Hospital officials said most were released Thursday. After the initial calls came in, MCFRS received more reports of people trapped in two buildings, 8703 and 8701 Piney Branch Rd.
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Blast debris was scattered almost 200 feet, including what appeared to be an apartment door blown all the way across a two-lane road and parking lot. Brightly colored bras hung from a tree in front of the apartments, apparently from a dresser drawer launched in the explosion.
“I’ve gone to the emergency rooms, Holy Cross, Shady Grove, nobody knows”, Jimenez said.
“We were sleeping when we felt everything started shaking”. A lady even said she had lost her baby in an apartment.
“I got so scared”. Many residents have lost everything they owned and others have lost family members who are either passed away or missing.
Firefighters found people on upper floors who needed help, Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said at a briefing. Injuries range from abrasions to broken bones, burns and smoke inhalation. “Everybody was getting out of the building as rapidly as possible”. About 100 residents of the apartment complex were displaced by the fire, officials said. Police were not able to tell the ages of the two victims, he said. Officials said they suspended rescue efforts and switched to recovery mode.
When asked about the five to seven people who were reported unaccounted for earlier in the day, local authorities told reporters that they were “still working on that at this time”.
Paul Carden, spokesman for the American Red Cross, says approximately 70 of the almost 100 displaced residents have reported to the emergency shelter that has been set up at the Long Branch Community Center on Piney Branch Rd.
Carden said those displaced are primarily Spanish speakers.
A shelter was set up last night at Long Branch Community Center, 8700 Piney Branch Road, Silver Spring, but do not bring donations to that location. Officials made comments in English and Spanish during a Thursday news conference.
WJLA has reported that witnesses have described that they could hear a loud “boom” while some residents said that they felt their homes shake as the explosion rocked the apartment complex.
Authorities said at a press conference they were still working to identify the dead and uncover the cause of the overnight blast and fire, which tore through the Flower Branch Apartments displacing more than 90 residents. The Montgomery County fire department responded to a call on July 25 reporting the smell of gas.
Laines’ mother, Rosibel Morales, said she thought it was a dream. When she escaped her first-floor apartment, the fire was “right in my face”.
On Wednesday, a resounding blast occurred shortly before midnight that could be heard over a mile away and shook the affected buildings, 8701 and 8703 Arliss, like an natural disaster, some residents said. ATF experts are routinely sent to help in investigations of major fires, an agency spokesman said. “I’ve never seen a fire like this in my life”.
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