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Smithtown FD-Penn Furniture explosion

November 19, 1988. Incident reported at 1320 hours.
Workers cutting a natural gas line, filling the building with gas, which then exploded, leveling the building. More than a dozen cars were damaged on Jericho turnpike and people reported feeling the explosion in Kings Park and Commack. Windows were blown out in surrounding buildings. 1st Assistant Chief Charles Lauber was the incident commander. Mutual aid from all township departments. One worker was killed. Smithown provided heavy machinery, Islip provided flood lighting.

From the NY Times:
One person was killed and 10 others were injured yesterday in an explosion at a vacant warehouse in Smithtown, L.I., that was apparently caused by a ruptured gas line.

The blast on Main Street in the business district, shattered windows in stores up to one mile away and sent debris flying into the air hundreds of feet, according to witnesses and the Suffolk County police.

The dead man was identified as Anibal J. Leiria, 31 years old of Mineola, L.I., an employee of JMR Concrete Co. of North Babylon, which was renovating the building. The rupture of the gas line is strongly suspected of causing the explosion, but an investigation is continuing, said Charlie Lauber, the first assistant fire chief for the Smithtown Fire Department.

Gas service was temporarily halted to the buildings on either side of the warehouse, but restored a few hours later, he said. Pull Victim From Rubble Mr. Lauber said that firefighters pulled the victim, Mr. Leiria, from under a steel beam in the rubble.

A worker identified as Robert Stevens was operating a backhoe bulldozer to dig a trench on the sidewalk in front of the building at 269 Main Street, according to a police spokesman, Randy Jaret.

Mr. Stevens realized he had ruptured a line and ran to a nearby shop to call the police when the explosion occurred at 1:22 P.M.

Three other people at the work site, including Mr. Stevens, were hurt and taken to Community Hospital of Western Suffolk where they were treated for minor injuries, and released, Mr. Jaret said. The other two people were identified as Palino Rodriguez and Mario Vasconcolos. Seven Bystanders Injured

Seven bystanders were also taken to local hospitals and treated for minor injuries and released, he said.

The old furniture warehouse was almost demolished. Last night, workers were piling up debris and taking it away, while the area remained closed to traffic.

Michael Johnson, 21 years old, who was working nearby, said he ran to the scene after hearing an explosion that sounded like a ”powerful firecracker.”

”I saw one worker crawling out of about five feet of debris,” he said. ”I felt something terrible was wrong.”

Larry Batista, a proprietor of Villa Napoli pizza shop in Smithtown, about a quarter of a mile away, said the explosion sounded like a bomb.

”My whole building shook,” he said. ”I thought it was a heating unit we had just replaced.”

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