“I pulled the alarm and started corralling people away from the building, I wanted to make sure all my guests were out, she said”. Meanwhile, police are tracking down leads on those three people – working to see if they might be somewhere else.
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Two people initially were unaccounted for.
Authorities said, a gas leak was reported just before 8 p.m., motel 6 in Bremerton workers and patrons were able to evacuate the motel just prior to the blast, which happened at 8:24 p.m. Firefighters were still trying to extinguish a blaze at the motel hours after the explosion.
The explosion in the Bremerton suburb was so severe it blew firefighters who were on the scene about 20 feet back.
Minutes before the blast, the hotel’s acting manager had evacuated the building because she could smell and hear a gas leak.
Hinds said a guest reported seeing someone jump out a window and land on or near the gas line just before the leak.
However, Bremerton Fire Chief Al Duke said Wednesday no bodies were found in the debris and he was almost certain the missing guests were not caught in the explosion on the west side of Puget Sound, across from Seattle.
Approximately 25 percent of a Motel 6 in Bremerton, Wash. has been destroyed by a gas explosion. He remains at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with critical injuries, including a broken neck, back and multiple burns.
“This is a hotel that has a lot of contractors that come up here and work in the shipyard, so they might not have even been in the building at the time”, Duke said.
“We’re doing it by hand and using an excavator to move the big pieces out of the way”, Duke said.
Firefighters were combing through the wreckage searching for possible victims, police said on Twitter.
Bremertown is a town of about 39,000 people that’s about a one-hour ferry ride away from Seattle. One suffered bruised ribs, and the other had a concussion, Duke said.
“The shaking was bad enough that the neighbors thought a tree fell on their house”, Alice Adams, a nearby resident, told NBC News.
“I care about our guest, pets their children”.
The motel, which reopened last fall after an extensive remodel, had about 65 guests in 42 occupied rooms, and the blast destroyed about one-quarter of the building, Hinds said.
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The investigation is expected to take weeks, with help from the National Transportation Safety Board, which regulates gas pipelines.
