a new house.
Pedro: This would be the owner whose child was killed? Wow, why didn't I think of that?
meth, for sure.
The baby's name was 'Rah-quan'?
Gee........I wonder which tribe these people are from. I'm guessing they were making suicide vests and one went off by accident.
Tom M, why don't you take you racist trolling elsewhere. If you bothered to read the article, instead of post mindless crap -- you'd realize it was a slumlord ignoring housing/building codes that most likely led to 2 huge propane tanks exploding. An 18 month old child died you f*ck*ing a$$w1pe.
amazing, some fools see terrorists around every corner
Thanks, Ulrich.
I'd like to know where the 200 pound gas bottles were being kept at as they are not supposed to be inside any dwelling. If the LP tanks were being used or stored inside this home then I'd say we've found the cause. If they were used inside then all it would have taken was someone not checking for leaks when they switched out a tank and the results are now evident.
With 10 code violations it also makes me wonder the condition of just about anything in the building, furnaces, water heaters, stoves etc etc. Not dealing with any issue can cause huge problems and sadly some of them are deadly but people figure it won't happen to them mentally or a landlord that doesn't care is the worst.
What was a plummer and an issue investigator doing in all this I also wonder, you would think at the very least that both of these people would know the signs of a gas leak and deal with it post haste. Something seems off to this whole thing.
What a sad sad tragic event either way and my condolences to the family who lost their child, hopefully everyone else affected will recover soon. Its nice to see that other people also jumped in to help and maybe they even prevent this from being worse than it ended up being. My hats off to you people.
10 code violations in 09/2011 and there given a YEAR to fix them??? and it was an illegal house and nothing done??? and now this tragedy?? to bad they didn't live where i do...would not have gone on more than a month...pathetic local gov't...
You say that but speaking as someone working in a local code enforcement department the owners can find a sympathetic ear in almost any councilperson and get extensions or waivers for the ticketed items...sad but true.
@happy - being a landowner (private renters) , and knowing other owners (public/ section8 renters), you can find a code violation for anything.
Maybe if we cut back the entitlement programs, these monkeys will learn a little self respect, awareness of their living conditions, and actually do something about it. But no, instead, we allow them to live in squalor with little incentive to do anything about it.
That is true I had a couple of rentals that I rented out section 8 (big mistake). Brand new carpet and after a year I got a code violation for the poor condition of the carpet. Which I had to replace but not before having them move out.
How awful! My condolences to the parents of the baby lost. R.I.P. little one!
Can we all say, "Owner/landlord in huge trouble?" How could anyone put people's lives in danger by not keeping up with a home/boarding house? By the article, I can't tell if the parents of the baby owned the house or not?
AllPeopleRights: The article states: "....Palmer's [the baby's] mother, Christina Morgan, 23, and his father, Rashamel Palmer, 28, remain hospitalized along with their tenants Calvin Harris, 23, and 63-year-old Irving Justiniano, ...." The phrase, "their tenants" indicates that they were the owners who illegally rented out rooms in the house. Nonetheless, I doubt that they thought there was any danger or they wouldn't have lived there as well. Sadly, they are now paying the ultimate price.
Damn 8 rooms in a 2 story house?????????? That's Brentwood for ya!
yeah, it's weird that they use the phrase "their tenants", and then use the phrase "the owner" as if the owner is a separate person who didn't live in the house. They already identified the people, it would be clearer to say "Palmer was issued whatever violations and had a year to fix them".
I have stayed at hundreds of hotels like that (2 story 200 Rooms) called Holiday Inn, and yes, we had in Fishkill NY the same kind of explosion in that Inn, an entire wing went down!--wake up USA, you can have that anywhere--
But I can see you all like to dish on small business instead-------I thought that is what Romney wants more of---
Way to go Bungaard! How did it take you so long to bring politics into it? Asleep at the keyboard? Dumb.
I'm confused, the article said that 7 police officers and 2 firemen were injured in the blast?
Why were they there before the blast? Were they investigating something in the house or.... ?
I was wondering the exact same thing! Why would 7 police officers and 2 fireman have been at the house before the explosion?? Were there multiple explosions??
There was an insurance agent and plumber already there investigating an incident in regards to flooding.
There are several more videos and news sources available.It appears the others outside who were injured came from frantically trying to help get the victims out of the debris which was left.Mostly heavy materials.They also were lifting the roof up and tearing at rubble as screams for help were heard everywhere underneath.Flying debris struck another man in his back outside and other materials from the home ended up in trees around the area.
Propane and natural gas heated houses are an explosion waiting to happen. Al carbon steel pipes will eventually corrode and leak. And people want natural gas and hydrogen cars?
I dunno if you knew this but, our cars currently run on gasoline or diesel. Both of which are more energetic than Natrual Gas or Propane.
Diesel and gasoline are liquids at atmospheric pressure. Natural gas is compressed gas at 3,600 psi pressure. Propane is also a compressed gas. If you ignite gasoline or diesel, it only burns. If you ignite compressed natural gas, you wil have hell of an explosion. Any time you ignite a flammable gas or even dust, you get an explosion. Corn silo explosions are common. Even metal dust can explode.
