Published: 11/24/2006
Day 2: Early report: Most Danversport homes suffered 'minor' damage
By Mike StuckaStaff writer
DANVERS - A quick inspection of 117 homes damaged in Wednesday's explosion found most escaped with minor damage, a government report suggests.
Inspectors said 93 homes or buildings had mild damage. Those numbers dwarf the 13 homes with moderate damage and the 11 with major damage, according to the survey by Massachusetts Task Force 1, a group trained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"What happens with a lot of those houses is they were protected by other houses from the bomb blasts," said Andrew Kuchinsky, a structural engineer from Peabody.
He had not been to the site but said, "From what I've seen of it, it could've been much worse."
Examples of mild damage included homes with extensive window damage and a cracked basement; moderate damage included problems with chimneys, windows, doors and a blown-out front wall; and homes with major damage included those with shifted framing, foundation problems and wood sticking through the roof.
The damage ratings were based upon a rapid survey Wednesday and don't tell the full story. For example, homes on Broad Street were listed only with mild damage, even though one resident, Joan Turcotte, was temporarily trapped inside because her front and back doors were jammed by the blast.
In Danversport, distance and luck seemed to play equal roles in determining which houses were destroyed and which can be repaired.
Chad Council, a software engineer who has been training with Task Force 1 for six years, said homes were damaged on one side by the blast and on the other side by the vacuum created as the pressurized blast wave moved beyond the house.
"Some structures held up a lot better than others," he said.
On Wednesday, Steve Larkin of Able Restoration said the explosion pushed and pulled the homes, making the walls flex. Larkin and his crew were boarding up damaged houses.
"It's just like the house took a deep breath in and out," he said.
Kuchinsky said while some homes took the brunt of the blast for their neighbors, industrial buildings also helped absorb some of the shock. More of the blast went into the sky or over the water, he said.
A sampling of back-to-back neighbors shows distance didn't solely determine fate. The Salem News looked at four sets of three houses:
r On the close side of Bates Street, about 150 feet from the center of the explosion, Nos. 1, 3 and 5 sustained major damage. Their backyards opened toward the plant. One home features a bedroom exposed to the air in a building with foundation problems and framing that shifted. Next door, a quarter of the roof disappeared as it was blown inward or outside.
