One person is dead and one is hurt after what investigators are calling a possible house explosion in Annapolis, Maryland, Wednesday afternoon.
Fire crews arrived in the 1100 block of Green Holly Drive shortly after 12:20 p.m. after 911 calls poured in from neighbors, fire officials said.
They found what they believed had been a two-story structure, with the second floor collapsed onto the first floor.
“There was no fire present, just significant damage, including a debris field that extends about a half a block up the street,” Assistant Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Larry Schultz said at a news conference.
Fire crews found two people in their initial search. A female victim outside was in cardiac arrest and died at the scene. The male homeowner, found inside, suffered “some significant burns” and was airlifted to a burn center, Schultz said.
The source of the explosion is under investigation. Schultz told reporters a propane vendor “purportedly” had been to the home about an hour before the explosion.
“We don’t know that the two are related. That vendor came, supplied the house with its propane, and then left,” Schultz said.
“Neighbors say that the occupant was out back working, doing homeowner-type stuff, and then they heard an explosion,” Schultz added. “They don’t know what exactly he was doing, and there’s no reason to connect the fact that he was working in the explosion.”
He said the next priority is finding and securing the propane tank, then conducting another search of the structure in case anyone else was inside.
Because the house’s structural integrity was “significantly challenged,” Schultz said a search and rescue dog from D.C. Fire and EMS is assisting with a surface search.
“Once that’s done, the Anne Arundel County Fire Department Special Operations teams will begin to shore up the building so they can dig deeper down into the collapse pile to make sure that nobody else is in there,” he said.
Two homes on either side and two more across the street have been evacuated until the propane tank is located, Anne Arundel County police Capt. Jon Mahaffee said.
As a result of the explosion, Green Holly Drive is closed between Ramblewood Drive and Rolling View Drive.
Below is a map of the location where the explosion took place:
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