Many things can then be explosive used incorrectly, right?
Why did they give the name and age of the insurance agent?
maybe they feel bad for the agent because they have a lot of paperwork to fill out now.
They gave the name and age off all the people who were inside the house when it exploded. Why would they exclude the insurance agent?
How sad in any situation to lose a baby. If the parents owned the house and disregarded instructions to bring the house into code compliance, then they are now criminally negligent. The article is a bit confusing as to why police officers and firefighters were injured. Was this the result of an after-blast following the initial explosion that they may have been called to the scene to investigate and control?
My condolences to the parents of this baby.
My thought for this is and the article does not say if the house was owned by the parents of the baby or by someone else, but reckon why there was two gas tanks on the premises. An explosion, sounds like a meth lab gone wrong.
The article lists the baby's parents as having tenants, so the supposition is that they are the owners. It also states that the block was not served by natural gas, so the propane could easily have been for heating, hot water, and cooking.
.....or meth.
OH YES I am sure they were cooking while the plumber and inspector were there in the house!!
im gonna guess the flooding caused a leak in the propane lines.
Seven lazy-a55 members of the po po filing for workmans comp
They were injured trying to rescue people.
Get some perspective.
Sorry - for a second there I thought I was an uneducated d-bag. The meds are kickin' in now. Since I don't have anything informed to say, I was torn between saying something hateful and racist, or just picking out some random detail from the story and spouting off mindlessly. Since the racist-troll quota is usually maxed out, I went the second route. My bad. Hope the LEOs are OK, and that the family, tenants and neighbors find peace amidst turmoil.
It said; Their injuries were minor and all were treated at local hospitals and released.
No surprise here. This house had multiple violations over the years including roach and rodent infestation,illegal conversion and construction,illegal multi-family home,illegal basement living area,illegal plumbing,and no smoke or CO detectors. The house had at least eight bedrooms. Illegal housing is rampant on Long Island but rarely enforced. After all,most is occupied by illegal immigrants and you cant just throw them out on the street,right? So they live in filth and squalor,bringing down and endangering the neighborhood,and then things like this occasionally happen. Some of these houses (though so far not particularly this one) are converted to meth labs. Another house exploded there last April. It's especially nice when you paid almost half a million dollars for your single family home and over 12,000 dollars in taxes and discover that you live next to a fire trap. Long Island is not the suburban paradise that it used to be.
-"The house had been illegally converted into a rooming house with at least eight rooms, which were being rented for $300 a month,"
That is where the problem began and ended.
I pray for the family and the other people who were injured. At least the baby is in the arms of Jesus and is safe.
So sad.
No Sheryl, the baby is dead and was killed by the criminal actions of its parents.
If your child was killed would you simply say, 'oh well, he's in the arms of Jesus now and is safe?'
What a freaking fool you are! It was your 'god' that killed the baby.
Excuse me while I run over to my local church, synagogue or mosque and beg forgiveness for my remarks.
The landlords next home will be an 8 X 10 cell in a state prison for manslaughter.
The anything goes liberal mentality is the root cause of this. They should have been arrested for the illegal rooming house violations.
That's right, blame "the anything goes liberal mentality." Apparently SuperBrain=SuperStupid.
Too bad about the toddler. I guess the plumber should have noticed the propane cylinders inside the house earlier, too.
Where did it say the propane tank was in the house?
This is typical of crap thats going on in this area, Lots of illegal apartments in homes. With all the Propane tanks I saw being removed on tv there were probably multiple cooking areas in the house And most likely used flex copper to supply each unit. The house was converted to have 8 bedrooms. This is the third in 2 years. I totally hold the owner of the house responseable and should be punished accordingly. Propane will explode with as little as a 12% mix.
Maybe there needs to be more affordable housing in the area.
I vote meth lab. Look at the names of the people involved.
Oh you silly profiler you. @Gee
AGAIN; meth lab while the plumber and inspector were inside the home?
Ignorant, bigoted, stereotyped and stereotypical comment. I vote stupidity, just look at the name "Gee Really?"
So sad. But my sadness will quickly turn to anger for the parents if it turns out their illegal rooming house conversion played a role.
i know what caused the explosion...it was george bush's fault.mabey emperor oboma can give an executive order to build these idiots a new house
Yea, and maybe the republicans in congress will finally allow some money to go for infrastructure and affordable rental housing that we really need instead of sitting on their asses and doing nothing. Oh wait, What am I saying.....
Most likely bet is on the propane they were using. If it was a patchwork like it sounds, probably a leaking fitting or hose that failed, started filling the lower areas of the house until it ran into a flame or spark somewhere. If they were having insurance inspectors looking at the house, not likely they were cooking meth at that time - give credit for at least some street smarts.
Hmmm.... I guess Karma really does work !
How is that exactly? Someone's karma killed a baby?
The article said Eleven people outside the house also were injured, including seven police officers, two firefighters and a mother and son who lived next door. Their injuries were minor and all were treated at local hospitals and released. which sounds like they may had been helping in the rescue attempt after the initial blast.