Rose DeHerrera was walking in front of her picture window when she saw a couch flying toward her from the home across the street.
It smashed into the front porch railing.
“I was so scared,” said DeHerrera. “I thought it was a tornado. Then something hit the roof, and I thought it was a plane.”
The home directly across the street had disintegrated in a massive explosion, setting her roof on fire.
According to Sandy Danne, spokeswoman for the North Washington Fire District, the home across the street from the DeHerreras in the 7600 block of Sherman Street in Adams County was destroyed by the blast about 9 a.m. Wednesday.
“There was a small fire, but the impact of the explosion brought down the entire home,” Danne said.
As DeHerrera doused the fire on her roof, neighbor Moses Pacheco and others ran across the street to check on the man living there.
“I started yelling, and he (the victim) said, ‘Right here,’ ” Pacheco recalled.
He and others started lifting boards off the man. When firefighters arrived, they took over the job.
Pacheco said blood covered the man’s face.
“This is bad — to see a house like that,” he said, nodding toward what was left of the home.
The injured man was taken to a nearby hospital. The extent of his injuries and condition were unknown, Danne said. His name was not released.
Danne said flying debris damaged residences immediately to the south, north and west.
To the east is southbound Interstate 25. There were no reports of damage to vehicles on the interstate, Danne said.
However, windows of cars on Sherman Street were blown out, and debris was showered onto a residential street one block to the west.
Curtains hung out of broken windows in several homes, and glass and debris littered front yards.
Roger Frank, who lives two doors south of the destroyed house, said he was getting ready to shower when he heard a “boom.”
The impact knocked a clock off a wall, and debris smashed into the north side of his house.
Danne said there was the smell of natural gas in the area, but Xcel Energy crews quickly shut down the line.
She stressed that the cause of the explosion is under investigation.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokesman Lance Clem said the CBI sent agent Jerry Means and Sadie, a Labrador trained to sniff out accelerants, to the scene.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
